0 maybe it knocks something else loose that had been hanging on. that's what we're encountering a lot here on the ground. >> neil: hang in there. just incredible. so the storm rages on, and will, we're told, for at least another 24 hours, as it continues to slowly, and i mean slowly make its way north. that will do it here. "the five" is now. >> hello, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york city. this is "the five." >> the worst case scenario is unfolding for millions of americans. hurricane ian making landfall about two hours ago in southwestern florida, with ferocious wind speeds clocking in at nearly 155 miles an hour, just shy of a category five. at least 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate. more than 1 million floridaians are sitting without power. that's going to grow every second. florida governor ron desantis will bring a storm update later in this hour. we will bring it to you when this happens. rick reichmuth is in florida. how you doing down there? >> we're feeling the winds starting to whip up in st. petersburg. you can see the trees blowing behind me. the palm trees have been going nuts all afternoon. we're expecting hurricane-force winds in the st. petersburg area. a big concern is the rain. we're expecting up to 2 feet of rainfall here in st. petersburg, as well as parts of inland florida. that's a major concern as we move throughout the evening hours into tomorrow. one thing that i want to talk about is the reverse storm surge we've seen in tampa bay. initially we thought the storm was going to be hitting tampa bay right on, but it hit farther to the south. because we've been on the northern edge of this storm, the winds actually push the water out of tampa bay it was surreal not seeing water in there. people have been walking along the bay. that's not advised. but the water many return to the bay. you know, we're going to see storm surge, a very intense storm surge, kick up in the next few hours as this hurricane moves northward. that's a big concern. we could be seeing several feet of storm surge after that negative 6-foot storm surge in the bay. so we're going to be keeping tabs on this storm, as well as the very heavy rainfall expected over the next few hours, all right here on fox news, always the fox weather app. i can't hear you. i lost my ifb, but back to you in the studio. >> max, stay safe there. let's go to rick reichmuth in the weather center to give us an overview of what we're seeing. >> if you haven't downloaded the fox weather app, do it because you can get-live a livestream, u lose power, you can get live weather coverage, even if you don't have cable anymore, or internet, as long as you still have power or-battery still on your phone. take a look at these images. absolutely incredible. wind speeds have been amazing, the highest recorded wind speeds we've seen. the wind gusts right there. obviously you have to have a sensor. to get measurements like these, it's quite amazing. this storm came on shore in at cayo costa, where hurricane charley came on shore. 140-mile-an-hour sustained winds now after the 155. it will continue to weaken. still a hurricane when it exits the other side of florida after traveling about 140 miles an hour or so in that direction from the southwest toward the northeast, still looking very amazing on satellite representation. we have tornado concerns across the eastern side of the state. the tornado watch, a new one, you say issued, going until 10:00 this morning. the latest radar picture, you can see the dark reds. one little green box. that's not from flooding from storm surge. that's flash flooding that's going on here just from the rainfall. this northern side of the eyewall has been in that for the last four to five hours. we're getting incredible rainfall rates. this is our exclusive fox model. watch what we expect this to look like. overnight hours, and by the time we get to tomorrow we'll be watching an incredible amount of wind come in toward the jacksonville area, the st. john river will see a spectacular storm surge there. the other side of the state getting a lot of storm surge, and obviously all the rain still to come. some spots well over 12 inches of additional rainfall. we'll satisfy some spots, and rainfall totals over 2 feet, pushing 30 inches or so. right here, this is through tomorrow, a high risk for flash flooding on other side of the state. that's not issued very often. just a couple times of year. be very careful toward the eastern side of florida. hurricane warnings even in places like daytona beach. also tropical storm warnings in effect across georgia and south carolina. once the storm gets back out here into the atlantic, we expect it to make a left-hand turn, make a secondary landfall, probably as a strong tropical storm across parts of georgia and south carolina. >> rick, you're so good at this stuff. really well done there. rick, when you think about the path that charley took 18 years ago, how similar this is, what's surprised you about this storm thus far? >> incredible surprise to see it make landfall in the exact same spot. it doesn't make sense that you could possibly have two cat four storms anywhere on the u.s. coastline. we don't have that many cat four or five storms that come on shore, and to have it the exact same spot is a horrible thing for people around fort myers, sanibel island, all these areas, getting this impact. the sad part about this storm, it's so much larger. charley was a really strong storm, but a really quick and small storm. this one is just so much bigger. that just means the impacts are that much bigger. bill, so many people live in florida now than did 18 years ago. it's just lattimore people, a lot more infrastructure there that is going to have to deal with. >> jessica was a question for you. >> hi, rick. thank you so much for joining us. i want to build off what you're discussing, because the storm is building so slowly, what's your expectation for how long it will take for the system to go through and turn into the tropical storm that hits georgia and south carolina next? >> it's like a friday night landfall, somewhere here across georgia and south carolina friday night into saturday morning. we've got this all night tonight and throughout all the day tomorrow, we'll be watching this incredible rain here, even some into friday, rain especially across the eastern side of the state. want to tell you a lot of times you always hear, most of the time just the right-hand side of a storm, is the worst. that's always the case for storm surge. it was the case in this one. we have a long period to still get through. getting good images from the storm right now, the storm coming on in the daylight, which oftentimes doesn't happen. so we're getting some images