let anyone know that if they have a boat, get people. our coverage of hurricane ian continues now with anderson cooper 360. the sheriff here in lee county told reporters about the afternoon destruction that is everywhere tonight. no words to describe what we saw and are seeing in the present tense, which is important to note, because this is an ongoing disaster in florida and potentially in coastal carolina. hurricane in yes, it is a hurricane again taste is taking ada. this is what it did to fort myers beach. is the most impressive storm ever to hit this part of florida. here is our first look at the area from above. it is far from the only look at the destruction that can be revealed from the air. in struct the barrier islands hard severing the bridge to pine island, as you can see here, along with the santa bell causeway which is impassable tonight. it also did considerable damage to marinas up and down the coast, pushing even larger boat around like toys. florida
of the florida coast of that this is sanibel island, an island decimated by hurricane ian. right now there s no way to get help in to sanibel. the only bridge that connected the island to the mainland, it s a long causeway, it s caved in. so there s no way to get on or off the island unless you travel by boat. and that s been incredibly difficult for anyone to do. and that loss right now spans the florida coast. i ll show you cape coral. our bill weir was here today. this is a picture he took. you can see home after home totally destroyed and flooded. the ones that are still standing, you can see siding ripped off. at one point ian s winds were 155 miles an hour. we re going to have much more from bill weir in a moment. not far from where he took those images, ft. myers beach, striking images of what is left. not much. the beach community 48 hours ago looked like that. now, take a look at this. estero boulevard, 24 hours later. a restaurant called the whale surrounded by debr
coverage of hurricane ian. still very much a hurricane. still extremely dangerous bearing down on orlando this mor morning at this moment. we will go there. there are so many different stories to this devastating storm. one of the most powerful ever to hit florida with winds of 140 miles per hour on landfall. at this point, 20 inches of rain have been measured in so many different locations including here in tampa. you can see some of the limited damages even here in tampa. that appears to be roofing or some kind of siding just torn off of the building. that s just part of the story. the real story is south of here, venice, port charlotte. fort myers. i m hearing a helicopter above me. which is a good sign. maybe they re leaving from here to go help people in need further south and there is so much need. enormous storm surge. 12 feet in some places. just swamped. familiar cities, naples, fort myers. you can see rivers just floating down the middle of the street. as i said, th
yeah, that s right, look, as you mentioned it s weakened now to a tropical storm, but weakened or not, ian is still one for the record books cutting this brutal path across florida s west coast. as much as 20 inches of rain fell in some areas. this morning, there s 14 million people under flood alerts. more than 2 million homes and businesses are without power across florida. and that intense flooding that berman mentioned there in places like fort myers and naples, here you re seeing pictures of those areas, it s leaving people who decided to ride out the storm just trapped in their homes. berman. yeah, the sun will come up soon. cnn has live team coverage up and down the coast. up into orlando, where the storm has yet to hit. our first report is from our randi kaye in punta gorda, florida, rand di, i am so happy to see you well this morning. thank you, john. good to see you as well. we got up early, we re trying to make our way to fort myers, which we know was so hard
morning, particularly in the areas that were hard hit, just understand, this is still a hazardous situation. those folks that were in there, in the wee hours of the morning, were taking big risks as first responders navigating this. you have power lines that are down. you have trees that are down. you have a lot of hazards right now. we do anticipate a lot of the water will subside in some of the barrier islands and some of the coasts, but some of those inland places off rivers and off of these inlets, you re likely to have standing water there throughout all of today and even in the days ahead. so that is a hazard. and just please be aware that that is something that you if you ve weathered the storm to this point, going and doing and getting involved in that is just totally not worth it. and we want to minimize any harm to anybody as a result of what we re seeing right now in the streets. we have had 26 states provide support. we really appreciate that. it s going to be p