category 4 storm leaving a huge path of destruction and millions in the dark this morning. we ll have a live report in just a moment. meanwhile, rescue crews have been busy trying to get people who decided to ride out the storm to try and save them. they re stranded now by rising flood waters and we re still tracking ian as it slowly makes its way across florida. at this hour, it still has more to go. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it s thursday, september 29th. joe is off this morning. along with willie and me, we have the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. without power this morning, first light this morning will begin to show the damage in florida. that s right. that s when we re going to start to see the story of what happened last night, what happened overnight. tropical storm now ian downgraded from a category 1 hurricane. in just the last hour, but still wreaking havoc across florida as it made landfall as a
the devastation in very direct terms. the impacts of this storm are historic and the damage that was done has been historic and this is just off initial assessments. take a look at fort myers, close to where ian made landfall. you see the downed trees and the boats tossed around like toys. storm surges as high as 7 to 10 feet swept through surrounding areas making streets look more like oceans. ian has left more than 2.5 million floridians without power. folks who were in shelters are leaving to see if they even have a home to return to. the focus is now on the people who did not evacuate. finding a lot of the roads are impassable. we have a lot of power lines down, a lot of flooding going on. i don t want to speculate on fatalities, but we have had some reports being called into us in reference to potential bodies being found. right now the storm is moving eastward through florida with the carolinas and georgia in its sights with flash flooding a major concern. you c
the governor talked about how impressed he was. these are dangerous missions. i m grateful for the brave women and men in federal, state and local governments working as one team risking their lives to save others. and we re going to learn a lot more in the coming hours. but we know many families are hurting. many. many are hurting today. and our entire country hurts with them. because it s been all over the country we have seen so many crises. but in florida today, it s the epicenter. we re continuing to see deadly rainfall, catastrophic storm surges, roads and homes flooded. we re seeing millions of people without power and thousands hunkered down in schools and community centers. they are wondering what s going on left. what s going to be left when they get to go home. or even if they have a home to go to. some of the folks have been through this before. but that doesn t make it any easier. it makes their anxiety even higher, in my view. my message to people of florida, ti
ian now setting its sites on the south carolina coast, as we come on the air, with the tropical storm expected to strengthen back into a hurricane as it moves, look at it there, very slowly across the atlantic and back towards the east coast, after a trail of destruction in florida. people there are reeling now from one of the worst storms that has ever hit them, and doing what they can to start picking up the pieces. sanibel island, captiva island, a storm surge, with a huge chunk of the causeway there, that is the only way in or out, in a state overall, more than two and a half million people are without power and look at where that deep red is, some counties in southwest florida are totally we re live with officials, from across florida, as well as somebody from part of the federal response to this storm. cabinet secretary, homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, hallie jackson in washington and we have the team covering every angle, and every location, and steve p
they re extreme positions, out of touch with the value of pennsylvanians. here s what we need to fight about inflation because it s a tax on working families. and dr. oz can t possibly understand what that is like. he has ten mansions. pennsylvania s senate race, it took center stage on debate night in america last night. i m brianna keilar with alex marquardt. such a pleasure to be back with you. john fetterman and mehmet oz trading attacks in their first and only debate. they sparred over abortion, inflation, and fracking. issues that are the most important to pennsylvania voters. fetterman s health has been a question in this campaign and the debate highlighted the recovery from his stroke. he used closed captioning for assistance. in new york, fighting crime was front and center between kathy hochul and lee zeldin. recent polls show the governor s race is tightening in the final weeks of the campaign. in michigan, gretchen whitmer and tudor dixen clashes over