spinning toward the west coast of florida this morning. bringing with it life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds and flooding. we ll have a live report from tampa in just a moment. and also ahead, a former d.c. metro police officer does not hold back at a sentencing for a capitol rioter. plus, we ll dig into new data that suggests significant covid waves could be coming this fall and winter. good morning. and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, september 28th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us and we re going to begin in florida where millions of residents are bracing for hurricane ian as the powerful storm barrels towards the state intensifying every hour. the storm is expected to make landfall on the southwest coast of florida, as early as this afternoon. just moments ago, it reached the status of category 4 hurricane. the center of the storm is then forecast to move over the central part of the state, with winds likely re
set by roger maris. we ve got a similar scene of celebration on the field in milwaukee where the st. louis cardinals wrapped up the national league central with a 6-2 win over the hometown. this marks the sixth straight year since they clinched a playoff spot. st. louis seals the first playoff spot and brewers won last year s central league title. so there s only one division up for grabs. that s the national league east. let s get an update. it s a downright odd eighth inning for marlins pitcher richard bleier. he got himself ejected for the first player since 1900 to balk three times during the same at-bat. it s not really clear what he
but no major delays in atlanta. the world s busiest airport. the security lines are creeping up. up the east coast, philadelphia is seeing problems. they are beginning to see delays in newark as well. . more than four million passengers expected through the holiday season and more than 98 million travellerers in total are expected to travel more than 50 miles during this holiday season. the vast majority will be on the roads. as we saw earlier, a lot of severe wet wither threat yesterday. as the winterer storm rolls east, there will be a lot to watch this christmas eve. back to you. gabe gutierrez, thank you very much. now back to the developing story we are following this morning. let s go to clayton, missouri, where the st. louis county police chief is talking about the fatal police-involved shooting. operating a hrk maed car in