Water levels off Cuba's west coast were expected to rise as much as 14 feet as the storm barreled toward Florida. Tampa could get a direct hit Wednesday.
Hurricane Ian was forecast to become a major hurricane overnight as it churned toward Cuba with powerful winds and a storm surge that was expected to swamp the island’s western coast, U.S. weather officials said late Monday.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a statewide emergency, saying Ian could hit the state as a punishing Category 4 hurricane, with wind speeds topping 130 mph. A direct hit on Tampa Bay is expected as soon as Wednesday.
"That’s going to cause a huge amount of storm surge," DeSantis said. "You’re going to have flood events. You’re going to have a lot of different impacts.”
On Monday night, Ian's wind speeds were clocked at 105 mph as it barreled toward the Cuban provinces of Isla de la Juventud, Pinar del Río and Artemisa at 13 mph, the hurricane center said.
Coastal water levels were expected to surge by as much as 14 feet, the center said. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from Pinar del Río as authorities sent in emergency and medical personnel, The Associated Press reported.
Two hours east, in Havana, fishermen hauled out their boats, city workers unclogged storm drains, and residents expressed alarm at the prospect of flooding, according to the AP.
"I hope we escape this one, because it would be the end of us," Abel Rodrigues, 54, told the AP. "We already have so little.”
Earlier, Ian passed by the nearby Cayman Islands with no major damage reported. Emergency officials issued an "all clear" notification at 3 p.m. local time, and Premier Wayne Panton said the British territory was "very fortunate to have been spared the worst of a potentially very serious storm."
As the storm headed for Florida, oil companies evacuated workers from deepwater platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, airports in Tampa and Pinellas County announced that they would close Tuesday, and American Airlines announced travel waivers for people flying into or out of 20 airports in Florida and the Caribbean.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers said the team was temporarily moving its operations to Miami-Dade County.
Residents on Florida's Gulf Coast stocked up on food and prepared with sandbags and plywood for their windows. Hundreds of thousands of people were under evacuation orders.
“This storm is trending to slow down, which means it could potentially sit on top of us for 47 hours,” said Cathie Perkins, the director of Pinellas County Emergency Management, NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa reported.
“That’s a lot of rain, and it’s not going to be able to drain out quickly,” she said.
Tim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
