Its looking like the storm of the century. Everbody is woried about the same thing, you know, do i have a home to come back to . Norah and hundred thousands are without power with near the eighth quarter of Floridas Gas stations out of fuel. This hurricane is going to pack a major, major punch. Norah our interview with four to governor Ron Desantis from inside the states Command Center. The Cbs Evening News starts now. Good evening. Im Norah Odonnell in washington, along with vladimir duthiers, who is leading our team of correspondents in the path of vladimir duthiers, who i thank you for joining us. And as we come on the air, we are getting new information about this monster storm. A major category three closing in on landfall earlier than expected, along floridas central Gulf Coast. Millions are bracing for impact. Now the latest track just in has the Eye Of The Storm hitting the sarasota area. That is just south of tampa, a region that hasnt had a hurricane this powerfl in more than
meanwhile, the trump desantis rivalry is heating up. we ll show you how the florida governor responded to the covid criticism. we ll look at the rnc s 2024 playbook as party leaders want to double down on an issue that lost them the elections in the midterms. running straight into loserville. and today, president joe biden and speaker kevin mccarthy sit down at the white house in hopes of ending the standoff over the debt ceiling. plus reverend al sharpton joins us live from memphis ahead of his eulogy today for tyre nichols. good morning and welcome to morning joe, it s wednesday, february 1st. along with joe, good to have you back. good to be back. willie and me. we have jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay is with us. and member of the new york times editorial board mara gay. so we start with today s high stakes meeting between president joe biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. their focus, ending the standoff over the debt ce
category 4 storm leaving a huge path of destruction and millions in the dark this morning. we ll have a live report in just a moment. meanwhile, rescue crews have been busy trying to get people who decided to ride out the storm to try and save them. they re stranded now by rising flood waters and we re still tracking ian as it slowly makes its way across florida. at this hour, it still has more to go. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it s thursday, september 29th. joe is off this morning. along with willie and me, we have the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. without power this morning, first light this morning will begin to show the damage in florida. that s right. that s when we re going to start to see the story of what happened last night, what happened overnight. tropical storm now ian downgraded from a category 1 hurricane. in just the last hour, but still wreaking havoc across florida as it made landfall as a
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, in some of the coasts, but some of those inland places off rivers and off these inlets, you know, 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 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 put to use. this is i don t think we ve ever seen an effort mobilized for this many rescues this quickly. but we appreciate it and we will make good use of it. we want people to be safe. those who have who are in need of life support right now, help is on t
the devastation in very direct terms. the impacts of this storm are historic and the damage that was done has been historic and this is just off initial assessments. take a look at fort myers, close to where ian made landfall. you see the downed trees and the boats tossed around like toys. storm surges as high as 7 to 10 feet swept through surrounding areas making streets look more like oceans. ian has left more than 2.5 million floridians without power. folks who were in shelters are leaving to see if they even have a home to return to. the focus is now on the people who did not evacuate. finding a lot of the roads are impassable. we have a lot of power lines down, a lot of flooding going on. i don t want to speculate on fatalities, but we have had some reports being called into us in reference to potential bodies being found. right now the storm is moving eastward through florida with the carolinas and georgia in its sights with flash flooding a major concern. you c