Key Points
- A resurgent Hurricane is Ian has made landfall in South Carolina
- The hurricane led to at least 21 confirmed or unconfirmed deaths in Florida
A resurgent Hurricane Ian has made landfall in South Carolina, a day after carving a path of destruction across the Florida peninsula, washing away houses, causing a causeway to collapse and stranding thousands along the state's Gulf Coast.
The hurricane led to at least 21 confirmed or unconfirmed deaths in Florida, Kevin Guthrie, director of the state's Division of Emergency Management, said at a morning briefing. It was the first time a state official offered an estimate of the human toll.
Ian, which had weakened to a tropical storm during its march across Florida, was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane on Thursday as it churned toward South Carolina with maximum sustained wind speeds of 140 km/h, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The hurricane hit north of low-lying Charleston in the early afternoon on Friday, bringing potentially life-threatening flooding, storm surges and winds. Hundreds of kilometres of coastline, stretching from Georgia to North Carolina, were under a hurricane warning.
Officials in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina urged residents to prepare for dangerous conditions.
By mid-morning on Friday in Charleston and Charleston County, South Carolina, everyone was ordered off the roads and the Charleston International Airport was closed because of high winds.
Kelsey Barlow, a spokeswoman for Charleston County, home to more than 400,000 residents, said that the county has two shelters open and a third on stand-by.
"But it's too late for people to come to the shelters. The storm is here. Everyone needs to shelter in place, stay off the roads," Barlow said.
Ms Barlow said a storm surge of more than seven feet was expected, on top of the noon high tide that could bring another six feet of water, causing massive flooding.
With the eye of the storm still hours away, torrential rain had already arrived in Charleston. Video clips on social media showed several inches of water in some streets in the historic port city, which is especially prone to flooding.
Charleston is particularly at risk. A city-commissioned report released in November 2020 found that about 90 per cent of all residential properties were vulnerable to storm surge flooding.
Two days after Ian first came ashore on Florida's Gulf Coast as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US mainland, the extent of the damage there was becoming more apparent.
"Clearly it has packed a big wallop," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at the briefing.
"The response was very, very quick," he said. "I do think that response made a difference."
Some 10,000 people were unaccounted for, Mr Guthrie said, but many of them were likely in shelters or without power, making it impossible to check in with loved ones or local officials. He said he expected the number to "organically" shrink in the coming days.
Fort Myers, a city close to where the eye of the storm first came ashore, absorbed a major blow, with numerous houses destroyed by 240 km/h winds and a powerful storm surge.
