shannon: this is a fox news alert. tropical storm dorian now threatening to strengthen into a category 3 hurricane as it barrels towards florida. it could make landfall there over the holiday weekend, but right now the storm was closing in on puerto rico. senior correspondent rick leventhal is reporting live from san juan. good afternoon, rick. it s been hot and sunny here over the last couple days, but in the last hour or so, condition started turning for the worse. have storm clouds rolling in. we have light rain falling and the wind is picking up just a little bit. we do expect things to get a whole lot worse throughout this afternoon and into this evening. originally, the storm is forecast pass to the west side of this island. basically, just skirting the edge of it. now it shifted all the way over to the east where they are saying that dorian could come right over the top of san juan, basically. as a very strong tropical storm, or perhaps a
off. reporter: tonight, powerful storms lashing the northeast. on interstate 87 in new york, torrential rain making it impossible to see. tractor trailers smashing, workers racing to clear trees from the roadway. hail, some of it tennis ball-sized, destroying windshields. my goodness. look at the whole truck. reporter: those storm clouds rolling into new york city. this is a really dangerous situation, as we go into the early evening hours. reporter: wind gusts downing trees and knocking out power for almost half a million customers across the region. overnight, powerful straight-line winds pummelling the mid-atlantic. tornado warnings and wind gusts topping 60 miles an hour at dulles airport. travelers there forced to hide underground. lightning sparked this house fire. our david kerley on the scene. and you can see, it struck this roof here in takoma park. it caused quite a fire. 70 firefighters basically had to empty out that attic so they
liberia, thank you to all you have done and all your fellow doctors and health practitioners that have done for the people of west africa. very good news to hear liberia is ebola free. thank you, sir. also want to show you live pictures from central oklahoma. take a look at those storm clouds rolling in as a tornado watch is in effect there until 9:00 local time. a live report, next. success starts with the right connections. introducing miracle-gro liquafeed universal feeder.
it s wednesday, november 19th. announcer: from abc news, this is world news now. good morning on this very cold wednesday. i m reena ninan. i m t.j. holmes. we ve been talking about this storm and this snow. now a deadly snowstorm now. that s where we begin. it s still pounding the great lakes region. at least four people have died in the buffalo, new york, area. the national guard is being sent to help plow roads buried under four feet of snow. this is time lapse video. it shows those storm clouds rolling into buffalo. those clouds now dumping snow at a rate of five inches an hour. let s turn to abc s gio benitez in buffalo for us. reporter: record-breaking cold for millions and an incredible wintry mess. in just 24 hours, over four feet of lake effect snow pounding the region. drifts up to seven feet. snowblower doesn t even do anything.
14,000 acres have burned in the northern part of the state, forcing more evacuations. so far, more than a dozen structures have been lost or damaged. and people are looking for higher ground on the gulf coast. heavy rainfall is causing massive flooding in escambia county. a state of emergency has been declared and people living in low-lying areas are being urged to evacuate. i spoke earlier with the emergency manager don bosh about it. we re urging all residents that are low-lying or have flooding problems, when we have heavy rains, to consider going to higher ground. maybe with friends or family or elsewhere in the county. it s just trying to get people out of harm s way is the challenge right now. forecasters say pensacola could get another five to ten inches of rain tonight. the pastor of one of the country s largest churches was on the defensive today. i want to say this very emphatically. i should have never been arrested. creflo dollar heads the mega church ch