155 miles an hour. that is just shy of a category 5 hurricane. the eye of this storm expected to make landfall just hours from now, bringing with it catastrophic flooding and also life-threatening storm surge. the florida keys getting hit hard overnight with tropical storm-force winds causing flooding, major flooding and power outages. the power of this is just enormous. the hurricane has also sparked tornado activity, one reported overnight in broward county, ripping trees from the ground. it has also caused heavy damage to planes at the north perry airport in pembroke pines, flipping aircraft like toys. for the north more than 2.5 million people are facing some form of evacuation order this morning but florida governor ron desantis says that now residents in the cross hairs of the approaching storm need to shelter in place immediately, that in effect it s too late to evacuate. if you are in any of those counties, it s no longer possible to safely evacuate. it s time to
coast of florida. 155-mile-per-hour wind speeds. that s just two miles short of a category 5 hurricane. it s expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of here in the port charlotte area. rain 12 to 24 inches across much of the florida peninsula, challenge create freshwater flooding. the impact of this will be felt by millions in florida. already 200,000 people without power. that s before the storm even makes landfall. this will uproot people s lives. its a life-threatening storm. this is the sunshine skyway bridge that we have pictures of. you can see the winds kicking up. it will have an enormous impact. let s go to chad myers first at the weather center. the 11:00 a.m. advisory out now. what do you see? still see the 155-mile-per-hour eyewall winds. inside the eye it could be down to 5 or 10 in the middle, but we re working our way onshore. the eye is not onshore. the eyewall is coming onshore. this is what it looks like from space, this is called the visible image
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
n ordered to evacuate as hurricane rita now is bearing down on the state shr gulf coast in just a moment.t. florida governor rhonda santos will join us first herest with the very latest from thisrs category three storm weather. in meteorologist ian oliver is with us in thisoliver. looks like it s going to be a direct hit right over. looks like somewhereoks li nortr fort myers, right towards tampa. yeah, anywhere from naples. igto the southern part of tampa bay, the mouth of tampa bay: stl still a reasonable scenaril o ao here. this is a monster of a storm, still a category three , as your mentioned,ee max, winds at 120we miles per hour. we actually had this inner eye wall that s been degrading, but there s an outer one that s forming. what that does is it spreads out the wind field overh a much larger area. we ve seen these impacts starttw already. tornado warnings throughouarnint the afternoon and evening across much of south florida. we ve got some active onesh flom right
it is just shy of that now. we won t get ahead of the news on this. we are expecting an official storm update at any moment. i m harris faulkner and you are in the faulkner focus. hurricane ian is now carrying sustained kinds of 155 miles per hour. if they gain to 157 it s a category 5. the biggest threats facing floridians are massive storm surge, raging winds, inland flooding, tornadoes, experts already using words like catastrophic to describe hurricane ian s potential. 21/2 million people are under evacuation orders. for those people in the storm s path directly, that swath that i just told you to the south, cape coral and to the north sarasota. it s too late to evacuate if you re still there according to the governor. governor desantis also saying it is time just to hunker down for you. he spoke last hour. this amount of storm surge. it will have very ferocious winds and it will be life threatening. people are taking a risk with their health, safety and lives by bein