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
it will severely impact millions of people and put the barrier island communities completely under water. joining me this hour, the acting director of the national hurricane center to update the track of the storm. i will talk to mayors up and down the coast as ian comes onshore. let s go to our meteorologist with the latest on the hurricane s path. what are you seeing from the latest updates? with each update, the conditions continue to grow dire. right now, we are seeing lots of rain and strong winds moving into ft. myers. if you look at the latest trajectory, we have this making landfall as a mjor hurricane, a strong category 4, 155 miles per hour winds. once you are in 157, you are in cat 5. they are seeing strong winds move into areas. streets are under water. i want to note that it s not until the center of the eye makes landfall that we call it a landfall. we are anticipating within the next three to four hours this will make landfall just outside of ft. myers and so
Spend sending items. there will be thousands that will need help rebuilding, and floridadisasterfund.org or text disaster to 20222. for those who want to come volunteer, we have an official volunteer portal, we understand how significant this storm is. yes, an immediate response, yes, there will be things that happen with recovery, eventually there won t be much media attention on this as the weeks and months go on, but we understand a storm of this magnitude is going to require an effort over an
0 from the shoreline to the back bays and also to rivers inland. so, know your high tides. we are looking at the images, increasingly dire. stay inside as the storm approaches and wreaks havoc, pray for the charlotte county community and the rest of florida as we toss it over to america reports. john: any moment now we are expecting an update from florida governor ron desantis as the eyewall of hurricane ian begins to move on shore bringing with it the potential for catastrophic damage. hello, john roberts in washington. sandra, welcome back. sandra: good to be with you, sandra smith in new york. america reports, a quickly developing situation, ian expected to make landfall between 2 and 4:00 p.m. right now packing top winds of 155 miles an hour. that is just a couple miles shy of a category 5 hurricane. john: when you get that high it does not make much of a difference. forecasters warning of the storm surge could be as high as 18 feet as the eyewall comes on shore. sand
Union as well? i hope that the process of making ukraine part of the u.s. is gonna be a little bit easier now, and we ve seen ukraine fighting on its own, and making its own fight against the russian invasion. ukraine will need help rebuilding after this. so that you should be something easier for ukraine. nato, on the other hand, it s gonna be a little bit more complicated, because of the different negotiations we re seeing with a nato about what happens if russia attacks and nato country, while pursuing this for ukraine. we re seeing tanks running out of belarus that are really close to the border of poland. so i think that s gonna be a little bit trickier for ukraine to navigate, but after this, i think its path will be a little bit easier to join nato that it was before. kimberly, i gotta ask you. amna and i sort of said, we ve come to this as journalists. you are an x we heard in the region. what is it that you are watching for next? tonight. i think tonight, overnight, the