earlier demonstrated just how powerful those winds can be. there is the wind speed, as i am standing next to the building. i will take a knee. oops. i ll have to take a knee there. okay. you guys got it i m going back out. the powerful winds created record level storm surges in areas like fort myers and naples, florida. over 2 million are without power tonight. and flash flooding is still a major concern, with potentially up to 30 inches of rain predicted in some areas. let s go now to nbc news meteorologist michelle grossman for the latest on hurricane in. michelle, hurricane ian has been downgraded to a category one storm. what should residents in its path expect over the next 24 to 48 hours? i, they re great to see you. they can expect flood and rain we. need to prepare for that flash flooding. when it comes to water and hurricanes, that s the number one reason for deaths in hurricanes, it s the salt water, the storm surge that we talked about, and also fre
we also saw a lot of rainfall in a lot of spots. we continue to see rain falling because it is moving very, very slowly. it is this was really a water s, a big water, sorry and it will continue to be a big water story of the next days. over 17 inches of rain fell in some spots. most spots will see over 15 to 20 inches. and some spots may even see 30 inches of rain. let s take a look at the latest hurricane. a category one storm, 70 mile south of orlando. winds with 90 miles an hour. there was a really strong winds. the lights are out in many spots if they are not that we are going to see more power outages with those winds gusting tonight. we are going to hear those winds howling almost like a freight train. if you need to get to interior portions of your house, closets, bathrooms put a mattress over you if you need to, if you hear those winds really strong. because those are almost tornado like winds. eight miles an hour that slow, not quite as slow as we thought it might be, we t
allowing a lot of rainfall. we have a lot of tropical alerts, storm phase, this is really rare to see a hurricane warning going across the entire peninsula. we ve got warnings from southern florida all the way up to portions of georgia, into the carolinas. because this will be the next story as we head through our time here. but we do have tropical storm warnings. still, that means we are going to feel tropical storm winds. we are feeling them right now. also hurricane warnings, that means we are feeling those hurricane winds right now. so the radar showing us that we are looking at heavy rain falling. this is what the story is going to transition into, a heavy rainfall event, flash flooding. we could see some deaths. it is life-threatening. over the next 24 to 36 hours. where you see these darker colors the reds, the oranges, the yellows that is where we are seeing the heaviest rainfall, along i-95, i-75, i-four, especially, hopefully you are not out, but if you need to be out i
that. once that sun does rise, we are going to see all the devastation. people are going to return to their homes, and eventually is going to take a while it may look very different. their house may not even be standing. this will take days, weeks, even months. it could be into the new year before we start to restore everything that was damaged. because we did see catastrophic damage. locally, because it s 24 inches of rain, even higher than that in some spots, isolated 30 inches of rain. that is two and a half feet of rain. they will receive two and three months of rain in two or three days. that is really significant. because the groundswell grounds are already saturated. they had a very wet september they being the state of florida. we are adding to that. trees are going to come down. more power lines are going to come down, power outages are going to extend as we go throughout the next day or so. wind we are looking at winds. winds gusting up to 72 miles per hour, st. augusti
feat, of some storm surge. right now we re looking at heavy rain falling, we re looking at those winds, 90 miles an hour, that was as of the latest advisory at 11:00. the next one comes at 2:00 in the morning. it s moving northeast at eight. that is slow but we are expecting a slower pace at 3 to 4 miles per hour. we don t think it is going to get that slow, but still, calling across the state of florida. and what that means is, it s going to light for more rain to fall. you could see all this heavy rain here, the brighter colors, the reds, the oranges, the yellows, that s where we are seeing the heaviest rain falling and we will continue to see heavy rain falling at only tonight but also tomorrow and friday before start some about the coast and affect portions of georgia and also the carolinas. so looking at radar again, category two, that was before the 11:00 advisory category one storm with that heavy rainfall. we have a flash flood threat. that is going to be the major story over