but that could rise even higher, as officials carry out more search and rescue missions today and work to access areas cut off from flooding. more than 800,000 customers are still without power in the state. and new today, the ft. myers police department is warning residents to be on the lookout for hurricane recovery scams. ft. myers beach will be closed for the next week. as some are demanding answers over whether lee county ordered mandatory evacuations soon enough. every loss of life you have to say to yourself, what could you do differently next time. should that have been done differently? unfortunately, we can t bring anything back. we ll look and find out. i want to know because it s an issue i had as governor trying to stay what did i learn to make sure we don t lose a life? the new york times had one of the six models, one model said 40% probability. and that s what they re hanging their story on. we have done everything we can from using state resources,
place for 24 counties in the storm s path, and is urging people across the state to start getting ready. we have team coverage tracking tropical storm ian. cnn s carlos suarez is covering storm preparations and meteorologist allison chinchar is in the weather center. you have a new update from the national weather center? we did. a good look now, sunlight for several hours, what this storm looks like on visible satellite. it s starting to come together. you see signs that the storm is beginning to strengthen even though the winds haven t jumped all that much. sustained winds 45 miles per hour, gusting up to 60 miles per hour. we have tropical storm watches in effect for jamaica, but hurricane watches for the cayman islands and the reason for that is we anticipate this storm is expected to strengthen to at least a category 1, possibly even a category 2 hurricane by the time it crosses over the cayman islands. then it will strengthen even more as it is making its way towards
miles per hour, gusting up around 60 miles per hour. with this storm, you have tropical storm watches in effect for jamaica and hurricane watches for cayman islands. that s because looking at the frarsz we anticipate that this storm will become a category 1 storm maybe even as high as a category 2 storm as it s crossing over the cayman islands. it is then expected to intensify further as it makes its way up towards cuba and crosses into the eastern portion of the gulf of mexico. at that point, perhaps, it could get into that major hurricane strength. here s the thing, though. a lot of that has to do with sea surface temperatures that are in the mid and upper 80s for the area in which it s expected to travel through. that sea surface temperature is a big fuel for these storms. it s not just at the surface but going down tens of feet, talking about the ocean heat content, even down there that water is warm, and that s what these storms need to strengthen and intensify as they c
you are live in the cnn newsroom. we are monitoring two storms this morning. we begin in florida where in 24 counties there is a state of emergency. tropical storm ian is moving through the caribbean and could grow to a category 3 hurricane before it hits florida next week. residents from the florida panhandle to the florida keys are being told to prepare for storm surges, hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall. meanwhile, hurricane henfiona i moving through eastern canada. you see the driving wind downing trees and breaking power lines. in novema scotia 300,000 customs are without power. residents in four provinces face severe weather as the storm moves north. cnn s allison chinchar and paolo suarez are joining us now. allison, we will get an update on tropical storm ian, which seems to be getting stronger? yes, a first look now that the sun is starting to come up over the visible satellite. we can look at tropical storm ian. it s starting to come together and look a l
places like this marina in ft. myers, they are surveying the damage done by hurricane ian. in the last hour or so, actually trudged through hundreds of feet of mangroves, swamped with a bot captain that operated out of this marina since 1986. this is lewis mcdonald. he ran mac attack, a ship he built with his father and used to run his business for decades. he would go fishing for shark in the summer and all sorts of fish, as the winter months came on. we were able to get access to his boat. he became emotional talking about the fact that even though his boat got lifted up by this storm, a storm surge that was in the tens of feet, 20, if not more feet high, his boat was still relatively in tact. there was only a small hole, and the way it landed on the mangroves, he believes he can