Hurricane Ian knocked out power to the entire nation of Cuba on Tuesday, after hitting the island of 11 million people as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 miles per hour, the BBC reports.
Officials said the power grid collapsed when the storm hit, and one of the island’s main power plants remains off-line, preventing the system from operating. The storm is now bearing down on Florida, which is warning that wide swaths of the state could be without power for extended periods.
Current projections put landfall on the Florida peninsula somewhere between Tampa and Sarasota on Thursday afternoon. Meteorologists forecast the storm could hit the west side of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane after gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico.