at 19, a number that is almost certain to rise in the days ahead. the u.s. president warming up thursday poll of a lot of loss of life as one official sank likely the biggest natural disaster disaster the state s ever seen. that s the biggest disaster in florida s history. tens of thousands of emergency workers and deployed statewide. now 2 million homes and businesses stay with the electricity. large parts of the state are underwater. instead it s a one in 1000-year rainfall. the governor ron desantis decided describe the storm surge is biblical. some of the damage was almost under scribe-able to see a house just sitting in the middle of a sterile bay. you must be flown because of the massive wind speed and storm surge and deposited in a body of water. there were cars floating in the middle of the water. some of the homes were total losses. he is expected to hit south carolina and coincide with high tide on friday, greatly to increasing the potential for flooding. the go
Have been until after the storm passed. this is going to be something that will lead significant impacts and particularly in this part of the state. you ve got to go back to the late 1800s to find a storm in this magnitude. that will enter where this one looks like it s going to enter tomorrow. so we do not really have a historical analog in anybody s memory so it s likely to cause a lot of damage and that is just a reality. prepared. let s bring in meteorologist karen mcguinness at the cnn weather center. on the verge of crossing to a major hurricane. forecast to get there. what do you see now this moment? there was an audible sound coming out of our weather office with this latest update. hurricane center sending advisers. at the top of the are this one came in. we were expecting this to be
Coming into at 150 miles per hour, producing this type of storm surge, dumping weighing, rain, causing flooding, and if he can make it through that, you probably did it pretty good. so this is a 24/7 effort, to stabilize, and to restore. and ian swamped across the port charlotte for about above and below, forcing hospital employees to move patients. very, very quickly, we got people out of the icu. the problem then ended up being that the water flush down the stairwell that as we see here. and on to other floors. we saw scenes of flooding all over central florida. residents say they never seen the water rise so fast. the rain was unrelenting for hours and people are just hoping to dry out sometime soon. reporting in orlando, florida, ryan young, cnn. let s get the latest now, meteorologist karen mcguinness, very important to find out where exactly in it, so we know that this has been a changing event all evening.
College football will have one fewer bowl game this holiday season. the university of hawaii has pulled out of the hawaii bowl partly because of issues with covid. the rainbow warriors were scheduled to face the university of memphis tigers later today. now, earlier this week texas a&m pulled out of the gator bowl against wake forest. rutgers will take its place. it looks like some parts of the u.s. are going to get a white christmas. meteorologist karen mcguinness has the latest. for holiday travelers, very hazardous conditions we re expecting here thanks to that atmospheric river, the big push, stretch of moisture across the pacific and it s aimed at the west coast. so, coastal rainfall? well, there s going to be some coastal snowfall. places like seattle expecting snow for christmas. there is a state of emergency for the entire state of oregon. they re saying very hazardous
Well. she is triple vaccinated. the first vaccine she had with prince philip last year, we didn t hear about the second or third jab. we are getting a tight lipped response in terms of her health, really everyone hoping she remains well. rosemary? of course. a lot of concern on the streets there. anna stewart joining us live from london. many thanks for that. well, millions of americans are under a winter weather alert across the u.s., and it could plunge them into arctic-like conditions. meteorologist karen mcguinness joins me live. good morning to you. what s behind this polar plunge? we are looking at an arctic deep freeze, unlike what we have seen in recent months, anyway. this arctic air is going to fall behind a frontal system that is dipping towards the south. some of these temperatures for