like a freight train. we re seeing record-breaking and terrifying storm surges throughout florida and ft. myers, the water is so high pickup trucks are almost completely submerged. water levels have risen more than 6 feet in the last switch ho seven hours. let s get to tom sater in the cnn weather center. an updated forecast should come any minute now. what should we expect? it was just handed to me. forgive me for reading off. we still have a category 4 hurricane and five miles east of punta gorda. it will stay at hurricane strength through orlando. this will rake the entire peninsula. we had grove city a gust of 128. when we talk about the southern kind here, a better picture on radar will give an indication what we re looking at. here is the new track. keeps it as a 4 of course now moving inland but notice it s a category one. it will lose strength now that it s interacting with a land mass. that s typical. however, the winds have expanded now as these storms do. in fa
various places that we would do wellness checks on and everybody is in good shape for now. that s good news for now. mayor of orlando florida buddy dire. thank you. we re standing by for the news conference from ron desantis as hurricane ian slams into the state of florida with winds up to 140 miles an hour. we ll bring that to you live. the pictures from ian are unbelievable. the storm made landfall with winds so strong one of the create s wind meters broke. hold on, here is governor desantis. let s listen in. areas in southwest florida, lee, charlotte and counties beyond that, we have seen life threatening storm surge as was predicted and collier county, santa bell, ft. myers beech and inner flooding so some of the counties in the interior of the
including astronauts new become a green eggs and ham and smokey the bear. gusts up to 40, city regulations prohibit giant balloons if sustained winds reach 23. gusts exceed 34. we are right in that window. the rules changed after an incident back in 1997 when strong winds pushed a giant cat in the hat balloon into a lamp post showering degree in the crowd below and knocking out young woman and conscious. this year the nypd as officers assigned to every balloon and several sergeants with wind meters will be monitoring the floats along the parade routes. some of those thoughts more than 50 feet tall with up to 90 handlers each and their flight status will be a game time or parade time decision. we have to move a large character balloon from the route, we still have a bunch of performers that are going to be out there as well. we also have other small to the balloons as well. we have to move something off the route, that may be the situation. the bit will still go on.