After causing a “substantial loss of life” and widespread destruction in Florida, Hurricane Ian has been regaining strength over the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to strike South Carolina Friday.  

Ian strengthened back to a Category 1 storm Thursday hours after being downgraded to a tropical storm. Meteorologists had warned it could regain power and again pose life-threatening danger as it cuts a devastating path north.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipates Ian to make landfall in South Carolina around 2 p.m. Friday.

The monster storm made its second landfall with 150-mph winds Wednesday at Cayo Costa near Fort Myers and Cape Coral in southwest Florida, making it the fifth-strongest hurricane ever to strike the US before weakening as it passed over the mainland.

Its massive size — seen clearly in NASA photos from space — has made it one of the most destructive hurricanes, with its tropical storm-force winds extending outward up to 415 miles.

In Charlotte and Lee counties on the West coast of Florida houses have been flooded, roofs ripped off buildings and boats strewn across cities.

Nearby Sanibel island was left disconnected from the mainland after its only bridge was destroyed by the storm, stranding at least 200 households that did not evacuate. Mayor Holy Smith said two people have died in the city, bringing the toll in the state to at least 15, with deaths reported in Volusia, Lake, Lee and Charlotte counties as of Thursday evening.

Authorities said over 500 people had been rescued by Thursday evening and reports indicated at least 15 people had died.

Central and northeast Florida were battered by rains all day, causing flooding and the evacuation of 40 nursing homes in throughout the day.

In Orange County, caskets were torn from their graves and broken open, exposing human remains in broad daylight.

Fox Weather’s Geoff Bansen warned The Post the storm – which initially made landfall in Cuba – would “at least become a stronger tropical storm” than it is currently and was “expected to make a third landfall” Thursday evening. .

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Ian is expected to hit “somewhere between Savannah and the Charleston area,” the Fox Weather expert noted of the major cities in Georgia and South Carolina.

Both states were already put under states of emergency and Charleston city officials told residents to stay home on Friday.

The National Hurricane Center also warned that “hurricane conditions are possible through Friday.”

“Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flooding, with major to record flooding, will continue today … through the end of the week,” the center stressed.

Current forecasts predict that Ian will “weaken quickly” after that third landfall, however, “and global models indicate it should dissipate” by the weekend, the center said.

However, it will still bring rainfall up to the Northeast, including New York, through the weekend, Bansen said.

Still, “it’s not going to be nearly at the level of Ida last year,” he said, referring to the devastating flooding across the region that killed 13 New Yorkers.

Florida has previously been hit by three of the four Category 5 hurricanes that have made landfall in the United States: the Labor Day hurricane in 1935, Andrew in 1992 and Michael in 2018, the Miami Herald noted.

However, its gigantic spread and heavy rain will likely make it the worst-ever hurricane to hit the region “in terms of impact,” Craig Fugate, the former director of the Florida Emergency Management Division, told local NPR station WGCU.

“It was what we were afraid of … This is a record-setting event,” he said.

“This is massive compared to Charley,” he said, referring to the Category 4 storm that killed five in southwest Florida in 2004.

“You can put Charley inside of the eyewall of Hurricane Ian,” he said, noting that even Hurricane Irma — the Category 5 storm from 2017 — “didn’t produce this kind of storm surge because there wasn’t a very well-formed eye.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that parts of his Sunshine State had been devastated by a “500-year flood event” — which “changed the character of a significant part of our state.”