Right here, its apocalyptic. I mean looking at that and were going to hear, i know you had on your show people on the ground there my show also going to talk to some of the residents who are climbing out of this with kids, trying to juggle that with schools being closed, figuring out a place to live, where to get water, food. It is an ongoing crisis for these people, and were going to continue to shine a spotlight jim, thanks so much. Ill take it from here you bet. And good morning, everyone. You are live in the Cnn Newsroom. Im Pamela Brown in washington, and we begin this hour with exclusive new video Into Cnn that will give you more perspective on the scope and the scale of the catastrophe in the southeast and what people are dealing with right now in this very moment. You are looking at the wounds of asheville, North Carolina one of the cities that Helene Hit the hardest. Take a look here. This is the river arts district, just more than a week ago. It was a vibrant, beautiful area
devastating some of the most important tobacco farms used to produce iconic cigars. you are watching fox and friends first, i m carley shimkus todd: i m todd piro, our reporters are live this morning. janice dean is in the fox weather center in new york city. carley: we begin in st. pete s beach, on track to be one of the first places hit today. lauren, what are you seeing on the ground right now? still dry at this moment and looking ago, later today that will not be the case. this morning ian is expected to strengthen to a category four hurricane, before moving to a hurricane three in cape coral. storm surge could reach 10 to 15 feet. tornados reported last night near miami, thousands are without power. that number is expected to go into the millions, 30,000 personnel are standing by to get the lights back on once the worst of the storm passes. ian devastated cuba as category three, knocking out power to the entire island. 2.5 million people have been told to evacuat
Governor Ron DeSantis will hold a press conference in Tallahassee at 11 p.m. regarding updates to the state's preparedness efforts ahead of Hurricane Ian.
atlantic, so the slow movement will mean prolonged effect and potentially deadly one, as well. carley: veteran-led humanitarian group rubicon on the ground in florida. todd: jacob niles deployed about 30 people to the street, jacob, what are your teams doing right now to prepare? we are prestaging two route clearance teams in southern florida and northern florida to wait out the storm and provide route clearance, opening up roads for emergency services and escape routes for people who may have waited too think lo. carley: people are talking about the fact after the storm hits, there will be a lot of power outages and i m sure that is a challenge that could make what you do more difficult in the days to come? very much so.