possibility of obviously life-threatening weather. storm surge they ve never seen before. everything you get with a category 4 landfall. all right. bill karins, thank you very much. and, of course, fema is already on the ground in florida getting ready for this, and we ll watch it throughout the entire four hours of morning joe. also the how select committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol postponed today s public hearing because of hurricane ian. the committee announced the move yesterday writing we are praying for the safety of all of those in the storm s path in respect is no word yet on when the hearing will be rescheduled, but the committee appears to be winding down its investigation. one committee member speaking on the condition of anonymity tells nbc news the panel is transitioning its focus to a written report outlining the panels findings over the past 14 months. joining us now, justice department reporter for the new york times, katie benner.
afternoon. just moments ago, it reached the status of category 4 hurricane. the center of the storm is then forecast to move over the central part of the state, with winds likely reaching over 130 miles per hour. the national hurricane center is also warning of dangerous storm surge and flooding, with up to 18 inches of rain expected in some areas. more than 2.5 million people are under evacuation orders along parts of coastal florida, this as governor ron desantis urging residents to leave. if you are in an evacuation zone, particularly in the southwest florida counties, you know, your time to evacuate is coming to an end. you need to evacuate now, you re going to start feeling major impacts of this storm relatively soon. powerful storm passed flat keys last night causing two
curious, guys. how do you feel about i wanted to ask this before we get off baseball. how do you feel about this wild card team thing? i m a little, like, put off by the fact we went off division and now have to maybe play the phillies or milwaukee to get to the braves or to get to the mets? this three wild card thing, i don t understand what s behind that, and it feels a little unfair to a division winner that they ve got to jump through another hoop to get to one of the division winners. so, claire, i m going to take the angst of that question and use it as we call in the news business a tease and we will answer that later s we have a lot to get to this hour. you ve had nor time. baseball time. thank you, dear. but a lot to get to very, very massive storm headed towards florida. hurricane ian strengthening into a category 4 storm this morning that s already knocked out power to all of cuba and now barrels towards the west coast of florida. more than 2 million people are
miami herd says we don t care whether desantis and biden talk as long as they cooperate on hurricane ian s reading from the editorial, they may not like each other but at least cooperating for the people of florida. the bar of bipartisanship is pretty low. all we care cooperation in face of the storm and putting floridians ahead of politics. that s what they re doing so far. we want coordination, not in-fighting. a rare thing between republicans and democrats in this era. the spirit of cooperation is hard to maintain in the aftermath of such a difficult and life-threatening event, but even if this cooperation between desantis and biden is perfunctory, we ll take it. floridians need all the help we can get, and obviously things are very raw. especially between democrats and republicans in general, but with governor desantis and the migrant issue and other decisions made, he and joe biden
that does it for us tonight, we ll see you again tomorrow, way too early with jonathan lemire is coming up next. by the time it reaches the shores of florida, the storm is going to slow down to approximately 5 miles per hour. and this is significant. because what this means is that floridians are going to experience the impacts from this storm for a very long time. as with any hurricane it can still be unpredictable. this means that it is more important than ever, that communities inside and outside of that projected path you that see, that you stay vigilant. so, my message to those who may be watching at home, get ready and do not underestimate the potential that this storm can bring. hurricane ian is slowly