we begin with our chief meteorologist rick reichmuth in the fox weather center. rick? yeah, landfall about 55 minutes ago just around the georgetown, south carolina area. that s where the worst of the storm surge is. the storm surge on shore already. winds sustained were 85 miles an hour. a category one storm. we look at the satellite picture. looks like a mess. it s turning into a more typical storm that you might see in the northern latitudes or at least a combination between those two kinds of storms. the rain field will stretch out. we ll see the wind field stretch out as well across a lot of areas. in general, a weakening wind trend now that we have the storm over land. the winds gusting 46 miles an hour. that s an offshore wind. that is pushing water, not allowing storm surge there to be coming on. we have rain here. some of the storms out across east earn north carolina will have a tornado thread there. there s one tornado warning out there to inside of the outer
this is don lemon tonight, you re watching our coverage of in, making its way up the florida peninsula. we have all the news coverage this evening, it is dumping rain on this entire area. lots of water. but also the wind, pushing the wind all across the state of florida. our crews are out in the field, we re covering it all for you. we ve got bill weir, bill is joining us from punta gorda florida, also brian todd is in is in derek van damme is in breaking tin for us. i want to other meteorologist, our expert, mr. tom seders in the weather center. tom, i am getting so much rain, lots of rain that have been dumped on me for the last hour. and it seemed to come in on cue, we re watching the radar, the rain came right in. it s just sitting on top of us, not going anywhere. in fact that northern periphery of the storm system in the last couple of model runs in the last couple of days really has been showing that that northern periphery is where we re gonna have that heavy rain
top of the hour, this busy thursday morning, i m jim sciutto. i m poppy harlow. welcome to our viewers. the breaking news we are following this morning, hurricane ian leaving just stunning devastating destruction in florida as a hurricane then a tropical storm. still pummeling the state though. 14 million people in florida are currently under flood alerts. 2.5 million businesses without power along with homes. they re rescuing people trapped inside flooded homes. governor ron desantis spoke about the devastation so many are waking up to this morning. there s 1.5 million outages in 7 southwest florida counties. lee and charlotte are basically off the grid at this point. the amount of water that s been rising and will likely continue to rise today even as the storm is passing is basically a 500-year flood event. the impacts of this storm are historic. and the damage that was done has been historic and this is just off initial assessments. well, the risk of storm surge and
today. authorities first responders and volunteers awaiting opportunity to rescue those in need and we are told there s many who need need. more than 2 million people without power as the damage assessments either are beginning or are about to begin. we ve got team coverage with fox contributor beginning west where hurricane ian is headed. good evening. hickam a trace. since we last spoke, the amount of people without power in orange county is more than double. overy 69,000 without power are in orange county and we are still waiting for the worst of what hurricane ian has to offer with this part of the state and we have seen the devastation in southwest florida. a place that i ve lived. the storms going to hit the orlando area like it is right now, possibly downgraded to a tropical storm but either way it s going to dump a lot of rain on these communities. over 40 inches expected with sustained winds of 75 miles per hour and we see it best right now. i want to show you if
is almost 10% of the population of florida. that means over 90% of people in florida to have electrical power. the number of people without electrical power is expected to rise as these slow-moving storm cuts across florida with hurricane-force winds. a major concern right now and overnight would be flash flooding caused by the heavy rains. more than two feet of rain is predicted in some areas, officials are warning residents to shelter in place if they have not evacuated. as many cities today are suspending rescue efforts until the storm passes. we begin with nbc news meteorologist bill for the latest. bill, what is the situation now? we are watching a storm that is weakening overland, but we still have areas that are losing power at this hour. we know we have people who need rescuing, need help from us. what happened during the day today, that is the situation as we go throughout these overnight hours. the center of the storm is over sebring, florida. it is about halfway