now. a lot of places still are not able to be reached. the storm surge is still in place where the storm surge came on shore. so it's going to be a while before we get images. obviously it's getting dark. it will be before tomorrow afternoon before we start to get images of that immediate coastline. to answer your question, i just rambled on there, jess. sorry. >> appreciate it. judge jeanine has a question. >> rick, it's jeanine. when we talk about the wind, how strong the wind is, the rain is really the problem. the rain stops, the wind continues the flooding. the flooding is the bigger problem. >> more people die from flooding than the winds. it's from inland flooding. one is the storm surge, the bubble of water that gets pushed up from the wind of a hurricane, and that bubble of water pushes onshore. that's one piece of flooding. when you have winds that are in the 150-mile-an-hour range, that's incredibly dangerous. it will rip off roofs of people's homes. it will cause a lot of power outages. it will destroy mobile homes. there's that threat. then you're right, there's the flooding from the rain. because this storm is moving slowly, we get more rainfall in the same spot. totals of 30 inches of rain across florida that's already saturated. they've had a wet last couple of months. the ground is saturated. trees are more unstable. now you get 30 inches of rain and winds in some spots even not on the shore but get 50, 60-mile-an-hour winds, causing damage as well. >> jesse? >> rick, in your career have you ever seen a hurricane this big? >> yes. >> which one? >> katrina was huge. irma was really big. after katrina, rita was really big. it does matter. when we talk about 155-mile-an-hour winds, that's not the entire size of the storm getting that. those are the winds that are closest to the center of the storm. the stronger or bigger a storm, the winds extend farther out from the center. you have more people getting the stronger winds. but as far as actual size, this happens frequently, that we get some very large storms. i think the reason we're comparing it to charley is because charley hit the exact same area as a cat four storm, but a small one. a larger storm is going to have bigger impacts for a lot more people. >> rick, i had a question about, governor desantis is due to give another press conference at 5:30. when he does that, what's something that you'll be wanting to learn more about? >> yeah. i mean, he'll have updated numbers for us, i would imagine, which, you know, we know we're over a million people without power, without power going into the overnight hours. obviously it's really warm. you don't have worries about cold. we'll probably also get information about what kind of, not just damage, but water rescues going on. we've heard reports that people are calling, saying we need to be rescued from our homes. where this came onshore, we are hearing that the water level from the storm surge is at people's roofs. back to katrina -- i'm not saying this is a katrina situation, because it was a different flooding situation from the levees breaking. if you have your home, the water is up to your roof, you didn't leave, you have no place to go other than to get to the attic, knock a hole out and wait there to be rescued. i want to know they're hearing from people. then what their plans are to help people who did say. >> yes. we will all be paying attention to that. reichmuth reichmuth, thank you .rick reichmuth, thank you so much. will nunley, you're in fort myers. what does it look like there? >> i want to build upon the points that rick was making. first of all, dealing with the rescues, we got alerts on our phones, saying wear not getting out, doing rescues. we don't know when that will happen. conditions will be at a point for the next few hours they still can't get out. that's terrifying news for people to receive on top of everything they're going through right now. so much of the state of florida -- its entirety -- is wrapped up in this emergency. you don't have to be experiencing what we are here in fort myers in terms of the storm surge and wind to be affected by this emergency, because you're talking about thousands of people on the move, that have been trying to get to higher ground. you're talking about all the alignment, the roads that are congested, these things compounding, creating this emergency for the entire state of florida. meanwhile we still have hours more of this chaos left. i'm essentially in a suburb of fort myers right now. it's about 10 minutes this direction to downtown fort myers. i-75 is two minutes to my right. we've not seen the storm surge here. boy, are we seeing the effects of the wind and the relentless rain. this is a piece of a road sign from colonial boulevard that came from the streets you see behind me here. there were plenty of traffic signals that were on the roads over here. all of those street signs, those traffic signals, have blown down. when they crashed down into the strata, the wind just pushes them out of the way, like their toys. we still have branches coming down even as we speak. these are heavy, heavy traffic signals. okay? that's not something you want to race through and hit. the wind is moving through with such force we're starting to lose parts of the roof. all of these banners and things like that, that have been on poles, that's a dangerous projectile, not the kind of thing you want to interact with. parts of our d terracotta roof, pieces crashing down all around us. we can hear objects taking flight crashing into windows around us as well. so everything becoming a projectile like this, with this wind being sustained like it is for hours and hours on end. and we are hours away from these conditions being over where we are. so you can imagine the panic this creates for people who are trapped in a storm. the cell service is heavily damaged. we talked about the infrastructure taking a hit. it's not just electric lines. it's the long bug cells on top of cell towers getting battered by the storm as well, coming offlane, it's getting harder and harder for us to transmit. rick was talking about taking a moment to get images out of these places. that's why. it's not because we can't immediately reach them after a storm, but we don't have a way to get them back to you because the cellphone towers are being damaged heavily under the weight of the storm, also affecting, by the way, people trying to communicate with their family and with rescue workers in these urgent hours after an emergency like this. so much stull ahead. guys? >> will, thank you very much. hurricane ian making landfall, and more than 1 million americans are without power. more to come on that. we're watching this major storm. our coverage continues on fox news and the fox weather app.