MIAMI — Hurricane Ian, with landfall still hours away, was already “causing catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding” in southwest Florida early Wednesday afternoon, the beginning of what promised to be a damaging path across the peninsula. In a 2 p.m. update, the National Hurricane Center said the massive Category 4 storm was already taking a heavy toll on the southwest Gulf Coast coast. The most immediate and life-threatening concern was storm surge — the waters of the Gulf of Mexico pushed inland by Ian. Numerous videos posted on the internet showed torrents of seawater rapidly filling …