coast of florida. 155-mile-per-hour wind speeds. that s just two miles short of a category 5 hurricane. it s expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of here in the port charlotte area. rain 12 to 24 inches across much of the florida peninsula, challenge create freshwater flooding. the impact of this will be felt by millions in florida. already 200,000 people without power. that s before the storm even makes landfall. this will uproot people s lives. its a life-threatening storm. this is the sunshine skyway bridge that we have pictures of. you can see the winds kicking up. it will have an enormous impact. let s go to chad myers first at the weather center. the 11:00 a.m. advisory out now. what do you see? still see the 155-mile-per-hour eyewall winds. inside the eye it could be down to 5 or 10 in the middle, but we re working our way onshore. the eye is not onshore. the eyewall is coming onshore. this is what it looks like from space, this is called the visible image
can understand why the businesses have put the sandbags in place, but you can hear from the wind and the rain already getting much heavier, this could be a while and sit here on top of us. as you know, it s very slow moving. people are prepared. john? randi kay for us, stand by, if you will, for a moment. joining us now on the phone is the mayor of punta gorda, lynn matthew. mayor, if you can hear me, just give us a sense of your current area of concern. hi, john. good morning. i think the biggest concern is obviously going to be the storm surge. we have anticipated all along under yesterday that it would possibly be 6 to 7 feet, then it went to 7 to 10 feet. now we re just not sure where it will end up. we have a storm that will potentially be a bull s-eye at
punta gourd are are senior citizens. what precautions have been taken with that portion of your citizenry? well, the community we live in, you re right. it s at least 55% to 65% retires. very mobile retires, very active and very mobile. a lot of them have already moved to other areas for this period of the storm, and they will stay where they re currently after until this is over with. i don t see anybody returning home much before friday. as far as the assisted living facilities, all the of the county emergency services assisted with getting some of those facilities relocated the people to other areas where this was safer for them. we re in pretty good shape as far as that s concerned. honestly, having lived here 26 years, you know, i lived through hurricane charley. i had a brand-new house at the time. we did not have storm shutters.
landfall. we didn t have any notice. nobody could leave, nobody could move to higher ground or safer places. we rode the storm out in horrible conditions, but you re right, that storm was smaller, more compact, it went through, here and go in two hours. this one is hanging, going very slow, so it s really concerning. mayor lynne matthew, stay safe. shelter in place. the next several showers already dangerous. mayor, thank you very much. > all right. that was mayor lynne matthew. this is cnn s special cocoverag. stay with us. llect coins. yourur money never stops workig for you with merrill, a banknk of america company.
i can take you to this radar. there s cape coral, to naples, there s the eyewall, just finally making landfall. it s not considered landfall under the middle of the eye goes over land. john? the way you described this, millions of people in the path of this storm and will feel the severe impact. as we said, the life-threatening impact. let s go to punta gorda, which could see the worst of it and very soon. our randi kaye has been there all morning long. what is your you seeing now? reporter: we are seeing some pretty heavy winds, actually. i m getting an [ inaudible ] okay. we lost randi kaye in punta gorda. the important thing to know is