AS category four Hurricane Ian plummets through Florida in the US, causing major flooding, damage to homes, power outages and mass evacuations, TT nationals there have prepared for the worst.
The hurricane made landfall in southwest Florida around 3.05 pm on Wednesday.
In a public advisory on Wednesday at 5pm, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane was "battering the Florida peninsula with catastrophic storm surge winds and flooding."
Earlier in the day, winds went up to 155 miles per hour (mph) but the 5pm update said it had decreased to 140 mph.
It said, "The eye of Hurricane Ian was located near latitude 26.9 north, longitude 82.0 west.
"Ian is moving toward the north-north-east near eight mph."
It said the hurricane will move across central Florida overnight into Thursday morning and "emerge over the western Atlantic by late Thursday.
"Ian is forecast to turn northward on Friday and approach the north-eastern Florida coast, Georgia and South Carolina coasts late Friday."
The US National Weather Service listed Tampa as having the potential for winds greater than 110 mph, Miami with potential for winds between 39 and 57 mph, Orlando from 74-110 mph and Jacksonville – 58-73 mph.
US President Joe Biden outlined what the US government would be doing to assist the public during these times.
On the White House's website, it said Biden spoke to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, adding that he approved an emergency declaration for Florida.
"The administration pre-staged 110,000 gallons of fuel and 18,000 pounds of propane for immediate deployment and personnel and equipment to support distribution; moved in a variety of generators of all sizes and types and pre-positioned assessment and installation teams to provide temporary emergency power to critical infrastructure, is staging 3.7 million meals and 3.5 million litres of water in Alabama, (and) has 300 ambulances already in the state working side by side with local officials.
It said there are over 1,300 federal response workers to support "emergency preparations including operations, planning, power restoration, debris removal, and urban search and rescue."
And at a press conference on Wednesday, DeSantis urged people to stay inside and the storm is "very dangerous.
"If you're in those southwest Florida counties, you need to be sheltering in place...central and north-east Florida will also feel impacts."
Over 2 million people were under evacuation orders but DeSantis said there were many people who opted to remain in their homes.
"At the end of the day, that's a decision they made knowing that they had to ability to evacuate and knowing what the stakes were."
He said Ian will be "one of the storms people will always remember when they think about southwest Florida. It will probably be the big one they always remember.
"Every time you look at this storm, it's just been bad news. It gets stronger, it gets larger and we really appreciate people's concerns for Florida."
In a later press conference around 5pm, DeSant
