speaking of the storm, live updates from florida throughout the morning as the state braces for the now category 4 storm to make landfall along its western shores likely early this afternoon. also ahead the nation s first president s envoy for climate. former secretary of state john kerry will join the discussion. morning joe is just a few minutes away. minutes away. with merrill. moving his money into his investment account in real time and that s. how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company.
spinning toward the west coast of florida this morning. bringing with it life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds and flooding. we ll have a live report from tampa in just a moment. and also ahead, a former d.c. metro police officer does not hold back at a sentencing for a capitol rioter. plus, we ll dig into new data that suggests significant covid waves could be coming this fall and winter. good morning. and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, september 28th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us and we re going to begin in florida where millions of residents are bracing for hurricane ian as the powerful storm barrels towards the state intensifying every hour. the storm is expected to make landfall on the southwest coast of florida, as early as this
for high winds, for projectiles to fly around, telling residents to hunker down. this is the real deal. that is, if they haven t evacuated. millions of people in the state of florida are under an evacuation order right now, and they should be out. the governor saying there will be real damage. emergency officials saying the damage is potentially and probably going to be significant. to expect communication to fail and for massive power outages. again, we ll be tracking hurricane ian as it is expected to make landfall in the next few hours. the state of florida is going to be a direct hit. we re now 40 days away from the midterms, and if one thing is becoming clear, women are going to be the deciding factor in november. according to a new survey from emerson college and the leadership now project, 56% of swing state independent women voters say they are very
it is never safe to walk or drive through flooded areas. we continue to coordinate with all of our electrical partners as the governor mentioned. over 30,000 linemen stationed throughout the city from north central florida all the way down to miami. as areas in south florida and the keys begin to experience power outages remember to contact your service provider, not 911, for power restoration. you can also keep your rerefrigerators shut. open them at little as possible to help preserve perishable items. using a generator, we ve been saying for days, remember to keep it elevated, on a hard surface, away from doors and windows, outside of garages. this will help you stay safe. if residents have any questions about resources for hurricane ian, i urge them to reach out to their local emergency management or public safety office. this storm is here.
meaning it will crawl over the state of florida over the next several days dumping up to two feet of rain in spots. as far as alerts go, 21 million at risk. a lot of people. looking at hurricane warnings from tampa, fort myers. we expect that landfall right near fort myers. show you that track in a second. but this is devastating. looking at a category 4 storm and then right near landfall i know 155 mile-per-hour winds. that s going to cause a lot of damage. looking at winds, looking at storm surge. remember, water is the number one reason why people die in hurricanes. whether it s the water from the sky or it s water from the ocean. that s what we ll see going throughout time here. now, just not the coast of florida. it s inland, too. we ll see it maintain strength as it heads inland. category 1 storm 12 hours later moving, again, so, so slow. then move towards the northeast of florida. hop into the atlantic once again and then it s going to make a third landfall as we head toward