Lee County in Florida was the epicenter of damage during Hurricane Ian. Evacuations were delayed and officials are partially blaming the forecast.
Responders from the de Moya Group survey damage to the bridge leading to Pine Island, to start building temporary access to the island in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. The only bridge to the island is heavily damaged so it can only be reached by boat or air.
County officials are getting criticized for not evacuating residents in vulnerable areas sooner. The counter to that argument is that the hurricane “took a turn” and caught some people by surprise. Even with evacuations, according to Lee County officials, people opted not to leave because they didn’t expect it to be that bad.
These are designed so that you have between a 60 to 70 percent chance of the storm’s eye staying within its boundaries. That means there’s still a one-in-three chance it moves outside the cone. It’s also important to remember that even if you aren’t in the cone, effects can extend hundreds of miles beyond those boundaries.
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