Now i ll see you tomorrow evening. I m kaitlan collins. This is the source hurricane helene is about to slam into florida and i expected to make landfall and just a couple of hours from now, it s now an extremely dangerous category four storm and winds are now up to 140 miles per hour. If it stays this strong, it ll be the strongest storm to ever make landfall in florida s big bend region. That s the area that we re keeping a close eye on. This hour, more than half 1 million people there have already lost power. And forecasters are predicting tonight that the storm surge in some areas could be unsurvivable reaching as high as 20 feet surges and high winds were already the reason for the closures of several major bridges in the tampa area that we saw tonight? officials, there are telling residents to shelter in place, that it is going to get worse and don t go outside. Emergency managers and one florida county are being so blunt with their warnings for those who are in low lying areas a
Cnn breaking news good evening. I m abby phillip in new york. Our special coverage continues tonight of hurricane helene, a monster category four storm that is now moments away from making landfall in florida. At this moment, it was too late now for folks along the coast too evacuate. Officials warned that the winds and the storm surge will be be catastrophic in some areas, the word that they are using is unsurvivable helene could be the strongest storm on record for the big bend region. And we are already starting to see a major surge in these cities. So we have our anchors and our correspondents. They re fanned out as the storm is now hitting and we have chad myers as well with the latest forecast in the cnn weather center. Let s go first to john berman. He s out in tallahassee in the socalled dead on a hit zone, john, what s happening where you are right now? yeah the winds have really started to pick up abby over the last half an hour. The rain really coming down here, you can see
Theyre saying it could Go To 9 . That would be worse than two years ago, except it would be selfinflicted, really key line from the authors here. They say that we find ironically that the spot fight his make the foreigners pay rhetoric. This package of policies does more damage to the u. S. Economy than to any other in the world which kate, i just think brings us to one of the ironies here, right . The economy is the number one issue. Voters say they trust trump over harris on the economy. And yet these experts, when they dig into the policies, they he say that he wouldnt just fail to fix inflation. He would actually make things worse brutal, brutal analysis for sure. Thank you so much. Matt were going to head over to florida right now where the governor of florida is holding an update on Hurricane Helene as its making its way to the Gulf Coast and major general John Haas from the Florida National Guard as you know, as of 8 00 a. M. Hurricane helene is now a category two hurricane. It
Of them is going to lead the country just a good reminder and a pretty stunning, pretty stunning clips there. Alright, panel. Thank you very much. And thanks to All Of You for joining us. Im kasie hunt. Dont go anywhere cnn new central starts right now breaking overnight the mayor of new York City, Eric Adams, indicted and facing at least one federal Criminal Charge following a corruption investigation, the mayor says hes innocent, but hell now need to surrender to federal custody in a matter of days right now, florida is feeling the outer bands of helene is topicals, is tropical Storm Force winds since hit the coast there, a category one hurricane continuing to strengthen as it inches closer and with it, the potential for an unsurvivable Storm Surge where i am in tallahassee, the capital, florida bracing for the most powerful storm this city has ever seen it wont stop here millions of people over five states we are tracking it all on John Berman in tallahassee. Sara is out today. Kate
Saying yeah, we have a category three hurricane on our hands right now, what 125 mile per hour winds my point that out because it category four hurricane starts at 130 mile per hour winds, so were really talking about a difference of five to ten miles per hour here, right . So right now, its a very Highend Category three teetering on that category four, which is why the national Hurricane Center is saying, hey, look, its still sitting over very warm from Ocean Waters right now. It has all the ingredients it needs to strengthen. So theres really not much to stop it from gaming that five miles per hour that it needs to just get to that category and become a category four either way, whether its this Highend Category three, or it makes that fivemile per Hour Difference to a category four. We are still talking about the Sam Catastrophic on survivable impacts when it comes to the Storm Surge and heavy Rain And Everything else. Weve been talking about, the radar. You can see again still with