hello. live in atlanta, 3:00 a.m. in florida. we continue to follow the path of hurricane ian. now, weaker, but still a major worry. that hurricane has finally been downgraded to a category-1 storm, but it s still moving menacingly right above the state of florida and heading northeast winds, approximately 75 miles or 125 kilometers per hour, still lashing large sections of the state.just 12 hours after it crashed in southwest florida as an almost category-5 hurricane. as you can imagine, there have been power outages with more than 2 million homes and businesses in the dark. that s about 20% of customers throughout the state the mayor of fort myers, meantime, saying, 96% of his entire city has lapsed with electricity. meanwhile, charlotte county, florida, telling cnn, rescuers can only do so much during the height of the storm. unfortunately, our dispatch continues to receive calls from the 911 center, and just like every other county, the emergency response, they get up a
Good morning, its wednesday, september 20th. We are following a number of stories. President trump was America First se u. N. And steps up his warnings to north korea meanwhile, republican as far as see daylight on Health Care Reform. Some gop governors arent so sure about that. The Russian Investigation rolls on with new details on whos paying the president s legal bills but first, two Natural Disasters unfolding in real time. Rescue efforts happening right now in mexico after a powerful earthquake ripped through that country yesterday and Hurricane Maria about to slam directly into puerto rico. Well go straight to meteorologist bill karins with a check on the storms latest track. Bill. Power knocked out. Roof damage done, structural damages beginning as the strongest weekends are moving on shore in puerto rico. Overnight, can you see the storm, 124mileperhour winds in st. Croix. Now the storm is about to make
landfall. Lets get into the zoomed in radar. You see san juan to the north
threatening floating. overwhelmingly, that surge has been the biggest issue, and the flooding. reporter: the monstrous trumm, making landfall with winds of 150-miles-per-hour. i ve been here since the mid- 70s. this is by far the worst storm i have ever seen. i can tell you, i m looking at this, downtown, they re offloaded, windows blown out. reporter: once the worst of the storm had, people in fort myers, already with mass floating. the storm surge is very significant. we re seeing cars and boats down the street. reporter: hurricane-force winds, bringing down power lines. the head of the storm, long lines on interstates, as residents scramble to evacuate.some, choosing to stay behind and wait it out. we re 10 1/2 feet above sea level, and the water comes into our house now. reporter: governor, ron
in this area, as well. further north, looking at the available, as far as recent storms will hurricane michael, andrew, irma, category 4 to 5 skill. charlie, 2004, that storm, eerily similar to what we saw with ian as it made landfall. in fact, when ian produced winds at 150-miles-per-hour, that s precisely where charlie ended up, as well. when speed at landfall, making it a top-five or top-four strongest on record at landfall. notice, crossing land, this storm left more than $10 billion in losses at landfall. that s what we might have happening here. looking at the comparison and the size of wintrow made landfall to where ian made landfall, essentially doubling impacted areas there. the expansion of tropical storm- force winds, just impressive.
than this storm is going to go once it intersects the u.s. and starts to make the dive to the south. so there should be no surprises. people that are evacuating, you are in the right areas to get out of there. get out of the way of this storm because it is a big one. it is powerful and it is large in size. 120-miles-per-hour winds, a category 3. that s a major wind. 150-miles-per-hour gusts. it could strengthen a little bit before making landfall, but we are expecting it to make landfall on friday as a category 3 with winds of 120 miles per hour. it is going to slow way down like we were talking about and just meander along the coast. that means more of the coast is going to be impacted because it is just going to shred that coastline. whether it goes a little bit on shore and moves to the south or it stays a little bit off-shore as some of the models have been suggesting and moving to the south, it is still going to be devastating for a lot of the north carolina coast and south caroli