0 >> and i just want to send a quick thank you to our first responders. i mean, you see these images of them cutting down trees, trying to remove the debris so that we can get our days back to normal. but we still have quite some time to get through. >> and we're going to do, you know, it is the firefighters, it's the police officers. >> it is just everyone working behind the scenes. >> and hurricane ian water in parts of southwest florida, streets and buildings completely flooded, power knocked out at one point over two million people. and one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the united states . the hurricane making landfall wednesday afternoon near costa protected barrier island, just west of fort myers. the hours since landfall and has moved inland. but hurricane force winds are likely to be felt well into central florida. thank you so much for sticking with us right here on fox weather three a.m. on the east coast of mcalester. >> and i'm jim and i thank so much for joining us . and a special welcome to those watching on fox news. channel. we got the latest advisory from the national hurricane center, 2:00 a.m. eastern. we still are talking a category one hurricane, 75 mile per hour sustained winds. so what does that mean? going into these overnight hours, michael? well, we have many people still in the path of ian going to see that wind pick up or rain continue to come down. >> and it's really quite concerning. it is a multifaceted system. you think about the fact that literally it made landfall at three , 5:00 this afternoon. >> it is three to one in the morning. that means over the past 12 hours, it has been over land is still a hurricane still when it's been over land for 12 hours. >> right. and it really remained a category three for quite some time. we're talking five , six hours of seeing those hurricane force wind gusts about one hundred miles per hour. some of these communities. yeah. so it really was quite devastating. in fact, take a listen to some of the video that we had of a woman in fort myers and the damage because of these hurricane force winds. that was my house. my house is gone. that's my grandparents house. not one right there on the ground. >> stadium. so you can see the storm surge here. and fort myers, the hurricane force winds that came through, losing both homes there. and you can already see the damage in that video of the home next door because of that storm surge that came in. let's take a look at the latest advisory from hurricane. and so, again, breaking it down remains a category one hurricane. seventy five mile per hour sustained winds. it's moving pretty at a pretty nice clip through central florida right now, northeast at about nine miles per hour. you can see we have some drier air coming in on the south side of ian . and that's helped kind of erode away some of that rain that we have seen that has been impacting tampa, sarasota. so improving conditions on the west coast, but where things are going downhill, downhill quickly is through central florida, orlando, we have that center, that core of fon lifting up the i four corridor. and we are anticipating it to continue to impact places like jacksonville in the next twenty four hours, really expecting to see those rain bands. in fact, just beginning to wrap around and push on shore over the next several hours, opening up our day on thursday. so that's one thing that we will be watching for, no surprise, because we are still talking a hurricane in that hurricane warning stretch. both coasts from fort myers up through orlando to daytona beach. hurricane warning means that we are anticipating to see those hurricane force wind gusts impact these communities. heavy rain is going to continue. tropical storm warnings extend up through jacksonville, up the georgia coastline into south carolina. also want to highlight that the coastline of georgia and south carolina are also under a hurricane watch because while we are going to be tracking hurricane and off the coast and back into the atlantic, as likely a tropical storm in that forecast right now, there's a very slim window that we could see that strengthening once again, those warmer waters. we do have some new video coming in to the forecast center of naples, florida, which took a really hard hit from hurricane ivan , especially in the form of storm surge. i mean, just record numbers of storm surge over six feet. and that was just as the gauge ,fortunately, was knocked out. you can see the flooding here in naples just on to the side of your screen, people trying to get through in these overnight hours and still seeing flooded roads. and this is what i really want to caution. if you yourself are in florida, on the west coast, naples, sarasota, up into tampa, where we have flooded roads do not venture out, especially not in the dark right now. taking a look at some of our live traffic cameras, orlando, florida, looks like we have some emergency officials out there. good to see. not a lot of people out of the roads into jacksonville to as we go into these early morning hours, we have rain coming down and it is going to be quite treacherous. jacksonville, few people out there on the interstates, of course, the three o'clock hour on the east coast. i know many of you getting your day started, but i just want to leave you here with a power outage tracker. michael's going to take it with a little bit more on what we are expecting to come as far as rainfall. but we still have two point four million people in florida without power in the dark. unfortunately, going to be waking up in that same scenario. >> yeah, that's exactly it. and just please keep in. >> you are using a generator to make sure that the exhaust from your generator is well away from your home. that has been something that emergency management officials have been working on and highlighting through the storm system. we do want to head out to orlando, florida, because really orlando right. is taking the brunt of hurricane ivan . that's where we find fox wethers. katie burn for us this morning. katie, always great to see you, of course. but of course, behind you, it just looks like a deluge of rainfall. yeah, michael. and it looks a lot darker now. i can tell you just in the last few minutes, there was a big boom of thunder. it sounded like a crack. and then all of a sudden the power went out here at our hotel and in a lot of locations right outside of where we are. so what you're looking at now is pitch black and a lot of locations, the streetlights have gone out. this as we are pretty much right on time for what we thought was going to