in the united states and all around the world. i m john vause at the cnn center in atlanta. i knelt when i am in florida where hurricane ian bringing record storm surges, flash flooding in an unknown amount of destruction. it made landfall with winds just under category five, now it s a category one slowly moving into central florida with winds around 145 kilometers an hour. millions of homes and businesses have been left in the dark. some so badly damaged by ian that there is concerns that they may not be able to be rebuilt. the governor of florida warns about the dangers that lie ahead. overwhelmingly it s been that surge the biggest issue and the flooding that as resulted of that in some areas we think it s hit 12 feet. this is been a big storm and it s done a lot of damage as it is. it s gonna continue to move through the state of florida. you are gonna see hurricane-force winds in places in central florida perhaps. it s clearly a very strong tropical storm. a storm w
yeah, that s right, look, as you mentioned it s weakened now to a tropical storm, but weakened or not, ian is still one for the record books cutting this brutal path across florida s west coast. as much as 20 inches of rain fell in some areas. this morning, there s 14 million people under flood alerts. more than 2 million homes and businesses are without power across florida. and that intense flooding that berman mentioned there in places like fort myers and naples, here you re seeing pictures of those areas, it s leaving people who decided to ride out the storm just trapped in their homes. berman. yeah, the sun will come up soon. cnn has live team coverage up and down the coast. up into orlando, where the storm has yet to hit. our first report is from our randi kaye in punta gorda, florida, rand di, i am so happy to see you well this morning. thank you, john. good to see you as well. we got up early, we re trying to make our way to fort myers, which we know was so hard
morning, particularly in the areas that were hard hit, just understand, this is still a hazardous situation. those folks that were in there, in the wee hours of the morning, were taking big risks as first responders navigating this. you have power lines that are 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 and some of the coasts, but some of those inland places off rivers and off of these inlets, 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 ve 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 p
top of the hour, this busy thursday morning, i m jim sciutto. i m poppy harlow. welcome to our viewers. the breaking news we are following this morning, hurricane ian leaving just stunning devastating destruction in florida as a hurricane then a tropical storm. still pummeling the state though. 14 million people in florida are currently under flood alerts. 2.5 million businesses without power along with homes. they re rescuing people trapped inside flooded homes. governor ron desantis spoke about the devastation so many are waking up to this morning. there s 1.5 million outages in 7 southwest florida counties. lee and charlotte are basically off the grid at this point. the amount of water that s been rising and will likely continue to rise today even as the storm is passing is basically a 500-year flood event. the impacts of this storm are historic. and the damage that was done has been historic and this is just off initial assessments. well, the risk of storm surge and
inflation reduction act after a republican amendment in the vote-a-rama past with democrats like kristen sinema, voting in favor of it. this is making the legislative marathon even longer as republicans continue to try to make this process as painful as possible. democrats are painting the eventual expected passage of the bill as a major victory, hailing what is in it for the american people. vote after vote after vote we have done this with no sleep 11 hours straight. why? because we know this bill is finally going to do something about climate change. lift the ban on negotiating less expensive drugs under medicare. and then as the name of the bill says, bring inflation down by 305 billion dollars a deficit reduction. oil need 50 votes. we don t need 60 we don t need any republican votes to do something significant for working families in this country. unfortunately, for fairly well known reasons we have conservative democrats. we couldn t get the 50 votes that we need r