TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Sunday to discuss preparations for the arrival of Tropical Storm Ian, which is forecast to become a major hurricane prior to making landfall.
He cautioned that the storm is unpredictable and with each new advisory, the storm's projected track could significantly shift.
"Don't get too wedded to those cones where they have the dot going in landfall. I think right now they're projecting on the National Hurricane Center to go enter Florida about Taylor County," DeSantis said. "It's important to know what that means. That really is an estimate of a variety of different models. There are some models that want to tug this thing more deep into the Florida panhandle. There are also some that want to bring it for landfall in the Tampa Bay region. So from the Tampa Bay area all the way up to Escambia County along Florida's Gulf Coast, you could potentially see it make landfall in any of those places."
As of the 11 a.m. Sunday advisory from the National Hurricane Center, it appears as though Ian may make landfall on Florida's west coast or possibly in the Florida panhandle. But DeSantis also cautioned residents on Florida's east coast.
"I would also say to other Floridians, even if you're not necessarily right in the eye of the path of storm, there's going to be pretty broad impacts throughout the state," he said. "You're going to have wind. You're going to have water. There could be flooding on the east coast of Florida as a result of this. It's a big storm. So just prepare for that and understand that that's something that may happen. Expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornadoes. Make preparations now, and I know a lot of people have been doing it throughout the state of Florida and the things that you should be prepared with are things like food, water, batteries, medicine, fuel."
DeSantis initially declared a state of emergency for 24 counties on Friday, and then extended the state of emergency statewide on Saturday.
"Given the uncertainty of the path of the storm, we've done things like waive weight restrictions for commercial trucks," he said. "We want to insure that adequate resources are brought into the state of Florida. We've also authorized emergency refills of prescriptions for 30 days, so if that's something you need to do, you have the ability to do that."
DeSantis reminded people who may have recently moved to Florida that if they lose power and need to use a generator, that it must be operated outside because of the potentially fatal exhaust fumes.
"Just understand that there are some models that are going to have it go right into the Florida peninsula, kind of take a right turn, and there's others that have it go more northern track to hit the Florida panhandle," DeSantis said. "Just don't think that if you're not in that eye that somehow you don't have to make preparations. Because the last thing we want to see is see it really start to bear east quickly and then have folks who are not prepared. So, it's better to be prepared and then not have to use those preparations than the opposite."
