Many Florida residents are dealing with debris, power outages and flooding from Hurricane Ian. One student from Tampa ended up stranded in her second floor apartment in Orlando and had a cautionary story to tell.
Category 4 Hurricane Ian made landfall at Florida’s southwest coast on Wednesday afternoon leaving large portions of the state destroyed. Although the storm had weakened, Orlando still felt the impacts of this major storm.
As Ian made its way northeast across the Florida peninsula, the devastation brought rising waters across the state.
Kayla Kochan, a student at the University of Central Florida, was greatly impacted by the natural disaster.
“You wouldn’t think over such a short amount of time water could rise that fast” said Kochan, who went to high school in Tampa.
By Thursday afternoon, Kochan and her dog were stuck in her second floor apartment building due to the rising waters from rivers that are close to her apartment.
“We didn’t expect the flooding,” Kochan said. “It only flooded because one of the rivers right over here by my complex, it overflowed.”
Once news of their daughter being stranded in her room reached home, Kochan’s family swiftly made their way from Tampa to Orlando.
“A good family friend had a two-seat kayak and a truck to take the kayak there,” said Rick Kochan, her father. “So we got that and loaded up and got out there with just a two-seat kayak to her.”
Many Floridians have dealt with the aftermath from Hurricane Ian. Over 2.67 million homes and businesses across the state have lost power. The death toll was near 100 just five days after the storm made landfall.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in North Port on Sunday. DeSantis said that although the national news will cover the effects on Fort Myers Beach, “this storm had a really broad impact across the state of Florida.”
Although the devastation is bad, Ian will not rank amongst the most deadly in United States history. The Galveston hurricane saw 8,000 perish, and Florida Lake Okeechobee storm killed 2,500.
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