cnn tonight. listen, one of the most catastrophic storms in florida s history, possibly the deadliest, regained strength to become a category 1 hurricane tonight. south carolina is now bracing for ian s wrath sometime happening tomorrow. and the very latest on its track in just a moment. we have yet to learn the full scope of the destruction caused by hurricane ian in florida. but what has certainly come into focus today truly is hard to find words for. at least 17 people have died so far, and that is linked to hurricane ian. president biden warns there could be substantial loss of life, perhaps more killed by a storm in florida than ever before. but it s really too soon to know more. and also too soon to say that the danger has now passed. i mean, there is debris everywhere. there s water everywhere. power lines are down. trees have been shredded. boats thrown on top of one another. countless homes destroyed, entire buildings washed away. fort myers beach took the brunt of
life-threatening storm surge. we just learned the updated storm surge projections for those areas is now staggers. it is now 12 to 18 feet. that is the warning. already more than 16 on,000 customers are without power across the state of florida. more than 2.5 million people are under an erag ways order or warning. governor desantis said residents in the cross hairs need to shelter in place, because it is too late to leave. if you are in any of those counties, it s no longer possible to safely evacuate. it s time to hunker down and prepare for this storm. this is a powerful storm that should be treated like you would treat if a tornado was approaching your home. we are covering all angles up and down the western coast of florida. let s begin with john berman. he s in tampa. what can you tell us? reporter: good morning poppy and jim. this storm is bringing three interrelated threats. the winds, an historic storm, one of the most powerful projected, particularly about in
wonder how it is even stand. a storm surge tore through marco island, and after it ripped through downtown naples, they re talking weeks if not months for recovery. at times, the water has been up to your waist it s that deep. for those that fire fighters could not reach, the only option, which was a dangerous one, was to walk through the flood waters. brian is in naples tonight. brian, how bad is the damage there that we re talking about? reporter: well, you just mentioned the phrase weeks if not months. that s exactly the phrase that officials here in naples told us it would take to recover from this, from the storm s hit of this city. take a look. this is what we re talking about. look at these ground floor apartments here. this is all from the force of water. this is not wind damage, this is the storage surge that came up
anticipate we will, we re not coming. we re not putting people in peril when they didn t heed the mandatory evacuation. giving what we know now, do you know how many homes, what area will be under water when the worst of it hits there, when the worst of the storm surge hits for? well, right now, as it appears, probably not anything under water. we re expecting 4 to 6 feet of storage surge. areas of upper tampa bay, safety harbor, northeast st. petering burg, those are the areas we most concerned about. well, that s a good update to hear, but i know you and your team are taking this seriously, sheriff gualtieri, it s going to
bands, the winds, waves, surge it will be happening. most of these storms come in and go. this is going to sit here for 24 to 36 hours once it makes landfall. we re not talking about from now so we ll talk about this storm through the weekend as it s sitting here dumping rain. the storage surge and flooding will be the two main concerns with this storm. we re talking about taking a beat of 120 mile per hour winds for 24 hours, a lot of structures will fail but the inundation of waters will be devastating with this storm. all 6 that energy is coming along with it and it will come