RICHMOND, Va. -- Hurricane Ian is nearing Cuba on a track to strike Florida as a Category 4 as early as Wednesday. Ian is already getting stronger and is forecast to move quickly over Cuba's western tip on Monday.
When hurricanes approach the United States, Richmond homeowner Diane Berg's memories flashback to Hurricane Isabel. That hurricane brought damage and power outages to Virginia in 2003.
"There was this big 'Woosh!' I turned around and a tree fell on his front porch," Diane Berg recalled about a tree that landed on a neighbor's Monument Avenue home.
Isabel destroyed or damaged 10,000 homes in Virginia and was blamed for 32 deaths.
Even though Ian is nowhere close to Virginia today, Red Cross spokesperson Jonathan McNamara said the storm is not one Virginians should ignore.
"These storms can change with very short notice. So from the Virginia perspective, we're encouraging residents to identify their emergency preparedness plan and take this storm seriously," McNamara said. "Unfortunately, people say, well, if the storm is not a category four, a category three, when it arrives in Virginia, we'll be fine. And unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case."
McNamara said tropical systems can dump a significant amount of rain in a short period of time.
"That has the potential to cause flash flooding, to bring down those trees once again in neighborhoods, and cause those extended power outages which have a real impact on families," McNamara said.
Forty-five members of Virginia Task Force Two, part of the national urban search and rescue system under FEMA, are in Georgia, waiting for the storm to hit.
Here in Virginia, families are encouraged in prepare an emergency hurricane kit that includes bottled water, non-perishable foods, a flashlight, and batteries. For more information about hurricane preparedness, click here.
