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off of the gulf coast there. were not going to get a sense of it until tomorrow. but yes, it looks pretty path down in. >> and well be talking about this later in the hour. thanks, chris. and thank you for joining us. hurricane ian continues to create a swath of -- in made landfall just after 3:00 this afternoon in southwestern florida, near k oconnor, a island off of the coast of fort myers. ian came ashore as a category four hurricane with 150 mile per hour winds. just a few miles pe...

 

Bill was talking about a six foot storm surge. here we saw every last foot of it. we actually saw at those buildings across their, where they have a second view of the second story. and the car port underneath. thats at least 12 feet there, and we saw those decks being over top. the idea that you think about a six or five foot storm surge as being five or six feet of water, it depends on where you are. over here on the beach, it was more than ten feet of water. great destruction all over here, i...

Who stayed behind, and who is trapped. we are getting a lot of calls. in fact, my last update said there are 30 rescues in this county, in the naples area of people trapped in their attics or on higher floors. we dont have a full situation report on that. we should by morning. >> and look, by that end, the sheriffs department said theyre receiving a significant number of people trapped by water, but at the same time were seeing first responders in videos that are struggling to deal with the floo...

Weve talked with tourists who are here to go to the, theme parks. theyre obviously hunkering down in hotels. we talk to people who have gone to shelters who live here. the threat is for tornadoes. tornado watches in the area. all of this before and has even hit us, or iris, i should say, because we appear to be dodging the direct path of the storm at this point. but already outside of the direct path we see a dozen printed potential tornadoes touched down in florida. there have been small airpla...

That is going to be the focus for the first few days. search and rescue, get into the injured, getting to the trapped. looking at where they need critical supplies to get ahead. and then you start getting into the phase of this. if you can get power turned on for a lot of states that are losing it, youre going to find that a lot of the first response can now be better handled by local officials in the private sector. that will allow fema to stay focused on the areas with the heaviest devastation...

We can see it on our screens right now, when you get water dumped at this rate, it is always shocking when you are around, it how quickly that water will get on you, whether you are in a car or out. the flash flooding gets to people before they realize whats going on. you can see the sheer volume of water. as you said, outer bounds, orlando is going to get a ton of water before this is over. thats obviously a densely populated area which people havent evacuated and are going to be sitting this o...

A lot of wind here, too much wind for rescuers to get out there, certainly too much for those 42,000 electrical workers to get out and start fixing the powerlines. we have reports of 1.8 million people already without power. as bill said, this storm is above orlando now, a highly populated area. its going up to jacksonville. its going through the st. johns river, which always floods and puts people out of power. then it might make a turn and come back as a category one. this is a remarkable stor...

Category two storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour, and is making its way very slowly across northeast florida. the hurricane isnt expected to reach the atlantic ocean until late tomorrow. and even then, it will continue north in a week and form. states of emergency have been declared as far north as virginia, into dissipation of what the storm may bring in the coming days. in florida right now, nearly 1.9 million households are without power, as wind and water, knocked down t...

This is in an area where the storm will have weakened when it reaches us at its full force in the hours to come. it is still hours away, and already we are seeing this. i can tell you, just in the last ten minutes, things have deteriorated rapidly here. thankfully, at this point, we still have power, cell phone communications, and the power outages in the area appear to be minimal. at this point, as officials have warned throughout the day, wherever people are, they should be planning to hunker ...