devastating some of the most important tobacco farms used to produce iconic cigars. you are watching fox and friends first, i m carley shimkus todd: i m todd piro, our reporters are live this morning. janice dean is in the fox weather center in new york city. carley: we begin in st. pete s beach, on track to be one of the first places hit today. lauren, what are you seeing on the ground right now? still dry at this moment and looking ago, later today that will not be the case. this morning ian is expected to strengthen to a category four hurricane, before moving to a hurricane three in cape coral. storm surge could reach 10 to 15 feet. tornados reported last night near miami, thousands are without power. that number is expected to go into the millions, 30,000 personnel are standing by to get the lights back on once the worst of the storm passes. ian devastated cuba as category three, knocking out power to the entire island. 2.5 million people have been told to evacuat
air we are looking at key west. this is a live look you the entire state is bracing for potentially catastrophic the say s response 90 minutes from now. pete: we have live fox team coverage janice dean standing by with the latest storm track. nicole valdez live in florida. we start with multi media journalist robert ray live in fort myers. robert? good morning to you here in fort myers beach. a key inlet to the gulf of mexico and, guys, the storm is starting to come in. we are seeing the deterioration of this island. take a look. if rick can look up here into the palm trees and you see they are starting to sway. we get these heavy rain bands that come in from time to time. i have to say the big issue here is the storm surge. where i m standing right now here later this morning, expected potentially 8 to 12 feet of storm surge. we need to get out of here at some point. and we are monitoring that. the gulf of mexico just a football field away. we re monitoring those waves c
florida. the exact point of landfall is still unclear. the storm is growing stronger and also wider. prompting hurricane warnings across the entire state of florida. bill: ian tore through cuba. it knocked out power to the entire country. left 11 million in the dark. look at the satellite images. it set off a series of lightning strikes, the wind speed intensifies. 155 miles per hour clocked right now knocking on the door of category 5. dana: mandatory evacuations are affect being millions of people. everyone else should be ready to leave at a moment s notice. ron desantis underscoring the extreme threat this storm presents. it is knocking on the door of a category 5 storm. a storm of this magnitude will produce catastrophic flooding and life threatening storm surge. time to hunker down and prepare for this storm. it is a powerful storm that should be treated like you would treat if a tornado was approaching your home. dana: fox news and whether have our resources cov
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
keep coming. willie? yeah. start in florida, though, this hour, mika. millions of residents are bracing for hurricane ian as that powerful storm barrels towards the state getting stronger by the hour. just this morning it became a category 4 hurricane expected to make landfall in the southwest coast of florida as early as this afternoon. the center of the storm forecast to move over the central past of the state with winds reaching more than 130 miles per hour. the national hurricane center also warning of dangerous storm surge and flooding with up to 18 inches of rain expected in some areas. more than 2.5 million people under evacuation orders along parts of coastal florida. the powerful storm passed the florida keys last night causing a couple of tornadoes and some damage there. officials say there also is significant flooding across that area. yesterday the hurricane battered western cuba knocking outing the island s electrical grid, causing a nation-wide blackout. offic