punta gorda. trees whipping, winds topping 130 miles an hour. across florida there are people trapped in their homes. entire homes being flooded out, people swimming inside. one city hit hard is bonita springs. part of that city are now completely underwater. the storm surge has knocked homes completely off their foundations as well. and to the south of there, the city of naples cat 4 winds there have completely demolished buildings. look at how high up that obviously you never know what s in these waters now. you ve got chemicals and everything in the middle of these towns. according to forecasters, the storm surge reached more than 6 feet, flooding cars and homes, even leaving rescue crews stranded. the water was so high that officials had to wade through it to rescue people who did not evacuate. and let us show you one astonishing image from just before ian came ashore. look at that. it s almost like a tsunami was coming. the winds and the storm actually sucked all the w
fort myers, no longer working. we re getting wind gusts higher than 128, 130. naples, we re not getting information in this entire region anymore. it could be just power outages, it could be more than that. when you look at the winds, this is one we didn t know about until recently. cape coral, 140-mile-per-hour winds. we re still seeing surge coming in on the south side. we ve got over almost 1.6 million without power. we believe this number will most likely double, if not more than that. in fact, we could have 3.5 million as this moves toward the orlando area, which could still be at hurricane strength toward orlando, getting off toward the coast. we ve got warnings now up on the georgia and south carolina coast for surge and tropical storm effects. so, again, it s going to re-emerge. but the strength and the angle of approach, instead of just cutting right across central areas of florida, it s really encompassing the entire state. and it s not just the hurricane winds that extend ou
said. and we make sure if we get calls that we can go to those areas, but we just make sure everybody is safe. that s our main goal right now. absolutely, keisha. and what is your biggest concern right now? i know in tampa all those waters receded from the bay almost like before a tsunami, and they haven t yet surged back in. we have lot of water still going to come in. we re worried about communication with our teams as well the surge coming back in and having the flooding, and so we re waiting for those calls, and if we can assist we will. and i know you re already facing tropdle storm winds where you are. we re hearing about a storm that is going to be unprecedented in terms of its impact on the entire state of florida. what does it mean for you this storm is going to be so powerful and destructive even inland? we re taking all routes possible, and we re sitting tight where we are.
breaking news, the mayor of tampa warning that the worst of hurricane ian is yet to come, asking everyone to shelter in place. the city bracing for the massive storm. they haven t gotten a storm surge yet. john berman saying that water all but retreating and going to come in with a vengeance with a massive storm surge even as already the winds and water have done such damage. i want to go to brian todd in nearby st. petersburg. brian, what type of damage are you seeing where you are? even just look at your shot i can see devastation. reporter: it really is devastation, erin. we ve just been able to fan out into some of these areas as the brunt of the storm has passed. we know some more of the storm is coming, so we re not out of danger yet by any means, still getting pounded by wind and rain. this is the largo area just north of st. petersburg. we came across this house completely burned out. check this out.
foundations, swept away. i know that one of those was not far from where you are right now. obviously you re still in the midst of this. but how much damage has this storm already caused? well, it s quite a bit. and our teams, for the safety of our employees, we ve not sent them out to do full damage assessment at this point. so, we will do that as soon as the winds get to a level that is safe to send people out. but, from what we can see here, our city hall is not real severe, but we know that when winds like this and the storm surge like this, we ve not seen a storm this strong in years. so we were prepared for it to be fairly significant. we keep hearing about the storm surge. in tampa all that water has gone way, way out in the bay, and still hasn t returned. in fort myers, i know you have seen some storm surge already. water s rising more than 8 feet, i understand, in just the past