We want to extends a special welcome to our Fox News viewers. Im meteorologist are arti from our studios here in new York City and weve been covering helene over the last several hours over the last several days. This has been an extremely well forecast storm, before it even formed down in the western caribbean. It looked like something like this was going to happen, so again, we still have technically a Hurricane Storm and Hurricane Center will probably see it downgraded slowly throughout the night, but one unique thing about helene, this particular storm is that it was very large, right . So large storms take a longer time to lose their strength as they move inland so you look up here to the north. Not only do we have a long Wind Damage to get, were going to see some hikely catastrophic rain, and i want to bring Ian Oliver. He started out in st. Petersburg beach and hes now made the trek over to tampa, so kind of on the other side of town, and ian, whether you started on the of other
hello, and welcome to our viewers in the united states. and around the. world i m john. vause with the cnn center in atlanta. almost nine hours now since hurricane eta made landfall in southwest florida. and this monster storm continues to cause widespread flooding. and storm surges in 12 feet high in places. tonight, statewide. like trustees outed more than 2 million homes and businesses, and the power grid so badly damaged parts there are concerns it may need to be rebuilt. ian arrived at the state went just shy of a category five. it s since been downgraded to a category 1, but still remains very dangerous. authorities warning the worst may yet be to come. ian is now slowly moving into central florida, with winds around 90 miles or 145 kilometers per hour. time lapse video shows water levels rising on the streets of fort myers, south of where it made landfall. the national hurricane center said the storm surge on florida s west coast has likely peaked, and is now startin
12 feet higher, devastating communities like for the myers, naples and some 2 million homes and businesses are without power in florida, that is 20% of the entire state and 96% of fort myers is in the dark. one official saying it could take weeks for the power to come back on in some areas. floodwater inundating areas like naples and port charlotte. these are pictures of that area leaving some people who decided to ride out the storm trapped in their homes, others rescued from their cars, berman. the danger also continues, we should note. reporter: it absolutely does continue. the storm not done yet. brianna, i m sorry for communication problems earlier. the fema administrator told me they are prepared for thousands of displaced people, thousands perhaps of long-term displaced people. so that is what people are up against here in florida right now. cnn s got live team coverage of ian still very much a powerful force. first i want to go to the national hurricane center. mike
155 miles an hour. that is just shy of a category 5 hurricane. the eye of this storm expected to make landfall just hours from now, bringing with it catastrophic flooding and also life-threatening storm surge. the florida keys getting hit hard overnight with tropical storm-force winds causing flooding, major flooding and power outages. the power of this is just enormous. the hurricane has also sparked tornado activity, one reported overnight in broward county, ripping trees from the ground. it has also caused heavy damage to planes at the north perry airport in pembroke pines, flipping aircraft like toys. for the north more than 2.5 million people are facing some form of evacuation order this morning but florida governor ron desantis says that now residents in the cross hairs of the approaching storm need to shelter in place immediately, that in effect it s too late to evacuate. if you are in any of those counties, it s no longer possible to safely evacuate. it s time to
coast of florida. 155-mile-per-hour wind speeds. that s just two miles short of a category 5 hurricane. it s expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of here in the port charlotte area. rain 12 to 24 inches across much of the florida peninsula, challenge create freshwater flooding. the impact of this will be felt by millions in florida. already 200,000 people without power. that s before the storm even makes landfall. this will uproot people s lives. its a life-threatening storm. this is the sunshine skyway bridge that we have pictures of. you can see the winds kicking up. it will have an enormous impact. let s go to chad myers first at the weather center. the 11:00 a.m. advisory out now. what do you see? still see the 155-mile-per-hour eyewall winds. inside the eye it could be down to 5 or 10 in the middle, but we re working our way onshore. the eye is not onshore. the eyewall is coming onshore. this is what it looks like from space, this is called the visible image