Video captured the shocking moment a falling tree smashed through the roof of a house in Valrico, Florida as Hurricane Ian continued to pound the area.
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S., swamped southwest Florida on Wednesday, turning streets into rivers, knocking out power to 1.8 million people and threatening catastrophic damage further inland.
Mark Pritchett stepped outside his home in Venice around the time the hurricane churned ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, about 35 miles to the south. He called it "terrifying." The storm previously tore into Cuba, killing two people and bringing down the country's electrical grid.About 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate southwest Florida before Ian hit, but by law no one could be forced to flee.
Sheriff Bull Prummell of Charlotte County, just north of Fort Myers, announced a curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. "for life-saving purposes," saying violators may face second-degree misdemeanor charges. "We're seeing tree damage, horizontal rain, very high wind," Boone said by phone. "We have a 50-plus-year-old oak tree that has toppled over."
Ian made landfall more than 100 miles south of Tampa and St. Petersburg, sparing the densely populated Tampa Bay area from its first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
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