2 million left without power in aftermath of Hurricane Ian

Almost 2 million people are without electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday. 

The website poweroutage.us, which tracks outages throughout the country, reported that more than 1.2 million Floridians remained without power as of Saturday morning, the most in the country. North Carolina has the second most with about 300,000, followed by Puerto Rico, where more than 200,000 people are still without power almost two weeks after Hurricane Fiona knocked out the island’s power grid. 

After making landfall in southwestern Florida with maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour and causing intense flooding and storm surge, Ian went out over the Atlantic Ocean before returning to land in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane. 

The storm became a post-tropical cyclone as it moved across the state, but more than 57,000 people are without power there as of Saturday. More than 94,000 people are also without power in Virginia. 

Hurricane Ian knocked out the entire electrical grid in Cuba when it hit the island before reaching the United States. Power was restored in some parts of the country, but most remain without electricity, leading hundreds to take to the streets to protest the delays in restoring power. 

Cubans protested in two spots of Havana’s Cerro neighborhood on Thursday and at least five locations in the city or its outskirts on Friday, according to The Associated Press. 

Warnings for tropical-storm-force winds were expected to remain in place for coastal areas of the U.S. until at least Saturday morning, and considerable flooding will likely occur as a result of the tropical storm in parts of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.