Category 3 Hurricane Ian is barreling towards Florida as residents are being told to evacuate before it hits tomorrow.
The life-threatening storm continues to strengthen with winds of 125mph set to hit parts of western Cuba on Tuesday with flash floods and possible mudslides.
Storm Ian, which is expected to become a Category 4, will hit west-central Florida tomorrow morning with considerable flooding expected across Florida into southern Georgia and coastal South Carolina.
Locals have been rushing to board up their homes to try and prevent major damage.
Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in all 67 counties as officials scrambled to prepare for the storm's forecast landing on late Wednesday or Thursday.
He said: "Hurricane Ian will bring heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge, along with isolated tornado activity along Florida's Gulf Coast."
It has led to Florida residents queuing desperately for sandbags as they prepare for the landfall of Hurricane Ian.
Some were reported to have waited for at least "three hours" in the queues as some areas were under a mandatory evacuation.
Footage from Apollo Beach, Sarasota and St. Petersburg show the extent of the traffic queues with unmoving lines stretching back for miles.
One person said: "Waited 3 hours to get 10 sand bags. We’re under mandatory evacuation in Apollo Beach."
Another tweeted: "All of us are exhausted already and it hasn't even begun."
The hurricane has caused supermarkets to start rationing essentials such as bottled water, bread, batteries and canned food.
One supermarket St Petersburg, Florida, is capping the amount of 24 or 32 packs of bottled water to one a day.
It comes after a store in Tampa Bay only had a limited amount of bottles of water available - with dozens of shoppers leaving the supermarket empty handed.
The National Hurricane Centre, which tracks major storms, warned of the potential devastating impact Storm Ian could have.
They wrote on Twitter: "The life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds, flash floods and possible muds slides are expected in portions of western Cuba today.
"Devastating wind damage is expected where the core of Ian moves across western Cuba this morning."
Rick Davis, a forecaster at the service, told CNN : “We tell people even if they’re lifelong Floridians like myself, this is something that we haven’t seen in our lifetime… So we definitely need to take it seriously.”
Travel disruption is also expected across the regions with a travel alert issued for over 20 airports in the western Caribbean and Florida.
Customers are being allowed to rebook their flights without any charges after the storm is expected to cause possible cancellations and delays to flights.
Tampa International Airport said it “may begin shutting down parts of its airfield and facilities in the next 24 to 48 hours", while Orlando and Miami international airports say they're monitoring the situation
