Hurricane Ian strengthens and set to make landfall again – number of deaths in Florida is uncertain

Published

3 years ago

September 30, 2022

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Hurricane Ian is gaining strength and veering towards the Carolinas – with uncertainty over how many fatalities the storm has caused in Florida.

This is one of the strongest-ever storms to hit the US – and emergency crews are trying to reach stranded Floridians after Ian cut a path of destruction across the state.

Early reports of ‘substantial loss of life’ – Hurricane Ian updates

Over 2.6 million power outages have been reported, with officials warning of treacherous floodwaters.

There was virtually no mobile phone service in some areas, and internet connectivity was also affected.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stopped short of confirming how many people have been killed, but said: “We fully expect to have mortality from this hurricane.”

And President Joe Biden said: “The numbers are still unclear, but we’re hearing early reports of what may be substantial loss of life.”

At least nine people have died following Hurricane Ian’s vicious lashing throughout Florida, according to an NBC News tally – although some other organisations place the number higher.

Two of the fatalities occurred in Sarasota, according to the county’s sheriff’s department. One person was confirmed dead in Volusia County and six more in Charlotte County.

Identifications have not been released and the state of Florida has refused to officially comment on fatalities.

‘It crushed us’

According to NBC News, at least 12 deaths have been linked to Hurricane Ian in Florida so far.

A 72-year-old man died after he went outside during the storm to drain his pool.

The sheriff of one of the hardest-hit areas – Lee County – told US media that deaths could be “in the hundreds” and that he had received thousands of 911 calls.

“It crushed us,” Sheriff Carmine Marceno said. “We still cannot access many of the people that are in need.”

There are fears that many in the hardest-hit areas were unable to call for help because of the outages to power and mobile phone networks.

Eyewitness: No one expected this storm to be so vicious

It’s not over yet – where is Ian heading next?

Ian is now back in the Atlantic Ocean, but is expected to make landfall again at 2pm local time (7pm UK time) later today as a category one hurricane.

Forecasts suggest it will bring life-threatening flooding, storm surge, strong winds and potentially landslides and tornadoes to Georgia as well as North and South Carolina.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is urging residents to take precautions, and warned: “This storm is still dangerous.”

A hurricane warning is in effect for hundreds of miles of coastline.

In South Carolina, the city of Charleston is particularly at risk. A report commissioned by local officials suggests 90% of all residential properties are vulnerable to storm surge flooding.

Florida’s ‘historic’ damage

Mr DeSantis called the damage in Florida “historic” – and disaster officials believe thousands could be displaced in the long term.

Walt Disney World and other tourist attractions in central Florida appeared to have avoided severe damage from Ian, but many businesses on the state’s southwestern coast – also a tourist hotspot – were destroyed and face a long rebuilding process.

Mr Biden has declared a major disaster, releasing federal funds to pay for measures such as temporary housing for those displaced.

Ian was a category four storm with winds up to 150mph when it struck southwest Florida on Wednesday, making it the joint fifth-strongest hurricane to hit the US.

At least 700 confirmed rescues have taken place across the state, with first responders going from door to door in Ian’s aftermath.

Locals are being urged to take care when using chainsaws and ladders – with emergency officials warning the number of “indirect deaths” during the clean-up could exceed fatalities caused by the hurricane itself.

Most schools in Florida are expected to reopen today or on Monday, and flights from Orlando Airport are set to resume in the coming hours.

‘Climate change means more storms like Ian’

Preliminary reports from scientists who study extreme weather suggest human-caused climate change increased Hurricane Ian’s rainfall by 10%.

A warmer atmosphere can contain more water vapour. Researcher Michael Wehner of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said: “Climate change didn’t cause the storm, but it did cause it to be wetter.”

MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel added: “This business about very, very heavy rain is something we’ve expected to see because of climate change.

“We’ll see more storms like Ian.”

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.