Hurricane Ian has left large swaths of Florida underwater and in darkness, with some 2.6 million homes and businesses out of power as of midday Thursday.
Three-fourths of those outages are concentrated across the seven counties closest to where the storm came ashore, with the hardest-hit coastal counties of Lee and Charlotte "basically off the grid at this point," as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put it at a morning briefing. About 90% of the region is without power. (Read below for tips on staying safe when the power goes out — and for using portable generators safely.)
