Dramatic video shows moment a Florida woman is rescued from nearly submerged car during Hurricane Ian flooding
A woman in Florida survived the deadly storm surges caused by Hurricane Ian thanks to the quick actions of firefighters in Naples.
The dramatic rescue was captured on video.
The video — most likely captured on Wednesday — shows a woman whose white sedan has become stuck in flood waters high enough to reach her door handles.
It's unclear why the woman was out driving in the Category 4 hurricane; Collier County, which surrounds the city of Naples, issued an evacuation order ahead of the storm.
Regardless, she eventually found herself stuck on a flooded street. A group of firefighters arrived on scene and began working to free her.
In the video, a firefighter can be seen near the rear the woman's car. The water level is already at the man's waist — and it is visibly rising — while he swings a tool into the woman's back window, smashing in the glass.
After breaking out the back window, he clears the glass away and enters into the backseat, where he positions himself behind the woman and pushes open her driver-side door. The door may have been pinned shut by the rushing water surrounding the car. By the time the door swings open water has already begun rushing up over the top of the car's hood.
A second firefighter enters the video to help the first escort the woman out of her car and through the flood waters. They give the woman a life jacket in the event she is knocked from her feet by the fast-moving storm surge.
The video ends with the firefighters walking the woman to their rescue vehicle through waist-deep water.
Walking around in even moderately deep flood water can be extremely dangerous — not only is there a risk of drowning, but there's also a risk of exposure to dangerous chemicals or contaminants and a risk of electrocution.
This has not stopped some from filming themselves swimming or boating in the flood waters. One man was even recorded wakeboarding down a flooded street in Marathon, Florida.
Florida felt the worst of Hurricane Ian on Wednesday, but the storm continued to rage on Thursday. Around 5am Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Centre confirmed that Ian had been downgraded to a tropical storm.
The National Hurricane Centre predicts that the storm will continue dumping water on the eastern interior and coast of Florida before turning north-northwest on its way out of the state on Friday and into South Carolina, during which time it will likely pick up speed and regain its status as a hurricane. The hurricane will then make landfall again on Friday and work its way along the Carolinas over the weekend.
