Florida residents were bracing on Tuesday for the arrival of Hurricane Ian, which turned into a powerful storm heading directly for the vulnerable south-western coast, leading to evacuation orders. As forecast, the hurricane moved over western Cuba on Tuesday morning, making landfall around 4.30am. On Tuesday afternoon, the US National Weather Service (NWS) said the storm would probably head north-north-east into the Gulf of Mexico, where it is likely to gain strength and lose speed. Ian was expected to pass west of Florida’s southern tip on Tuesday night before heading toward the Tampa Bay region. It was expected to be the first major hurricane to hit the US this year. Last year, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana as a category 4 hurricane and inflicted an estimated $75bn in damages. Officials put the Tampa region under a hurricane warning on Monday night, saying catastrophic storm surges could cause flooding. “This is a life-threatening situation,” the NWS said. “Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising waters and the potential for other dangerous conditions. Ian is forecast to approach the west coast of Florida as a dangerous major hurricane.” Mandatory evacuations were issued for residents on the Tampa coast. Many scrambled to prepare for the worst. Distribution services for sandbags, used to alleviate flooding damage, were at capacity in one county. Grocery stores were selling out of bottled water. The Tampa international airport, which sees about 60,000 passengers daily, announced a suspension of services starting on Tuesday night. More than a dozen oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated, according to Reuters. BP and Chevron said they had removed personnel from two platforms. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency on Sunday and has urged residents to follow evacuation orders. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 2.5 million people were under evacuation orders. The governor mobilized 5,000 Florida national guard troops. “Floridians up and down the Gulf coast should feel the impacts of this,” DeSantis said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This is a really, really big hurricane at this point.” Tampa, St Petersburg and Clearwater are especially vulnerable to flooding from storm surges as Tampa Bay is shallow. In 2015, a Boston company that analyzes catastrophe models named Tampa as the city most prone to storm-surge flooding. It estimated that Tampa could see $175bn in damages. The region, home to more than 3 million people, has not seen a major hurricane since 1921. It has become a booming center for tourism, with 15 million visitors a year. Experts have said for years that the region has been lucky to avoid a major hurricane. As seen throughout Florida, despite the risks posed by rising sea levels and storms made more powerful by climate change, luxury condominiums have continued to be built along vulnerable coastlines. Hurricane Ian could deliver a worst-case scenario. The storm’s path could shift east, bringing it closer to the Tampa Bay. In that case, the area could see a 10ft storm surge, according to the US National Hurricane Center. If the eye of the storm stays west of the bay, the storm surge could still be about 5ft. Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, told Fox News on Monday the NWS had described a slow-moving hurricane near the bay as a catastrophic situation. Rubio warned residents to take action. “[It] doesn’t even have to make landfall over Florida, just stalls off the coast and pushes a bunch of water into the Tampa Bay region and into the western part of the state,” Rubio said, noting that storm surges in low-lying areas are “not survivable”.