happen for the city of orlando. as far as when we were going to see the worst impacts of the storm. you can see the palm trees there have been swaying back and forth. we've been getting pretty significant wind gusts. i'm curious how low the readings will come through, because i think from what we've seen throughout the day, some of the strongest wind gusts we've seen have been within the last 30 minutes since we've been kind of watching and waiting to see what happened. oh, look at this. there's some lights flickering over here to the left. so maybe, just maybe that power will come back on. but i don't know that boom was something that definitely may have woken some people up tonight because it was loud, didn't see lightning that we have seen it maybe a handful of times in the last hour or so. there's that flickering again. we'll keep our eye on it. but the hotel staff downstairs, they were concerned about this. you know, i was checking in with them within the hour. they were telling me that they were already putting some towels up against some doors downstairs because of some flooding issues that they were experiencing. and now you're seeing the power has officially, officially gone out. so i know and a lot of hotels still have the common areas available to people to kind of hang out, even though they don't have power in their rooms. but we know a lot of people are staying in hotels in orlando tonight because what happened was people were in southwest florida, had some mandatory evacuation orders, over a million of them, and a lot of them ended up here. and that's why many of the hotels in the surrounding area are sold out tonight with families who are leaving places like tampa, st. pete and now there's almost a sense of camaraderie. and a lot of the hotels we've been to quite a few of them since we've been here. and we've met people who were making new friends, meeting other people's pets in the lobby and hanging out with them, riding this thing out when they thought they were going to be away from it. but they ended up still dealing with the hurricane impact. so we're going to keep our eye on this as things progress here. but still flickering, not looking good here as far as power for us tonight. but hopefully you're not in this part of orlando, though. this is downtown. so it's looking pretty dim in a lot of places downtown orlando at this hour. that boom happened right at 3:00 a.m., michael. >> that was only eight minutes ago. and kitty, i am looking at orlando executive airport. they have measured wind gusts at fifty five miles per hour. so i'm sure that is perhaps what may be responsible for some of the power flickers that you're seeing. i'm curious with so many people in orange county where orlando is , it has a population over one point four million people. >> what does the generators situation look like where you're at your hotel? >> any do the hotels in the area have generators for the folks that are staying there, especially if they're visiting? >> of course, many of them do. many of them are used to kind of dealing with hurricanes or at least tropical storms being in the florida area. but i think that what you'll find in many hotels is that the common areas are where people will have to go for a lighting and things that they need. of course, something we do is a bathtub trick. and when we were live a few hours ago, we had to switch hotels. we just got here and the lights were flickering and we were like, oh, no, we've got to go fill up our bathtubs. we just got here and it felt like things progressed pretty quickly. so that's a tip for people who may be not in a situation yet where their power has gone out. they don't have access to water . but these are things that a lot of floridians, rather, that we've met while we've been out here say they're kind of used to riding storms. they know the tips, they know the tricks, and they're ready to hunker down and ride this thing out and hopefully go back home if they're away from home. some of them are hoping to go back friday. we'll have to see about that once the sun comes up tomorrow. >> absolutely. the sun is going to reveal. so much, kitty. quick question for you is there's a flash flood warning going for all. are you seeing flooding in and around your area at all? yeah, you know, we've seen reports on twitter about flash flooding surrounding some people's apartment complexes. and throughout the last couple hours, we've seen we've heard sirens and seen police vehicles. ambulances go both directions to different locations dealing with flooding issues and right behind me here, i'm not sure if you can see it because it is darker. it looks like there's one lamp ,but there's a shed over here that we've been watching. there. there's some flooding right there and it's been increasing throughout the hours of the night here as the rain continues to really fall down at a pretty rapid rate. in fact, we're only at 3:00 a.m. it is now. i'm losing track of time over here, but this is officially the wettest two day period in orlando since, i believe, the nineteen sixties and it's only three a.m. so, i mean, we could beat that record fully in the next few hours depending on how much more rain we get . >> wow. and something tells me that we may end up shattering that record because we were anticipating anywhere between another six to upwards of eight inches of rainfall, if not a little . >> clyburn first, i'll asking a thousand questions over here so that you can kind of regather and all. but thank you so much for your amazing reports. please stay safe for us this evening. katie, for us in orlando. >> katie, thank you. all right. still tracking hurricane ian at this hour, even as of three a.m. still a hurricane winds up and over 75 miles per hour. >> again, it has it made landfall literally about 12 hours ago as a powerful category four storm , almost a category five storm on the sapers simpson scale. >> that is the absolute highest that you can get . >> right, in terms of the intensity of a hurricane, it is still a hurricane. even 12 hours later, after being starved from its primary source for fuel, which is moisture, which is the ocean. >> it has been over land now for 12 hours. it is still a hurricane and it is producing all kinds of rainfall. as katie burn was just so eloquently showing us . and parts of orlando estimated rainfall. you need to see this to believe it. south of tampa, this is along i 75 runs north and southbound. as you know, any interstates that end an odd numbers, those run north to south. if they end in an even number, they run east to west. >> kind of like ifour, but let's zero