CHICAGO (WLS) — Time is running out for people trying to fly out of Florida as Hurricane Ian approaches.
Both airports in Orlando and Fort Myers will stop operations Wednesday morning.
Some of those rushing to leave included Illinois residents trying to get home.
Waukegan couple Anthony Rodriguez and Elizabeth Castro caught one of the last flights back.
They had been Florida for a wedding and found themselves unsure if they’d be able to get back after staff from their hotel approached them Monday night.
“They’re like, ‘Hey we just want you guys to know there is an evacuation notice. You guys can get your stuff out, leave as soon as you can,’ and we were like, ‘Got it, yes,'” Castro said.
“They hired people to bring out all the beds to bring into the second floor so that the water doesn’t splash because we’re by the beachside,” Rodriguez said.
Then they found out the Tampa airport was suspending operations.
READ MORE: Hurricane Ian strengthens, Florida landfall forecast for Wednesday afternoon
“We would go to the boards and see canceled, canceled, canceled,” said Rodriguez. “Then we found out that our flight was basically the very last one before the cut-off for when they all started getting canceled, so I was like, ‘thank goodness we can leave.'”
They were lucky. Rodriguez and Castro’s friends who were in Florida with them weren’t able to make the last flight back. Now they’ve had to move further inland while they try to figure out how to get home.
Other Chicago-area residents with property in Florida are hoping hurricane windows help protect their homes.
Ed and Ursula Carroll are worried about what they’ll come back to. The Chicago couple has a home outside of Tampa, and would have left Tuesday to spend the winter there. But they’re staying put for now.
Now all they can do is check with their neighbors and watch the weather report.
“The forecast can change an hour or two before the hit,” Carroll said.
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Millions have been told to evacuate or shelter in place, but some Chicagoans that now live in Florida are deciding to ride out the storm.
Bill Fox just returned from Tampa, where he caught the Packers v. Buccaneers game and visited family. He flew out hours before Tampa’s airport was scheduled to close, but his relatives have no plans to leave.
“They’re on relatively high ground for Florida, so they don’t need to worry much about the surge,” he said.
Dennis Weil prepped his house for the hurricane before flying in to visit friends. The trip had already been planned; it’s good timing for getting out of town, and Weil, who used to live in Chicago, is taking the hurricane in stride.
“We deal with tornados up here, microbursts. We went through hailstorms, you name it, winter blizzards. This isn’t so bad,” he said.
Forecasters say Hurricane Ian has become an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm as it approaches Florida’s west coast.
The. U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5 a.m. Wednesday that Ian now has top sustained winds of 140 mph and is centered about 75 miles west-southwest of Naples, Florida.
Winds exceeding tropical-storm strength of 39 mph reached Florida by 3 a.m. and hurricane-force winds were expected in Florida well in advance of the eyewall moving inland, the Miami-based center said.
“It is a big storm, it is going to kick up a lot of water as it comes in,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in Sarasota, a coastal city of 57,000 in the storm’s projected path. He warned at a news conference: “This the kind of storm surge that is life threatening.”
Ian’s forward movement slowed over the Gulf, enabling the hurricane to grow wider and stronger. A hurricane warning covering roughly 220 miles of the state included Fort Myers as well as Tampa and St. Petersburg, which could get their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
Forecasters said the storm surge could reach 12 feet if it peaks at high tide. Rainfall near the area of landfall could top 18 inches.
The precise location of landfall was still uncertain, but with Ian’s tropical storm-force winds extending 175 miles from its center, damage was expected across a wide area of Florida. Flash floods were possible across the whole state, and portions of its east coast faced a potential storm surge threat as Ian’s bands approach the Atlantic Ocean. Warnings also were issued for isolated tornadoes.
Parts of Georgia and South Carolina also could see flooding rains and some coastal surge into Saturday. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp preemptively declared an emergency, ordering 500 National Guard troops onto standby to respond as needed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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