Hurricane Ian makes its way to Florida's west coast after passing Cuba

"There will be catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge on the Gulf Coast region and of course, the highest risk will be in that southwest Florida region from Naples up to Sarasota. There's also potential for flash flooding and river flooding with 10 to 20 inches across central and northeast Florida. If you are in an evacuation zone, particularly in those southwest Florida counties, you know, your time to evacuate is coming to an end. You need to evacuate now. You're going to start feeling major impacts of this storm relatively soon," DeSantis told reporters at a news conference in Tallahassee.

US President Joe Biden spoke with DeSantis earlier on Tuesday evening and discussed how the federal government could help the state in preparing for Hurricane Ian, the White House said

Biden said he told mayors of three Florida cities to contact him personally if they need anything on Tuesday, to assure them federal support is pre-positioned to deploy food, shelter and help after the storm passes.

''I told each one of them in my conversations separately, whatever they need. I mean this, sincerely, whatever they need, contact me directly and they know how to do that," Biden said at a White House event to discuss lowering health care costs.

Biden also told the mayors it was important to encourage residents to heed evacuation orders.

The U.S. federal emergency agency warned Florida residents not to be complacent about Hurricane Ian.

It has been over 100 years since Tampa, where Ian is forecast to make landfall, has taken a direct hit from a hurricane.

The US government has in place 128,000 gallons of fuel, 300 Army Corp of Engineer personnel, 3.7 million meals and over 3 million gallons of water, 29 Red Cross shelters, 200 ambulances and four medical teams.

Ian is expected to bring winds of up to 130 mph (209 kph) and as much as 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain to the Tampa area on Florida's Gulf Coast starting early on Wednesday through Thursday evening, the National Weather Service said.

A hurricane warning has been extended to portions of far southwestern Florida as the storm's path veered slightly from previous predictions.

The storm surge along Florida's Gulf Coast could cause devastating to catastrophic damage with some locations potentially uninhabitable for weeks or months, the service warned, urging residents to move to safe shelter before the storm's arrival.

After being pummeled by Hurricane Charley 18 years ago, residents of Port Charlotte, Florida on Tuesday are bracing for Hurricane Ian and their one piece of advice: 'Don't panic'.

Bruce Henry has lived in the Port Charlotte area since 1985. While waiting in line for gas, he told Reuters that too many people 'freak out when there's a hurricane. They rush to get gas, water and food. His advice is 'use common sense and 'don't panic'.

But preparation is important. Carlos Marrero said Hurricane Charley was one of the biggest hurricanes to hit their area, but he said: 'Nobody was ready and we all paid the price so hopefully it doesn't happen again."

Another local Port Charlotte resident, Abraham Papam, boarded up his daughter's animal hospital business with his son-in-law. He said they lost their business after Hurricane Charley hit, so he was feeling nervous about another hurricane approaching their area.

More than 2.5 million Floridians were under evacuation orders or warnings with the sprawling storm on track to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday evening somewhere along the Gulf Coast.

A Category 3 storm carries maximum sustained winds of up to 129 miles per hour (208 km per hour). The latest 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) hurricane advisory put Ian's top winds near 120 mph.

Ian was most likely to come ashore south of Tampa near Sarasota, the National Hurricane Center said. That region is home to miles of sandy beaches and scores of resort hotels - is a favourite with retirees and vacationers alike.

Churning through the Caribbean on a path toward Florida, Hurricane Ian slammed into Cuba on Tuesday, forcing mass evacuations, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and swamping fishing villages.

Hurricane Ian made landfall in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province early on Tuesday, prompting officials to cut power to the entire province and evacuate 40,000 people from low-lying coastal areas, according to local media reports.

At 6:30 a.m., regional broadcaster TelePinar reported an eerie calm in the city of around 145,000 people as the eye hovered over the area but warned of fierce winds to follow.

Cuban state-run media reported the strongest winds to date from Ian at 130 mph (208 kmh) at San Juan y Martinez, a small town on Cuba's southwest coast.

Pinar del Rio province is a lightly populated region but a top producer of farm crops and tobacco.

Violent wind gusts shattered windows and ripped metal roofs off homes and buildings throughout the region, where many houses are decades old and infrastructure is antiquated. Roads into the areas directly hit by the hurricane remained impassable, blocked by downed trees and powerlines.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Ana Julia Gomez, a 56-year-old woman who lives alone in Pinar del Rio, as she surveyed the wreckage inside her storm-ravaged home. "I lost everything, nothing is left."

State-run media said farmers had secured 33,000 tonnes of tobacco in storage from prior harvests, but many farms buildings, made with thatched palm roofs, had been flattened by the storm.

"Sometimes hurricanes pass through here, but not of this magnitude," said Abel Hernandez, a 49-year-old tobacco farmer. "It destroyed our houses, our tobacco-drying huts, our farms, the fruit trees, everything."

Neighboring Artemisa province, nearer Havana, reported that 40% of its banana plantations had been damaged by the storm.

Rain and winds buffeted Havana early on Tuesday, but the city, under a tropical storm watch and preparing for a potential storm surge, looked likely to be spared the brunt of Ian's strongest winds.

The hurricane hits Cuba at a time of dire economic crisis. Hours-long blackouts had become everyday events across much of Cuba - even before the storm - and shortages of food, medicine and fuel are likely to complicate efforts to recover from Ian.