hello, and welcome to our viewers in the united states. and around the. world i m john. vause with the cnn center in atlanta. almost nine hours now since hurricane eta made landfall in southwest florida. and this monster storm continues to cause widespread flooding. and storm surges in 12 feet high in places. tonight, statewide. like trustees outed more than 2 million homes and businesses, and the power grid so badly damaged parts there are concerns it may need to be rebuilt. ian arrived at the state went just shy of a category five. it s since been downgraded to a category 1, but still remains very dangerous. authorities warning the worst may yet be to come. ian is now slowly moving into central florida, with winds around 90 miles or 145 kilometers per hour. time lapse video shows water levels rising on the streets of fort myers, south of where it made landfall. the national hurricane center said the storm surge on florida s west coast has likely peaked, and is now startin
city are you okay? rescuers, helping guide residents through submerged intersection, since, having been turned into a lake. then, there is this. the electricity crisis. the storm, knocking out power lines, in more than 2 million homes, and businesses, which have been plunged into darkness, across the state. meteorologist, pedram javaheri, tracking ian. he joins me. pedram, ian may have weekend, but is unleashing very dangerous conditions. where does it stand right now? kristie, we ve got the latest update from the national hurricane center. 11 hours overland, since it made landfall. you will notice, still, a category one. a drop from 90 miles per hour, to 75 miles per hour, leaving this as a low-end, category one hurricane. notice, on the back side of the storm system, the cloud field, beginning to break. as far as clearing skies, around portions of marco island, around areas up towards tampa. all of these areas, finally, seeing drier weather persist. just east of i
hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us from the united states and all over the world. you re watching cnn newsroom. i m kristie lu stout. it is now 2 am on the u.s. east coast. almost the entire state of florida is bracing for the impact of hurricane ian, a monster storm stretching 700 miles across and getting stronger. causing a nationwide blackout in cuba, ian is turning in the gulf of mexico as a category three hurricane with sustained winds just shy of a category four. and along with life-threatening storm surge, florida is facing catastrophic flooding and powerful winds. now, conditions will deteriorate throughout the night ahead of the expected landfall in the coming hours. more than two and a half million people are under some form of evacuation warning. state authorities say the time to leave is quickly running out. people in southwest florida, this is going to likely make landfall as a category 4 hurricane. there will be catastrophic flooding, and life-threat
this could be the storm that we have hoped would never come to our shores. the one thing i hear most common after these disasters is if i had only known it would be this bad. and so i think that s my message to them is we re trying to communicate to you that it can be that bad. okay. many in florida are heeding those warnings with long lines for water, fuel, sand bags and other supplies. schools and parks are closing and tampa s international airport is set to suspend operations entirely tuesday evening. hospitals meantime are transferring patients and putting up these large barriers to protect them from the potential storm surge. now the nags wall weather center has a storm surge in effect for large swathes of florida. they re bracin g for the storm s. people need to heed the warning and get out now especially where the storm-filled waters surge and affect them. we re not going to have the ability to come out and get them. then there are these images from the gran
wind gusts, just east of this region, pushing well over 100 miles per hour. the concern, moving forward, is it is far from over for a lot of people, on the eastern side. we have some 30 plus million people, including the carolinas, under tropical storm warnings, hurricane warnings, hurricane storm warnings, and tropical watches as well. this is, significant, coverage of these coastal areas, and still, or underneath these alerts. the system will move over, and we do expect the next landfall, friday morning, possibly, close to savannah. maybe out in charleston, as well. comes ashore with 65 mile per hour sustained winds. we expect this to move over the ellen areas of south carolina, producing flooding rain there. we know the significant outages have been left in place, across the state of florida. some 2 million customers in the dark. i wouldn t be surprised to see significant outages around the coast of carolina, going into friday, and saturday. the weekend, really, shipping out to be a