dark. the governor clown ron desantis is set to speak at 8:45 this morning after this chilling assessment of ian s wrath. it s going to rank as one of the top five hurricanes to ever hit the florida peninsula. pete: flash flood warnings are in effect. we re live across the state with a firsthand look at the devastation. senior meteorologist janice dean is standing by. fox team weather starts with robert ray in fort myers right where the hurricane hit. robert? good morning guys. look at the devastation on the streets of fort myers. this was completely under water yesterday evening as the surge came in you could see some of that video will remnants of what was published in and around downtown here. there is just debris everywhere. the window field here yesterday was just tremendous we could barely stand by. this vehicle coming through. it s an active scene here this morning as believe it or not, there is some power that has come back at least in this part of fort myers, s
address to respond at 8:45 this morning. we will bring it to you live when it happens. brian: just like we did yesterday live across the state with a firsthand look at the devastation and all seeing it for the first time because the sun is coming up. seen evermeteorologist is standing by our team fox coverage starts with robert ray live in fort myers. that s where it hit robert, right? did sure did good morning to you from the devastated streets from downtown fort myers. you see this debris field i m walking through with garbage cans, mud, palms that were literally projectiles when these hurricane force winds were coming through here yesterday and into the evening. this guys, if we look at the video was i am not even exaggerating and not to use a cliche a rushing river yesterday evening street after street here full of storm surge water that came up from the bay and the river about three blocks behind me made its way into streets here destroying businesses and now business
through pitch dark southeast florida. many power outages are reported throughout the state, and already there about 2000 flight cancellations for today, many of them for orlando, tampa and jacksonville airports. it has been it has been downgraded to category one hurricane, but it s still very dangerous. the winds are slowing, but catastrophic with life-threatening flooding. we get life updates on its path and destruction. in orlando, there were estimates that as much as 20 inches of rain could have fallen, and it s been hammering the area for hours. let s go right to jesse coach who was there. i hope you re someone save, you were talking about having to go to higher ground earlier, especially the location being too dangerous. yes and at this point we are dealing with pretty consistent rainfall here. there were bands of it earlier, we continue to see gusts of intense wind. but the rain is been falling for hours. and you can see we talk to a short while ago with the wat
helping a woman in the floodwaters. an official says 1,000 people have been rescued so far, and more resources are on their way from the u.s. mainland into puerto rico. an official now saying that some areas have seen record levels of water. more rainfall and rivers even higher than after hurricane maria. jennifer gray is standing by in the weather center for us, but first, let s go live to puerto rico and cnn s leyla santiago, and you re there on the ground. what are you seeing? well, we re in the northeastern part of the island, but i just got back from the southern part of the island, which was really hit hard, and i guess the story right now is that there are catastrophic floods. this has already taken an impact. and it is not over yet. i want to show you video and talk to you about what i saw. this was an area where the national guard had to rescue people overnight. i talked to the mayor. she said they have more than 2,000 families that have been impacted by this, and
strong winds and heavy rain are battering the orlando area as the storm moves its way toward the atlantic ocean. the storm created catastrophic flooding that left entire communities under several feet of water and sent cars and debris floating down streets. take a look at these images. the water was just relentless. crews are still carrying out emergency rescues on land, air and sea. in bonita springs, a group of good samaritans rescued an elderly man stranded in his car in surging flood waters, dragging him through waist-high water to safety. ian s strong winds brought down trees, power lines, knocked out power to more than two and a half million homes and businesses. the winds also literally ripped off roofs from a number of homes, including this mobile home. a short time ago, governor ron desantis call canned the impact historic ask also addressed comments from the lee county sheriff that there may be hundreds of fatalities, something that s not been confirmed. we have h