Hurricane Ian about to make landfall in Florida

Hurricane Ian is « probably going to be one of the worst hurricanes » the region has ever seen, Cape Coral emergency management manager Alvin Henderson told CNN’s « Inside Politics » on Wednesday.

“For us here in the city of Cape Coral, we expect to see this in the next 30 to 35 minutes,” he said. “So we will see this strong surge of strong winds, winds over 100 miles per hour, moving towards us.”

As the eyewall presents, there will be a brief period of potential sunshine, he said.

« That’s a concern that we have, make sure our community understands that this has a very well defined eyewall that, you know, after the initial surge we’re going to have nice clear weather, but then on the back of that eyewall, we’ll see some very rough weather coming back into the city and then having this strong storm surge behind it,” Henderson said.

Henderson added that the community is planning for the worst-case scenario but hoping for the best.

Those who haven’t evacuated will have to fall back and wait, Anderson said. It is not safe for first responders to be on the road, « it would be a catastrophic response for them, so in the best interest of our first responders, they are all holed up in their respective fire and police stations in all the city. »

They expect the strong winds to ease Thursday morning and first responders to be able to resume field operations, the first being to clear the city’s main roads and begin measuring the impact.