zone, particularly in the southwest florida counties, your time to evacuate is coming to an end. you need to evacuate now. a life threatening category 4 storm headed right towards florida. i m john berman live in tampa this morning. brianna keilar is in washington and that is the news from overnight. hurricane ian strength jentd to a category 4 storm with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. wind gusts of 165 miles per hour. the storm forecast has adjusted somewhat south of where i am in tampa headed right towards the fort myers area in florida about 100 miles south of here, but the threat to florida is enormous. more than 2 1/2 million people under some sort of evacuation order. yes, the wind speed is a serious threat now, a category 4 storm. storm surge where i am in tampa, they could see storm surge of 6 feet which would put the water pretty much right where i m stand going it hit the maximum levels down towards where the storm is expected to make landfall. they could
and trajectory. it s expected to bring a catastrophic storm surge with winds over 150 miles per hour. the wind speed right now at 155 miles per hour. just shy of a category five storm. the eye of the storm is expected to churn somewhere between 40 meyers and venice, just south of where i am right now. hurricane ian has spawned multiple tornados in southern florida. a wide swath of florida is on alert through 5:00 p.m. today. already, alread more than 100,000 people are without power. more than 2 million people are under evacuation orders. hurricane ian is roiling seas. a big clue for what hurricane ian is capable of, cuban authorities has said the entire island has lost power. urgency and anticipation of the storm has mounted as we expect a very busy hour ahead. we ll hear from tampa s mayor in 30 minutes. we ll be speaking with sarasota officials on their own storm preparations and fema s assistant administrator. 30 minutes ago we heard from president biden. this storm is
it will severely impact millions of people and put the barrier island communities completely under water. joining me this hour, the acting director of the national hurricane center to update the track of the storm. i will talk to mayors up and down the coast as ian comes onshore. let s go to our meteorologist with the latest on the hurricane s path. what are you seeing from the latest updates? with each update, the conditions continue to grow dire. right now, we are seeing lots of rain and strong winds moving into ft. myers. if you look at the latest trajectory, we have this making landfall as a mjor hurricane, a strong category 4, 155 miles per hour winds. once you are in 157, you are in cat 5. they are seeing strong winds move into areas. streets are under water. i want to note that it s not until the center of the eye makes landfall that we call it a landfall. we are anticipating within the next three to four hours this will make landfall just outside of ft. myers and so
now hitting south florida and the storm s eye is off of cuba s coast moving into the warm waters which means the storm could grow and get for powerful. it hit werp cuba hard overnight with winds and heavy rain just at-battering the island. the forecast models have it projected to make landfall in tampa bay as a major hurricane. storm surge is one of the biggest threats from the storm. and as much as two feet of rain could be falling in some parts of florida from this. officials there saying right now they are urging people into the storm s path to make the final presentations and of course to get out before it is too late. let s start with cnn s meteorologist chad myers tracking this for us. what is the latest. it does look like the 11:00 advisory has brought this storm a little bit farther to the south. we re still waiting for what we call the discussion. all of the words that they use to describe what their reason was, what the meaning is, where this is going from here. s
go before the midterm, republicans are regaining ground on inflation, crime, and immigration. ron johnson s opponent on one of key races. and we ll show you part of katie couric s interview on the today show and share our own kristen dahlgren s difficult journey with the disease. good day, everyone. i m andrea mitchell in washington. has rescue workers in florida continue going door to door searching for survivors who could still be trapped. state officials reporting 600,000 florida customers are still without power and more than 160,000 are applying for fema assistance. president biden will tour the damage on wednesday. right now, he and the first lady are on their way to puerto rico showing how they are dealing with the devastation from hurricane fiona two weeks ago. darsha, you spent part of the weekend with fema task force. it was terrifying as they were going door to door. reporter: yeah, to be on the ground with these teams as they re conducting this dangerous a