just after 3:00 p.m. east coast, the eye crossed over a barrier island near ft. myers, florida. this is a live look at the satellite right now. you can see the immense size and strength mof the hurricane. the winds are 150 miles an hour. that s just shy of making this a monstrous category 5. this was the scene just ahead of landfall captured by a storm chaser in pine island, florida. these conditions are expected to worsen in the coming hours, believe it or not. more than 850,000 customers are without power across the state of florida. another major concern today is the storm surge. the storm surge is the abnormal rise of ocean water that s generated by the storm. the lee county sheriff expects that to be, quote, life changing today. that area includes ft. myers and the city of cape coral where the emergency management manager tells cnn, hurricane ian will likely be one of the worst the region has ever seen. we are covering the storm as only cnn can with our team of journalis
this hour, and on the ground frenzy in the state. millions under mandatory evacuation orders. the entire state faces flash flooding. and then record-shattering storm surge, water officials say as high as 18 feet. enough to swallow two suvs stacked one on the other. one official warning if you are caught in that surge, you simply will not survive. let s get straight to our correspondents on the ground binning with beginning with bill weir. what are you seeing and what are you told to expect? reporter: this whole community is really bracing for the worse. the new numbers this morning sunk the pit of the stomach everyone here, trying to think about a 17 foot storm surge. and we re on the back side of the storm and this is sort of the reverse storm surge. locals never see this exposed seabed here. we re looking at crab traps and oyster beds blowing around in the wind with the rest of us here. but of course the water as the storm comes ashore will fill in fast. and we re next
to be seen. there are programs that fema has. but it is not going to be commensurate to having had a policy. this is an issue we will have to d deal with. we deal with this. when you have this about the homeowners policy will cover certain things, but the flood policy covers probably the most significant risk for most homeowners in florida given the risk of flooding that we have in so many parts of our state. so we re sensitive to that. there is, obviously, going to be some folks that are going to be in need of support and relief and we are, obviously, going to work as best we can. i will say that people have been asking about some of the overall homeowners insurance with like citizens. citizens i think right now between 6 and 7 billion of surplus. their modelling for this was that they would still have between 4 and 5 billion in surplus. so they view themselves as being able to weather this. individual carriers have to go through a stress test to be able to have their polici
stream of traffic, a scene leaving the tampa area. this happened overnight. people trying to get inland from the coast taking cover. the storm, perhaps, testing their patience. one tampa resident waited three hours to get free sandbags. a u.s. military insulation, moving aircraft can and naval ships out of the tampa and jacksonville areas. an idea how big the storm is, nasa released this video of hurricane ian from the international space station. all right. i want to bring in michael brennan, acting deputy brechter of the noaa. the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. michael, thanks, again, for joining us today as well. so tell us, obviously tampa low-liaring. what is the greatest threat? along much of the west central florida coast from tampa down to the fort myers area. since yesterday seen the track shift farther to the south or to the east. expecting the center of the end to cross the coast of west central florida near the south of the region increases r
they have four shelters opening this morning at this hour here. they can hold about 4,000 people. but the evacuation order right now under way for zone a is about 40,000 people. so they re hoping that they will use those shelters as a last resort and go find family or friends on the east coast of florida or just get out of town. i spoke with the spokesperson for the emergency operations center here in punta gorda and he told me that their motto is hide from wind and run from water. he said a wall of water is not your friend. so you don t want to stick around here in punta gorda. certainly the north of here as you know, there is a lot of concern and the tampa area, the st. peterburg mayor certainly has been voicing his concern saying this could be the storm that they never hoped would come to their shores. and, of course, the director of the national hurricane center saying that this could be the storm of a lifetime and the near worst case scenario for tampa bay and that is be