in right here on this strip of burgundy. >> that's 12 to 18 inches of rainfall there with some areas picking up between 18 to upwards of twenty four inches. of rainfall. >> again, that was in this bull's eye area right here. >> and on top of all that, by the way, to add insult to injury, this is also the area where we saw extreme storm surge as well, literally record breaking storm surge down around fort myers. >> what's going on right now east of tampa, this is going to be right in the heart of orlando where orange county is . here's where we are along the space coast just to get you oriented. here's where katy burne was, orlando. that's a flash flood warning for orange county, still going until four forty five local time. orlando is , of course, on the eastern time zone. so the next day, hour to hour and a half or so on that flash flood warning, the red indicating the tremendous rainfall from what we call speigel rain bands from ian that are persistent along the i four corridor. again, katy mentioning the fact that this is nearly a historic rainfall for them. and unfortunately, it looks a whole lot more rainfall is on the way as well. quick look, live conditions in parts of orlando as we speak. temperatures in the 70s, rain still to come. as we mentioned. notice daytona beach. this is going to be over the next couple of days as ian works through central and eventually northeast florida, right along i-95. that is a bull's eye between 12 to 18 inches of additional rainfall on top of not what's already fallen. but as adam was sharing with those earlier, right along the coastline here, we're going to see storm surge that is going to enhance the rivers that flow out into the ocean. we're expecting more flooding in and around places like jacksonville. >> so this is really going to be almost a worst case scenario for parts of northeast florida, much like what we saw with ida, especially along some of the rivers there in jacksonville. and it's the reason and one of the primary reasons why throughout the day today into early tomorrow, on friday, notice the thatched areas there of red , meaning extreme rainfall. this, my friends, a live look at daytona. look at this camera. it is shaking. we were saying before that orlando executive airport wind gusts well over 50 miles per hour. >> and if you look very carefully there, again, perhaps up toward the upper right hand corner, looks like that could be a parking lot. and quickly filling with water due to all of the tremendo rainfall that we're seeing smack dab there in the center of the state. temps outside, by the way, in the mid 70s. but as katie was saying, before ,there are power flickers that are going on , meaning that we are just moments away from losing power in places like orlando. katie mentioned that if you are visiting orlando, that a lot of the hotels, thank goodness, do have generators. i wouldn't depend on those generators. but again, thankfully, it looks like most of the hotels in and around that are newly constructed, especially after, say, two thousand, one to two thousand to do have some generator power and usually are capable and well-built enough in terms of their structural integrity. to withstand winds over 50 to upwards of hurricane force winds, which would be seventy five miles per hour as well. >> so, again, lots of visuals coming in. this is another snapshot of orlando, florida, and orange county, where, again, they are under flash flood warning through four forty five this morning. and that rain is coming down quick. it is coming down heavy. >> that rain is going to pull into places like st. those streets could look like rivers at times. so it is imperative really at this point when we're talking about excessive amount of rainfall that we've seen. >> history shows us just all we've got to do is look at what ian has already done, and that's an indication of what we could see in the future. so places like orlando, if folks are visiting friends and family down that way, we're talking about that threat for perhaps life threatening flooding in parts of orlando. >> that's right. and all of this happening now at this point when most of us are off to sleep. danger that is happening outside our window on the east coast of florida. also feeling the impact of hurricane. and in fact, that's where our eyes turn to where those impacts are really going to begin to go downhill. we took a live look at daytona beach where the rain is coming down. i've been watching on my radar in the fox weather app, those rain bands continuing to wrap around hurricane in volusia county, florida. sheriff mike chitwood joins us now. and sheriff, tell us about what the conditions are like in volusia county. i know the southern part of the county is under a flash flood warning right now. are you getting reports of some roadways that are impassable right now? you know, our big concern is nothing's been impassable, but we're going when this is over, trying to get over 30 inches, that's going to be a rain that's going to be devastating to this county, in particular, to the little towns like ashtar and lake harney that sit on the st. john's river and lake monroe. they are going to be absolutely inundated and flooded out. winds gust right now around fifty two miles an hour. orlando is only 60 miles down the road from us and they're getting hit with a huge impact right now. >> and we're going to we're going to follow with that probably around that 2:00 afternoon, i think is our big window from to a to to piece where we're looking at the biggest impact from this storm to us . >> absolutely. after seeing hurricane and did to the southwest coast as it's made its way through central florida, what's been the messaging around the county ,especially to your residents, for preparations that were really hopefully underway throughout much of the day on wednesday? because at this point it's a go period and just waiting to see all of this rain come through. yeah, we've stationed high water rescue vehicles throughout the county because we are expecting flash flooding and major flooding to inundate a lot of our community. and we're just telling people you've got to hunker down. there was a point in time where i could get in to get it. we're at a point now where we're probably not going to be able to get in and get you out. so you're going to have to hunker down. you're going to hunker down in place. we have a curfew in place. did all expire at 7:00 a.m. this morning. unfortunately, up until an hour ago when i was out and about the roads passable. but, you know, it's really dark . the wind is incredible. you don't know what dangers are l