replacement cycle. what that means is the heaviest con injection near the center is spreading out. once it spreads ut and it gets better organized, it collapses again and gets stronger. but not only does it get stronger, it pushes those winds outward. as you mentioned just moments ago, it is getting bigger. i mean, hurricane-force winds are about 80-milewide swath, and that will grow in size. that s going to affect more citizens and residents in florida. other problems we re having right now, these feeder bands have been moving in and producing numerous tornadoes with damage and broward county, downed trees, even north of miami we had plane damage as well. we had one north of naples, so we got a tornado watch that is in effect for a very large area. but what s significant about this, it s in effect until 5:00 a.m. in the morning. that is staggering. these tornadoes are not like the ones we see in the southern plains. they re not monsters. they re spin-ups, maybe ef1s or
expected to make a direct impact, it could get a 12 foot storm surge. the net effectiveness, it could be devastating and could cause widespread power outages. for that i m now joined by brian reuter who is with florida light and power. thank you so much, sir. i keep hearing dave, i m sorry. i keep hearing widespread power outages. what does that mean? good morning, john. yes, thank you. you know, there certainly is the potential with a storm of this magnitude for us to experience widespread power outages in this territory even as the feeder bands have impacted the territory over the last 24 hours. we ve seen that. we ve managed to restore 120,000 customers already in between the storm bands. at the present time we have 50,000 customers up. so 50,000 customers out. 120,000 who were out but are now
day. so the ground is already saturated you drop the last few days with the feeder bands leading up to this you look at some of the estimates online it s 15 inches of rain. you drop that on an already sat temperature rated ground here in southwest, florida. we recall going to have extensive flooding. i m sure we have it already day breaks and start to get rainfall. that is the biggest concern on top of the window and on top of the other it rain. people don t realize the rain we already have and dropping 15 inches on top of that pretty catastrophic when it comes to flooding. carley: that s a great point. influx of new residents tampa s mayor told the new residents to listen to the old timers. listen to the old timers, listen to the people who have been around mother nature wins every time.
the storm s path. what are we looking? at the radar imagery, john, the sister really an incredible depiction of the storm system with a massive i, about 100 miles south southwest of naples, florida you notice as these outer bands, the feeder bands are ushering in some moisture from portions of florida, as far east as miami, coral springs, tornado warnings popping up meaning tornadoes imminent or occurring as a result of this. as we often see this with landfall tropical systems, as these outer bands kind of interact and get friction within lands, it creates these tornadoes that pop up and that is going to be one of these concerns. you get these nocturnal 20th into the overnight hours, they can catch people off-guard. of course, just part of what hurricane ian has to offer, sitting at 120 miles per hour sustained winds, just ten hours shy category four hurricane, and the concern moving forward is that the system has everything it takes. to florida into a category four within the next
the entire city of new orleans without electricity. some outages could last for weeks this is a massive electrical power that collapsed during hurricane ida with several feeder bands, all throughout new orleans. a lot of people think this may be one of the epicenters of the city s power problems. so many tonight anxious about how long this could last. reporter: you look at this, and you re thinking we re not going have power for weeks, if not months exactly exactly right. it will be a long time before we get power here again reporter: all of it beginning sunday as the powerful storm made landfall. the eye wall of hurricane ida is now approaching new orleans, and we re feeling those hurricane gusts, somewhere around 85 miles per hour and the sad part is things are only going get worse. and they did winds reaching more than 170 miles an hour on the coast power lines like these stood no chance. the rain relentless. testing the state s upgraded levees, which thankfully appeared to ha