off of the gulf coast there. we re not going to get a sense of it until tomorrow. but yes, it looks pretty path down in. and we ll be talking about this later in the hour. thanks, chris. and thank you for joining us. hurricane ian continues to create a swath of in made landfall just after 3:00 this afternoon in southwestern florida, near k o connor, a island off of the coast of fort myers. ian came ashore as a category four hurricane with 150 mile per hour winds. just a few miles per hour shy of a category five. only for hurricane stronger than that have made landfall in the united states ever. but it is not just the strength of the storm, it is the size. this is the view of hurricane in from the international space station this afternoon. just showing how massive the storm is. the national river describes in as battering the florida peninsula with tied and winds, and flooding. ian has just now weakened to a category two storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles
is almost 10% of the population of florida. that means over 90% of people in florida to have electrical power. the number of people without electrical power is expected to rise as these slow-moving storm cuts across florida with hurricane-force winds. a major concern right now and overnight would be flash flooding caused by the heavy rains. more than two feet of rain is predicted in some areas, officials are warning residents to shelter in place if they have not evacuated. as many cities today are suspending rescue efforts until the storm passes. we begin with nbc news meteorologist bill for the latest. bill, what is the situation now? we are watching a storm that is weakening overland, but we still have areas that are losing power at this hour. we know we have people who need rescuing, need help from us. what happened during the day today, that is the situation as we go throughout these overnight hours. the center of the storm is over sebring, florida. it is about halfway
Scenes were coat apocalyptic and a real disaster. the damage in florida tonight already looks bad, but we may not be able to tell that just how bad until morning. that does it for us tonight, we will see you again tomorrow, our special coverage of hurricane ian continues now on the last word with lawrence o donnell, good evening. lawrence we are going to continue the live coverage as you said, thank you very much, alex. we are continuing our live coverage of the situation in florida as alex said. hurricane ian has now been downgraded to a category two storm. the hurricane made landfall just after 3 pm today in southwest florida as a powerful category four storm, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the united states. hurricane ian is causing record levels surges, potentially as high as 12 feet in fort myers and naples, florida. more than 1.9 million people are without power tonight, that