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
this is absolutely nuts. ainsley: that is new video already showing the storm s power as it brings devastating floods down it the key west area. we expect to see more of those, tossing planes around like toys. todd: we have team coverage now. fox weather correspondent nicole valdez. we start with fox weather correspondent robert ray in fort myers. robert? ainsley: trouble obviously with his microphone. we can t hear you, robert. right now, it does look bad. fox weather correspondent nicole valdez continues our coverage, she is in tampa. we are only starting to rapidly see conditions deteriorating here for the tampa bay area as hurricane ian, that now category 4 storm. you just mentioned with winds at 155 miles per hour. it is teetering on a category 5 storm. you heard governor ron desantis there saying our emergency management officials are planning and preparing to see a category 5 storm. that is how seriously they are taking this situation knowing what we could se
rising causing residents to track towards higher ground. absolutely nuts. brian: more than 70,000 floridians are without power this morning. governor ron desantis urging residents to get out. time to evacuate is come to an end. you need to evacuate now. the governor will give another update in just about 30 minutes. we will bring that to you live. first, we have live fox team coverage janice dean tracking the storm s latest path. fox news weather we start with robert ray in fort myers. robert? good morning. you know, as light is about to come up here and these rain bands and window really intensify, conditions are deteriorating here in fort myers beach. the gulf of mexico, just a football field over there. churning up. i was just over there. when it gets light, we will show you that. you can see right now, these heavy bands as hurricane ian is right out there. the eye center is about 70 miles from where i m standing it s 30 miles wide and the window fell well over 300
are pointing to possible foul play with russia sparked by the war on ukraine. a mother assaulted by a homeless man pointing the finger at new york city mayor eric adams, the mayor said we would have more cops in the subway and the cops would be patrolling because that is where the worst of the crimes we are having, especially places like howard beach station, there was nobody. her eye is swollen shut, the suspect has a disturbing criminal record, including beats handwriting grandmother to death when he was 14 years old. carley. carley: absolutely sickening, turning to this, sheriff of spokane, washington says the homeless population is spiralling out of control and he says officials refuse to address it. entire sector of our city and the city of spokane, has lost