A baby boy was born as the hurricane arrived in Florida. No, he won’t be named Ian.

With the hurricane barreling towards their stretch of the Florida coast on Tuesday afternoon, Amanda Mahr and her husband, Matthew Mahr, obtained an pressing name from their physician: They needed to schedule an emergency C-section.

The newborn was 4 days overdue, and the ultrasound that morning had confirmed fluid ranges that had been too low for them to attend till after the storm for supply. Hurricane or not, the newborn was going to have to return.

They rushed to the hospital via a drizzle and underneath slate-gray skies, nervously eyeing neighbors in Cape Coral who had been placing up shutters in last-minute preparations. The storm was coming ashore farther south than beforehand projected. By the subsequent morning, with Hurricane Ian lapping on the coast, energy began reducing out throughout the area and wind gusts of greater than 60 miles per hour had been whipping their metropolis.

“We’re getting a direct hit. We need to schedule you proper now,” hospital workers informed the Mahrs, Ms. Mahr recalled.

Shortly earlier than 9 a.m., George was born — a strong 10 pound, 6 ounce child boy with a full head of black hair. Hospital workers informed the exhausted sufferers to not look out their second-floor window as a result of it will solely make them anxious.

Round 2:30 p.m., with their almost-6-hour-old child, the Mahrs and different expectant moms and oldsters with newborns had been shuffled into the hallways to experience out the worst of the storm away from any home windows. Ian, after peaking at 155 m.p.h. wind speeds, was about to make landfall.

For hours, they listened via the closed doorways to pummeling rain, howling wind, thrashing timber. They questioned whether or not they would have a house to take George again to, and what could have turn into of the nursery they’d readied for him. They fretted about their year-old cat, Mazikeen, whom they’d no alternative however to go away behind.

By about 9 p.m., they had been allowed again of their birthing suite. The hospital appeared to have weathered the storm largely intact, and the couple and their new child had been in good spirits.

“He’s actually the discuss of the hospital as a result of he’s so chunky and so cute,” mentioned Ms. Mahr, 36, who runs a gourmand cupcake enterprise, in a telephone interview Thursday night from her hospital mattress. “He has essentially the most unbelievable hair.”

On Thursday afternoon, her husband, 37, ventured out of the hospital to discover a metropolis that appeared like a monster truck rally had gone via it, he mentioned. The streets had been affected by all method of particles — fallen electrical poles, items of roofing, synthetic grass turf. Each single avenue signal and billboard appeared to have been blown away.

Their ground-floor condo was strewn with glass from two shattered home windows however with out a lot different injury, Mr. Mahr mentioned. Mazikeen was agitated however safely huddled contained in the nursery. That room was pristine, precisely as they’d left it, he mentioned.

Close by hospitals in the identical well being system had been having to evacuate sufferers Thursday due to issues with water and energy provide. The Mahrs’ hospital, Cape Coral, misplaced energy Thursday afternoon however was steady and operating on a generator, the couple mentioned.

All through, individuals have been asking whether or not they would add Ian to the boy’s title. They’re fortunately sticking with George Bentley, each household names, they mentioned.