hurricane ian has re-written the history books here across the southwestern florida peninsula as one of the strongest storms to reach this shoreline. i m in bradenton and we are nearly we are part of nearly the 2 million customers that have been plunged into darkness. that s one of my greatest concerns for people as as the storm slowly marches across the state with its powerful winds and extremely heavy rain and dangerous conditions is that people will have to endure this weather, this onslaught in the darkness of mcknight. very scary moments for people to say the least. as a meteorologist, i witnessed something i ve never seen before in my entire career. it is called reverse storm surge. the wind was so intense here this morning and actually pushed out the water from the river that s behind me here, some of the sailboats were actually sitting on their kills in bradenton harbor. absolutely incredible.
surge. tucker: yeah. we had to get high and dry as best we can. tucker: nice job. will nunnally, thank you so much for that worth. good luck tonight. tucker: we ll be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m., . sean: welcome to hannity, we begin tonight with a fox news alert. only hours ago, hurricane ian made land fall near port charlotte florida as a category 4 storm, areas around naples, fort myers, sarasota, they have been devastated by high winds and very severe flooding. new video showing water rising up to 12 feet in some areas. entire homes sadly washed away. now, this hurricane is far from over as much of florida now remains tonight in serious danger. here with the very latest we
as a meteorologist, i witnessed something i have never seen before in my entire career. it is called reverse storm surge. the wind was so intense here early this morning that it actually pushed out the water from the river, from the manatee river, that s behind me here. some of these sailboats were actually sitting on their key eagles in the bradenton harbor. absolutely incredible. we actually had a moment as well where our communications and our electricity was disrupted because transformers were blowing behind us in the distance, sending sparks well into the sky. we also drove down from the city streets here, and saw debris getting lofted into the area. some of these heavy violent gusts that continue to move through. we ve got a another few hours of some these intense wind. but not a major threat going forward, of course, is the inland flooding, with some locations already receiving 19 inches of rain. that s 2 to 3 months worth of rainfall for these locations. and it s not done yet,
has its own supplies they re the primary responders but they ll need more and then army corps is ready to go. i talked with fema director this afternoon about help removing debris from the road to get people in, we ll need heavy equipment. but the most important thing if he hasn t done so, and i expect he will, the president will approve the major disaster declaration. i led the entire florida delegation in sending a letter in support of governor desantis request because that will allow for individual assistance. now the individual, who, for example, has no home to go back to will now be able to apply to fema and quickly get the assistance they need, find a place to live, find a way to feed themselves while we work through this. and the same will be true for small businesses through the sbas, i expect that declaration if it hasn t been made will come shortly and that will open the door for the individual assistance. i think it s really tough to tell you we ve seen [audio disruption]
although tampa missed a direct hit from hurricane ian, this city right here is not out of the woods just yet. we are experiencing wind gusts at more than 60 miles per hour. and record rainfall and flooding will continue through the night. cbs david begnaud is here with us as well. good evening, david. reporter: good evening, norah. it s starting to rock n roll. we re not too far from you. i m standing where there should be water, but all day we ve been watching something quite phenomenal water pulled out of tampa bay and literally pushinto the gulf of mexico. it s known as reverse storm surge. five to six feet of it pulled out of here. now, at some point it s going to come pubbing back in with potentially damaging results. so we re on the northwestern side of the storm where you re seethe reverse storm surge, and on the southeastern side where manny and omar other and people are, you have storm surge in excess of 16 feet. bottom line tampa was going to take a direct hit. it s no