Hurricane Ian: FEMA urges timely evacuations

(NewsNation) — Hurricane Ian raged through Cuba Tuesday morning as a major Category 3 hurricane, and is expected to hit Florida’s west coast Wednesday evening.

“Don’t wait for a storm track to change yet again. We have enough confidence in the forecast that we know that storm surge will be pushing into the west coast of Florida. So now is absolutely the time to evacuate,” Jeremy Greenberg, the director of FEMA Operations Division, said.

Greenberg joined NewsNation Live to discuss ways Florida’s emergency response system is helping residents prepare for the catastrophic storm as well as to urge residents in high-impact areas to evacuate immediately.

FEMA’s main focus is the evacuation efforts. Evacuations are in place along Florida’s west coast, and Greenberg said FEMA has teams readily available to ensure any support that is needed in the evacuation.

“Whether it’s the regular citizens during population evacuation, medical care facilities, those who are dependent on dialysis or any other medical needs, and really ensuring that people heed the warnings that they’re seeing and evacuate the area,” Greenberg said.

FEMA strongly urged people to adhere to the warnings in their areas.

“Whether you’ve lived in Florida your entire life or this is your first storm. We don’t want anyone making the individual guess whether or not they should stay or go,” he explained.

Greenberg said that over the past several days, FEMA has been deploying life-saving and life-sustaining teams and equipment.

While FEMA is available for emergency support, Greenberg encourages everybody to have 72 hours of supplies in their emergency kits.