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Florida braces for catastrophic flooding, millions evacuated: Top updates on Hurricane Ian

West Florida coastal residents were urged to leave the area before landfall. A large portion of the state will see severe storm surges and flooding.

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Latest updates on Hurricane Ian 

As forecasts warned that the impact of rising waters there might grow over the next few hours, Ian brought flooding to the Florida Keys overnight.

The Florida Keys were not immediately in the path of the storm's eye. The winds there overnight, which included gusts of over 60 mph in Key West, were weaker than those anticipated for some of the west coast of mainland Florida later on Wednesday.

Still, the possibility that hazardous flooding in residential areas could result from a combination of high tides and rising seas from the storm is a major worry in the Keys and elsewhere.

Early on Wednesday, after a tidal gauge in Key West started registering water levels that were nearly 2.5 feet above average, a storm surge warning was put into force for the lower Florida Keys.

The National Hurricane Center warned that if a storm surge peak coincided with a high tide, the lower Keys could experience storm surges of two to four feet. On Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, there will be a high tide in Key West.

Monroe County, which is located at the extreme tip of southern Florida and encompasses the Florida Keys, had no mandatory evacuation orders as of early Wednesday morning.

Some people in Key West, the county seat, were observing the storm as it approached their homes.

29-year-old Dylon Estevez reported that about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, water started entering his apartment on the ground floor. It surged to approximately 15 inches in an hour.

He recalled that a few of hours before, the wind gusts were intense but the rain felt mild. "It was rapid and kind of out of nowhere," he claimed. He said that he had not been paying attention to the rising water.

In addition to turning off the electricity in the flat, Mr. Estevez and his roommate waded through waist-deep water with his roommate's dog, Rookie, to reach higher ground. They also stored what valuables they could on higher perches. Residents wouldn't be able to see the full extent of the devastation until daybreak because the majority of lamps were out, he said.

Mr. Estevez, a lifelong resident of Key West, said: “Our whole neighborhood, any house on the first floor is going to be pretty engulfed in water.”

(As per reports from New York Times)

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