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
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