millions there on tornado watch. is the west coast that could really feel the brunt getting slammed directly with life threatening storm surge and flooding in a day or so. millions of people in ian s cross hairs and boarding up the homes. people waiting in line for hours for free sand bags. mandatory evacuations were expanded. they re told it s time to leave now. fema s chief urged people to get out of harm s way. our biggest concern as we wait for this storm to make landfall is storm surge and i will note that storm surge is a leading cause of hurricane related fatalities. the decision you choose to make may mean the difference between life and death. overnight the storm made laufld in cuba with rain and winds. it is churning in warm waters of the gulf of mexico. jennifer gray is in the cnn weather center. there is a slight shift in the forecast path to the south. what does this change? basically means that areas just to the south get the bulk of the surge. with this s
lifetime. we made the decision we were going to get out and go take some somewhere else. we were going to go to a hotel, i dobt have the money to go to a hotel, this was our best bet. todd: tampa international airport will suspend all flights 5 eastern tonight in preparation for the storm. carley: janice dean is tracking the storm andin jos us now. janice: this is a strengthening storm, about to move over the western portion of cuba, strengtheneds to category three storm and has a lot of warm water ahead of it. i m concern this is already a strong storm and fact it has all of the environmental conditions conducive to more strengthening. let s take a look, i m sorry, have problems with my map. here is what we know, ian continues to intensify to major hurricane in the last hour in cayman islands and cuba and those along the florida panhandle, don t want you to say this is not going to hurt me, this will impact the whole state of florida over next 24 to 48 hours. wat
coast. here is what we know right now. you re looking live at key west, florida where rough surf from ian has churned up. soon the national hurricane center will provide an update on ian s strength and path. it seems to be changing. right now projected to hit florida as at least a category three storm. major airports are closing. tampa international will suspend operations in about an hour. orlando will be doing the same tomorrow. the city of tampa will be issuing a curfew soon when winds hit 40 miles an hour. welcome, everybody. i m neil cavuto. they are battening down the hatches as they say and preparing for the worst hoping it won t be that bad. right now this storm, well, it looks very bad. doesn t max gordon know it. he s in st. pete with more. max? neil, mandatory evacuations are underway in pinellas county. we re talking about zones a, b and c and for folks in mobile homes. all of those people need to get out as soon as they can. right now we re standing in evacuati
you re live in the cnn newsroom. hello again, everyone. thank you for joining me. i m fredricka whitfield. right now in the state of florida a state of emergency is in effect statewide, and the governor is calling up the national guard as tropical storm ian gains strength and moves closer to florida s west coast. ian is expected to intensify into a cat gather 4 had and making landfall as early as wednesday night. governor desantis is urging people to prepare now. expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornadoes. make preparations now, and i know a lot of people have been doing it throughout the state of florida and the things you should be prepared with food, water, batteries, medicine, fuel. anticipate the closer you are to where the eye of the storm makes landfall, anticipate power outages. that is something that will likely happen with a hurricane of this magnitude. cnn s patrick ottoman is in havana, cuba, where warnings ar
supplies. and today governor desantis activated 2500 members of the national guard and cnn correspondents are every angle. let s get started with tom sater. this looks like a very powerful storm that could unleash a lot of fury on the gulf coast, something we haven t seen so far during this hurricane season. and it sounds like people need to wake up and pay attention. everywhere from pensacola to ft. myers. we didn t haven would named storm for the entire month of august and now we have four of them. if it wasn t for ian, we d be talking about fiona, massive damage up in canada. notice how wide it is, the sun is out here and getting the reflection, but you can see the circulation. there is the yucatan. but the infrared satellite imagery is a mess. it doesn t look impressive at all. at 8:00 a.m. this morning, hurricane hunters had a hard time finding the center. they did find it. it can jump around a little bit. and if that center jumps around, it will change the track. and