hello, and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m john vause, at the cnn center in atlanta. as we head into the midnight hour on the u.s. east coast, almost the entire state of florida is bracing for the impact of hurricane ian, a monster storm stressing 500 miles across. which earlier made landfall on cuba, blocking out the eyelids electricity grid and causing a nationwide blackout. 11 million people right now are in the dark, waiting for morning to assess the damage. as of, now there are no reports of fatalities. since leaving cuba, ian has grown in strength, fueled by the warm waters of the gulf of mexico, as it heads towards florida, now category 3, with sustained winds of 135 miles per hour. along with life-threatening storm surge, florida is facing catastrophic flooding and strong powerful winds. all they, long tuesday, residents across the state braced for the hurricane to make landfall. now expected the first forecast, and further south.
and that s one of the biggest concerns we ve got right now. and it s a little bit south of fort myers, and i m watching this path of the storm. and it looks like it could potentially, worst-case scenario, for the fort myers cape coral area with a massive storm like that being able to push that, that water up into the coast emergency officials seem the slow-moving nature of the storm and how long florida will be delimit. listen to fema. by the time it reaches the shores of florida, the storm is gonna slow down to approximately five miles per hour. and this is significant, because what this means is that floridians are going to experience the impacts of this storm for a very long time. a very long. time how does that translate into actual time on the ground in terms of hours or days? and when will florida actually be clear of ian? so, it looks like, once it comes onshore, make a little bit of a turn to the north and actually go right through the