dagen mcdowell, amy and hegseth is here. forecasters say tropical storm ian will likely regain hurricane strength. it will pick up more power. hour by hour you have been showing so many different things as the sun has been able to come out and give a good visual on this, where are you now? i m at a marina just outside of downtown fort myers, i m standing on top of so much debris, the water is keeping me afloat. there is wood, stirofoam, boats thrown around like toys, you see here, there are life jackets and you name it, it is peer, powerful wind and storm surge that push around incredible vessels like they are nothing, they are twisted and snapped? are upside down, many have rammed into each other, just noise people described from last night. saying when this occurred, this looked like dominos, concrete piers were ripped apart and two or three blocks from here, the storm surge coming in on historic downtown fort myers making roads and beautiful quaint streets who rivers
customers in florida. and the other major concern at this hour, the tornado watches in effect into the night. airport closures, the ripple effect now, and this hurricane now headed inland. headed straight for orlando before then tracking north. alerts at this hour up across florida, georgia, and now the carolinas. our meteorologists ginger zee and rob marciano both on the ground again tonight with our team across florida. also, the acting deputy director of noaa s national hurricane center right here with us tonight. what concerns him most as we head into the evening hours. the other major news this wednesday night, the u.s. state department now urging americans to leave russia immediately. the american embassy warning russians may force americans with dual citizenship into military service. and the allegations involving potential russian sabotage of the pipeline that would deliver russian natural gas into europe. ian pannell inside ukraine tonight. in this country, the m
cuba saw significant flooding and, is just now getting power back in some areas after nearly the entire island was plunged into darkness. now this morning, is ethan s world toward tampa, residents woke up to this eerie sight. nearly all the water had receded out of tampa bay. the storm pulled all the water from the shore as it s winds whipped around, counterclockwise, before shoving it back towards land hours later. around the same time, the natural hurricane center increased their predictions for how much storm surge ian will bring. the revised estimates stand 12 to 18 feet along the coast, from inglewood to benin a beach. you can see here in the purple section on this map. you have seen waters rise to record-breaking levels throughout the day. that s naples. naples, florida, the water road six feet above the normal high tide, nearly submerging cars. in fort myers beach the storm surge has driven the water 8 to 20 feet, flooding homes, leaving some residents trapped. one fam
through pitch dark southeast florida. many power outages are reported throughout the state, and already there about 2000 flight cancellations for today, many of them for orlando, tampa and jacksonville airports. it has been it has been downgraded to category one hurricane, but it s still very dangerous. the winds are slowing, but catastrophic with life-threatening flooding. we get life updates on its path and destruction. in orlando, there were estimates that as much as 20 inches of rain could have fallen, and it s been hammering the area for hours. let s go right to jesse coach who was there. i hope you re someone save, you were talking about having to go to higher ground earlier, especially the location being too dangerous. yes and at this point we are dealing with pretty consistent rainfall here. there were bands of it earlier, we continue to see gusts of intense wind. but the rain is been falling for hours. and you can see we talk to a short while ago with the wat
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