welcome back to way too early. it s coming up on 5:30 a.m. on the east coast. 2:30 out west. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for being with us. president biden is promising that his administration will support floridians every way it can, as hurricane ian nears landfall. so, i want to be clear about two main messages. first, my administration is on similarity and in action to help the people of florida. and approve florida s request for emergency assistance immediately responsible receiving it from the governor when i received it. and i directed my team to surge federal assistance will before the storm hit. the second thing i d like to mention the citizens in the potential impact area should obey the instructions of local officials. evacuate when ordered and be prepared for the storm when it comes.
hit in about 1100 years. so people don t know exactly what to expect. as you might imagine, 100 years ago there were a lot fewer people living here now this is a metro area with upwards of 3 million people. so, if you go out on the roads this morning, it appears that most people are hunkered down. they re waiting for impact here. not many people out. most people, 2.5 million people under mandatory evacuation orders appear for the most part to have gotten out and gone to higher ground. and remember, this is not just a landfall story. this story is going to be had the continuation of this storm as it slows down and moves inland. sure it will lose some of its wind power. but the rain will continue to pour down, as it moves over towards orlando. it will cause flash flooding. trees and power lines down. we re already seeing about 20,000 power outages in south florida so far. and as it goes off the east coast of florida, it could even cause storm surges in places
for getting up way too early on this wednesday morning as we keep an eye on the hurricane bearing down on the east coast. morning joe has complete coverage starting right now. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it is wednesday september 28th. we have a lot to get to this morning s in just a moment we re going to check in with bill karins and get a live report from nbc s kerry sanders of the powerful hurricane now barreling towards florida. we re also following big developments out of russia and ukraine. there was no surprise in the upcome of those sham elections aimed at annexing parts of russian-occupied areas of ukraine. plus new reporting on what the kremlin is doing to prevent russians from fleeing to avoid being drafted into its faltering war. all of this as the nuclear threats from top russian leaders
too motivated are the ones we really got to get out if we re going to make sure that the democrats have a shot at holding the house. and that is a critical element of this poll. ceo and co-founder of the leadership now project, daniella ballou-aares, newsweek s tom rogers, thank you very much for coming on. and up next, the director of fema joins us live as hurricane ian crawls closer to making landfall in florida. now just shy of category 5 strength. morning joe is back in a moment. before we begin, i d like to thank our sponsor, liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. and by switching, you could even save $652. thank you, liberty mutual. now, contestants ready? go!
yeah. no, i think that is a safe bet they will stay in some touch, but this will be a subplot we watch and certainly will assume if indeed the storm is a big one and cause a lot of damage president biden will probably head to florida maybe sometime next week. the ap s darlene superville, thank you. still ahead, wall street looks like it will open in the red this morning. cnbc is joining us live about the serious losing streak for the markets. we ll be right back. be right ba.