A Manchester councillor and her partner sheltered in their hotel room in Florida due to the ongoing hurricane, which has caused mass devastation across the sunshine state. Jade Doswell, Labour councillor for Fallowfield, flew out to Orlando with her partner Liam on Sunday September 18 for a two week trip, but her holiday soon saw her on lockdown in the hotel room for two days.
Jade, 32, has spoken of the terrifying scenes she has witnessed on television news reports, seeing 'houses floating in the water' and 'mass devastation' but says she and her partner have stayed safe, with the brunt of the disaster mainly hitting the coast. Hurricane Ian was recorded as massive Category 4 storm and fifth-strongest US hurricane on record, causing around 2.5 million people to evacuate their homes this week.
And as the storm passed over Orlando in the early hours of Thursday morning, Jade said that her hotel room windows on the second floor were 'rattling' but that she is 'thankful to be safe' ahead of her flight home this Sunday.
Speaking from her hotel room on International Drive, Orlando, Jade said: "We came out here almost two weeks ago, we knew it was hurricane season and expected storms, but nothing anywhere near this bad.
"Every time we turn on the TV it's all over the news. It has caused such awful devastation, especially at the coast. Houses are floating in water and bridges have been blown down. So many people have had to leave their homes, it is just awful."
The storm began heading inland on Wednesday (September 28), where it was expected to weaken - but residents in central Florida were still warned of hurricane-force winds. The massive storm triggered flooding across much of the state, leaving a path of destruction in the south-west, trapping people in their flooded homes and knocking out power to two million people before aiming for the Atlantic Coast.
And as the somewhat weakened storm passed over Orlando towards Atlanta, Jade said her windows began 'rattling', with all those staying in the hotel urged to remain in their rooms for safety. She added it would've been 'too dangerous' to go outside.
The Fallowfield councillor has been documenting the scenes on Twitter, sharing her experience as the hurricane devastated millions on the coast of Florida. In one tweet, she explains her and her partner 'stocked up' on essentials from Walgreens, writing: "It feels very surreal here in #Orlando - we've just left Animal Kingdom as the rain started, and have gone for one last meal out at a Thai place across from our hotel, before we get supplies from Walgreens next door and bunker down for 2 days in the Hotel."
"They are saying it is the worst hurricane they have seen in 100 years," she continued. "Luckily, we are quite far from the coast, but even when the hurricane was 80 miles away the rain was lashing down and it would've been dangerous to go outside. The windows were rattling which was a little scary.
"We had trees crashing down and there was rubbish everywhere, but at least we are safe. We didn't even have a power cut, which we had expected.
"At around 2am on Thursday morning, I opened the hotel room door and it was like the rain was pelting down horizontally, it was bonkers. Everything around us has shut, you would be daft to go out in it, it just isn't safe.
"We had a warning flash up on our phones to tell us to stay indoors. There has been a general understanding that everyone should just stay in their rooms."
Hurricane Ian turned streets into rivers and blew down trees as it slammed into south-west Florida on Wednesday with 150mph winds, pushing a wall of storm surge. Its strength at landfall was category four and tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane, when measured by wind speed, to strike the US.
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