rescue there. you can see these people absolutely devastated and so fearful that they weren t going to survive this. so grateful to the people that are helping them. you have a baby there wrapped in a blanket. a family that is just trying to get to some dry land. winds and flooding. they ripped up asphalt. look at this highway. look at that. that is sanibel, florida. lee county is devastated in a way that we have not seen in a very, very long time. the sheriff there fears he said this earlier today and it got a lot of attention and we hope the numbers don t come to true whigs. he fears there could be hundreds that lost their lives here. the house burst into flame in sanibel isle area. and now we have georgia and south carolina. what they re preparing to get ready where they are. we have fox team coverage across this devastating situation. first to steve harrigan who joins us. we watched him get blown hard around there in placada, florida. good afternoon to you one day lat
miles an hour. it down trees and power lines, even without power. created storm surge in areas like fort myers and naples, florida. officials are warning residents about potential for flash flooding overnight, some areas inland could see over two feet of rain. let s go now to nbc news meteorologist michelle gross. michelle, you have been following the storm all day. what is the latest? i, there we are looking at really strong storm still. it is moving inland but we are still seeing winds at 90 miles an hour. so it s still moving on to his strength. it was a very storm strong category four storm, almost category five, really wide in distance as well and moving very slow. so, it s three things that kind of came together to make the worst-case scenario. we saw a really strong winds up to 135 mile an hour wind gusts in cape coral. and i was the story with the storm surge. what storm surges is a push of wind. it s a push of water, salt water, onto dry land. so, we saw feet,
like a freight train. we re seeing record-breaking and terrifying storm surges throughout florida and ft. myers, the water is so high pickup trucks are almost completely submerged. water levels have risen more than 6 feet in the last switch ho seven hours. let s get to tom sater in the cnn weather center. an updated forecast should come any minute now. what should we expect? it was just handed to me. forgive me for reading off. we still have a category 4 hurricane and five miles east of punta gorda. it will stay at hurricane strength through orlando. this will rake the entire peninsula. we had grove city a gust of 128. when we talk about the southern kind here, a better picture on radar will give an indication what we re looking at. here is the new track. keeps it as a 4 of course now moving inland but notice it s a category one. it will lose strength now that it s interacting with a land mass. that s typical. however, the winds have expanded now as these storms do. in fa
to be seen. there are programs that fema has. but it is not going to be commensurate to having had a policy. this is an issue we will have to d deal with. we deal with this. when you have this about the homeowners policy will cover certain things, but the flood policy covers probably the most significant risk for most homeowners in florida given the risk of flooding that we have in so many parts of our state. so we re sensitive to that. there is, obviously, going to be some folks that are going to be in need of support and relief and we are, obviously, going to work as best we can. i will say that people have been asking about some of the overall homeowners insurance with like citizens. citizens i think right now between 6 and 7 billion of surplus. their modelling for this was that they would still have between 4 and 5 billion in surplus. so they view themselves as being able to weather this. individual carriers have to go through a stress test to be able to have their polici
devastating some of the most important tobacco farms used to produce iconic cigars. you are watching fox and friends first, i m carley shimkus todd: i m todd piro, our reporters are live this morning. janice dean is in the fox weather center in new york city. carley: we begin in st. pete s beach, on track to be one of the first places hit today. lauren, what are you seeing on the ground right now? still dry at this moment and looking ago, later today that will not be the case. this morning ian is expected to strengthen to a category four hurricane, before moving to a hurricane three in cape coral. storm surge could reach 10 to 15 feet. tornados reported last night near miami, thousands are without power. that number is expected to go into the millions, 30,000 personnel are standing by to get the lights back on once the worst of the storm passes. ian devastated cuba as category three, knocking out power to the entire island. 2.5 million people have been told to evacuat