Hur­ri­cane Ian tore in­to west­ern Cu­ba on Tues­day as a ma­jor hur­ri­cane, with noth­ing to stop it from in­ten­si­fy­ing in­to a cat­a­stroph­ic Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane be­fore it hits Flori­da on Wednes­day.

Ian made land­fall at 4:30 a.m. EDT Tues­day in Cu­ba’s Pinar del Rio province, where of­fi­cials set up 55 shel­ters, evac­u­at­ed 50,000 peo­ple, rushed in emer­gency per­son­nel and took steps to pro­tect crops in Cu­ba’s main to­bac­co-grow­ing re­gion.

The U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said “sig­nif­i­cant wind and storm surge im­pacts” were oc­cur­ring Tues­day morn­ing in west­ern Cu­ba. Ian sus­tained top winds of 125 mph (205 kmh) as it moved over the city of Pinar del Rio. As much as 14 feet (4.3 me­ters) of storm surge was pre­dict­ed along Cu­ba’s coast.

Af­ter pass­ing over Cu­ba, Ian was fore­cast to strength­en even more over warm Gulf of Mex­i­co wa­ters, reach­ing top winds of 140 mph (225 kmh) be­fore mak­ing land­fall again. Trop­i­cal storm-force winds were ex­pect­ed in Flori­da late Tues­day, reach­ing hur­ri­cane force Wednes­day morn­ing.

The hur­ri­cane cen­ter said there’s a 100 per­cent chance of dam­ag­ing trop­i­cal storm force winds and wa­ter along Flori­da’s west coast, and ex­pand­ed its hur­ri­cane warn­ing, from Boni­ta Beach north through Tam­pa Bay to the An­clote Riv­er.

Tam­pa and St. Pe­ters­burg could get their first di­rect hit by a ma­jor hur­ri­cane since 1921.

“Please treat this storm se­ri­ous­ly. It’s the re­al deal. This is not a drill,” Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty Emer­gency Man­age­ment Di­rec­tor Tim­o­thy Dud­ley said Mon­day at a news con­fer­ence on storm prepa­ra­tions in Tam­pa.

West­ern Cu­ba is rel­a­tive­ly light­ly pop­u­lat­ed, but with trop­i­cal storm force winds ex­tend­ing out­ward 115 miles (185 kilo­me­ters) from Ian’s cen­ter, Cu­ba’s cap­i­tal wasn’t spared. Ha­vana’s res­i­dents open­ly wor­ried about flood­ing ahead of the storm, with work­ers un­clog­ging storm drains and fish­er­men tak­ing their boats out of the wa­ter.

“I am very scared be­cause my house gets com­plete­ly flood­ed, with wa­ter up to here,” Adyz Ladron said, point­ing to his chest.

In Ha­vana’s El Fan­gui­to, a poor neigh­bor­hood near the Al­men­dares Riv­er, res­i­dents packed up what they could.

“I hope we es­cape this one be­cause it would be the end of us. We al­ready have so lit­tle,” health work­er Abel Ro­drigues said.

Ian’s for­ward move­ment was ex­pect­ed to slow over the gulf, en­abling the hur­ri­cane to grow wider and stronger be­fore it brings pun­ish­ing wind and wa­ter to Flori­da’s west coast. Fore­cast­ers said the surge of ocean wa­ter could reach 10 feet (3 me­ters) if it peaks at high tide. Rain­fall could to­tal 16 inch­es (41 cen­time­ters) inch­es with as much as 24 inch­es (61 cen­time­ters) in iso­lat­ed ar­eas. Coastal com­mu­ni­ties could be in­un­dat­ed.

As many as 300,000 peo­ple may be evac­u­at­ed from low-ly­ing ar­eas in Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty alone, coun­ty ad­min­is­tra­tor Bon­nie Wise said. Some of those evac­u­a­tions were be­gin­ning Mon­day af­ter­noon in the most vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas, with schools and oth­er lo­ca­tions open­ing as shel­ters.

“We must do every­thing we can to pro­tect our res­i­dents. Time is of the essence,” Wise said.

Florid­i­ans lined up for hours in Tam­pa to col­lect bags of sand and cleared store shelves of bot­tled wa­ter. Gov. Ron De­San­tis de­clared a statewide emer­gency and warned that Ian could lash large ar­eas of the state, knock­ing out pow­er and in­ter­rupt­ing fu­el sup­plies.

“You have a sig­nif­i­cant storm that may end up be­ing a Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane,” De­San­tis said at a news con­fer­ence Mon­day. “That’s go­ing to cause a huge amount of storm surge. You’re go­ing to have flood events. You’re go­ing to have a lot of dif­fer­ent im­pacts.”

De­San­tis said the state has sus­pend­ed tolls around the Tam­pa Bay area and mo­bi­lized 5,000 Flori­da state na­tion­al guard troops, with an­oth­er 2,000 on stand­by in neigh­bor­ing states.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden al­so de­clared an emer­gency, au­tho­riz­ing the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency to co­or­di­nate dis­as­ter re­lief and pro­vide as­sis­tance to pro­tect lives and prop­er­ty. The pres­i­dent post­poned a sched­uled Tues­day trip to Flori­da be­cause of the storm.

Play­ing it safe, NASA was rolling its moon rock­et from the launch pad to its Kennedy Space Cen­ter hangar, adding weeks of de­lay to the test flight. The air­ports in Tam­pa and St. Pe­ters­burg an­nounced they’ll close Tues­day af­ter­noon. And the Tam­pa Bay Buc­ca­neers said they would re­lo­cate foot­ball op­er­a­tions to the Mi­a­mi area on Tues­day in prepa­ra­tion for next week­end’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Dam­ag­ing winds and flood­ing was ex­pect­ed across the en­tire penin­su­la as Ian moves north, reach­ing in­to Geor­gia, South Car­oli­na and oth­er parts of the south­east­ern Unit­ed States on Fri­day and Sun­day, the hur­ri­cane cen­ter said.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press con­trib­u­tors in­clude Curt An­der­son in St. Pe­ters­burg, Flori­da, An­tho­ny Iza­guirre in Tal­la­has­see, Flori­da, and Julie Walk­er in New York.

By CRIS­TIANA MESQUI­TA and CURT AN­DER­SON-As­so­ci­at­ed Press