'People are just scared': Inland Florida residents brace for Hurricane Ian's impacts
Flooding rain and damaging wind will spread well inland as Hurricane Ian makes an expected landfall along the western Florida coast this week and continues heading north.
Inland Floridians prep for a foot of rain
America's Weather Team's Robert Ray checks in with hurricane vets and first timers at The Villages, Florida poised to see up to a foot of rain.
Visit the FOX Weather Wire for live updates on Hurricane Ian as it barrels toward Florida. Click here for the latest forecast, evacuation orders and more.
THE VILLAGES, Fla. – As hundreds of thousands of Floridians evacuate parts of the western Florida coasts with the approach of Hurricane Ian, inland residents aren't sitting idly by.
The FOX Forecast Center said Hurricane Ian rapidly intensified into a major hurricane Tuesday morning as it approached western Cuba. Rainfall totals could reach up to a foot along with hurricane-force winds.
"People are just scared, because you just don't know," Vivian Hudson told FOX Weather's Robert Ray.
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The Villages is currently under a Tropical Storm Watch. (FOX Weather)
Hudson is one of the almost 150,000 residents living in the 55-year-old and over community known as The Villages, situated about an hour north of Orlando. They're potentially in the path of Ian despite being in the middle of the Florida peninsula. Hudson spent eight years living on the Gulf Coast of Texas and said she has seen her fair share of hurricanes, but not all of her neighbors have.
The Sunshine State has welcomed over half a million new residents since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Villages alone saw a 3-4% population rise in that time, according to The Weekly Source, a publication about aging.
Cars lined up Sunday to fill up at this Villages gas station. Gas ran out by Monday afternoon. (FOX Weather)
"We are just being safe," says resident Pat Krebs. "I think we haven't done anything major yet, but we will always have batteries and flashlights and candles."
Florida Power and Light hopes Krebs doesn't need those candles for too long. They already amassed an army of repair trucks less than 2 hours north of The Villages.
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Ray followed a parade of golf carts around the more than 40 golf courses in what The Weekly Source called the world's largest master-planned retirement community. He said folks there were trying to get the last few holes in before the rain starts in earnest Tuesday.
Golfers rush to get another game in before Ian arrives. (FOX Weather)
"The rain, the water is going to be all over the place," said Ed Talbot next to his golf clubs. "But like I say, ‘Pay up the insurance, button it up and wait it out.’ "
Some residents already brought in outdoor furniture to prevent it from becoming a missile in what National Weather Service forecasters wrote were "hurricane conditions possible" for Wednesday night. Many in the community still remember the devastation of Hurricane Irma, a 2017 storm that made landfall hundreds of miles away in southwest Florida.
"If it's as bad, (20)17, you know," Robert Krebs said. "(2017) was the worst one."
Ray took video of Irma lashing The Villages in 2017. (FOX Weather)
The FOX Forecast Center is tracking Ian and forecasts the storm to make landfall somewhere between the Tampa Bay area and the Big Bend area of the state. Ian will weaken over land, but the path puts the eye near The Villages as it churns north through the state on Thursday and Friday.
"The Villages are crossing their fingers that they do not see a repeat of what Hurricane Irma brought in 2017, which was a deluge of rain and wind," Ray told FOX Weather.