Hurricane Preparation
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1499240
2023 • HURRICANE PREPARATION GUIDE • 9 SUN PHOTO BY KIM COOL The Venice Municipal Airport suffered severe damage during the storm. SUN PHOTO BY RONALD DUPONT JR. The Venice Theatre stagehouse did not survive Hurricane Ian. cause of death during the storm with 41 deaths, with 12 additional fatalities due to inland flooding in central and eastern Florida. There were 66 deaths in Florida directly attributable to the storm, NOAA concluded. The U.S. total of 156 fatalities includes indirect deaths such as heart attacks, electrocution from power lines, inability to reach medical help and vehicle accidents. Of those, 84 were in Florida. Victims ranged in age from 6 to 101 years old, but the median age of storm-re- lated deaths was 72, NOAA found. "It is possible this is a reflection of demographics in the counties of southwest Florida but is consistent with other hurri- cane landfalls where the oldest die at the highest rates," the report says. More than 4.4 million customers, or about 9 million people, lost power in the U.S. during Hurricane Ian from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, NOAA found. Florida led the way in power outages with more than 3 million customers, with thousands more in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. More than $109 billion of the estimated $112 billion in storm damages happened in Florida, with more than 52,000 structures impacted in Lee County alone and 5,369 completely destroyed. Inland flooding from swollen rivers, some at record levels, dam- aged or destroyed hundreds of buildings in several central Florida counties. The highest rainfall total from Hurricane Ian was almost 27 inches at Grove City, Florida, just north of the landfall location at Cayo Costa. Rainfall between 10 and 20 inches was widespread across Florida. As for Hurricane Ian forecasts, NOAA says the track errors were lower than those over the previous 5-year period while still acknowledging some difficulty in deter- mining the exact location of expected landfall. There have been questions raised following the storm if the warnings were sufficient to allow people, especially the elderly, enough time to escape. "In general, storms that parallel a coastline tend to be more challenging to predict because a small change in heading can cause large differences in the landfall location," the NOAA report says. "Ian was an example of this particular challenge." The quick intensification also was difficult to predict. NOAA noted that in this area, the forecast errors were higher than those over the past five years. Storm surge watches, meanwhile, were issued beginning at 48 hours before the onset of tropical storm winds at Fort Myers Beach and the prediction of peak surge rose from a maximum of 7 feet to 12 feet a day before Ian made landfall. SUN PHOTO BY JOSEPH JOHN ORCHULLI II Hurricane Ian destroyed this Venice home.