this afternoon it came ashore as near category 5 strength, as a high category 4 after bidding for hours as it approached. oh, you got to be kidding me! you got to be kidding me right now! right now it is still a category 3 storm, still a major hurricane with damaging winds spanning out 175 miles from the center. oh, my god. no less troubling than the winds tonight, potentially even worse hurricane ian is still pushing a massive storm surge onshore. forecasts as high as 18 feet in places where buildings living close to the water was why so many people moved there. take a look. this is fort meyers beach, and that is a community outreach center knocked off its foundation and floating down the street. making matters worse, the flood waters affecting residents who are doing the same to rescuers. a fire station here in naples is what first responders are up against along with anyone needing emergency help. and again, these conditions are not expected to improve throughout t
that 45 miles per hour, we ll start doing some recon on the roofs and see how safe it is. we re actually looking at working with our fpl partners to actually cut some grid, the power thought gnat we have power here but want it make sure there s nothing in water going to be live that puts our first responders in harms way because we have to make sure they re safe. so what is your message to people in the city who are facing serious flooding who may be in their homes? what should they do? number one, be encouraged. number two, is actually take heed. the city of fort myers put out a cu curfew as well as lee county. so we don t want anyone leaving their homes. the last thing we need to do is put people into an unknown situation. so if they can be encouraged, hydrate themselves. we re coming for them in the morning. we have assets and resources, other different areas that sent resources. we are coming. what we need to do and i know
gheelt these individuals. we have hundreds of spondents out there trying to help. trrs he sment night and you might have listened with disapproval as he talk about trying move back to new rrp and i just want you do speak to hoe for f how fast those waters rose. you could see the skies were dark, the wind came in gently and it just kind of picked up rain speed and rained a little bit. but you started to see the storm surge coming in. and certainly we do have a cu curfew in place right now.
essentially disorganized. i was joking with the governor earlier saying oh, it s like government. so what we re seeing is the tides are starting to hit against the sea wall, hit our highway 90. we re seeing some low points of highway 90, where the water is covering the highway. we have some storm surge on the northern side of the biloxi peninsula. but other than we ve been able to keep our police officers out on the roads. they re making sure that our cu curfew is being respected by the citizenry. we ve got our boats moved utof harbors. like i said, we re hoping this is the worst of it. just going to be a rain event with some isolated flooding, aceilated power outage, and that seems to be the story here in biloxi. let s all just hope and wait and hold our breath a little
and effect rescues during the worst of the storms. they have high-water vehicles, military type vehicles that they acquired in case they need to go into 3 to 4 feet of water to rescue people during the storm which is a possibility, of course, they could also have to rescue people after the storm. a couple of other updates for you, eric. the daytona international airport is closing at 6:00 p.m., no flights in and out for the rest of today or tomorrow until the storm passes through, the bridges between daytona beach and the mainland will all close u curfew will go into effect at 9:00 o clock, tomorrow night when the worst of the winds are expected to arrive and all the schools will be closed on monday and tuesday, parents don t have to worry about that while they deal with the possibility of hurricane 4 winds here. here is some more of of what the sheriff told us a short time ago. everybody is focused on how the storm has shifted to the west, that does not mean that it