Bill thank you sean we are live here as milton is a major storm here in central and western and Eastern Florida tonight. Hurricane milton battering florida moving on shore making landfall as a category three storm 90 minutes ago downgraded earlier from a category five in the Gulf Of Mexico. Lifethreatening storm with a surge upwards of 10 feet expected in several areas of the West Coast. And its a very fierce. Weve got live coverage we will get to it right now. Steve has been in tampa all Day Adam is live in the Weather Centre. What are you seeing right now tonight cree. A sideways rain with heavy Wind Gust. The wind has been strong enough to snap small trees here with those being pushed down so you can imagine how difficult it will be for people to get around and rescuers to move around. With major distraction we arent seeing it in the buildings. We arent seeing Street Signs and is interesting to hear the mayor of Tampa Bay and Governor Desantis says going to be a few hours on your ow
punta gorda. trees whipping, winds topping 130 miles an hour. across florida there are people trapped in their homes. entire homes being flooded out, people swimming inside. one city hit hard is bonita springs. part of that city are now completely underwater. the storm surge has knocked homes completely off their foundations as well. and to the south of there, the city of naples cat 4 winds there have completely demolished buildings. look at how high up that obviously you never know what s in these waters now. you ve got chemicals and everything in the middle of these towns. according to forecasters, the storm surge reached more than 6 feet, flooding cars and homes, even leaving rescue crews stranded. the water was so high that officials had to wade through it to rescue people who did not evacuate. and let us show you one astonishing image from just before ian came ashore. look at that. it s almost like a tsunami was coming. the winds and the storm actually sucked all the w
because the eye is east of us now. it should be relaxed in these winds, but it has been relentless. maybe it s the slow nature of this storm. think about what it did when upon its arrival, another rapid intensification at the worst time possible, spinning itself up like a top and then releasing its energy in the form of cat 4 winds over 150 miles per hour. just an incredible gruesome and grueling day for the people and the residents who live here. we have seen transformers pop behind us, lighting up the sky, providing almost a bit of a fireworks show, and then at times we were witnessing this phenomenon i d never even heard of called reverse storm surge when the winds were so strong it was literally taking the water out of the manatee river that s just behind me here and the bradenton harbor, just incredible. now that the winds have shifted, that water is now coming back
those transformers pop. we have team coverage all morning long. meteorologist janice dean is here in the studio. she has been tracking this storm s path as you know. griff jenkins is live in folly beach, south carolina. but we start with aishah hasnie in charleston, south carolina where they are worried about the flood surge and aishah, it s already started. it has. people are saying time is running out. guys, time is up. we are in the thick of it. this is where it begins. it s raining down really hard on me right now and the wind gusts that keeps slamming me sometimes i lose my balance sometimes up to 40 miles per hour already. we are seeing some of those tree branches and palm leaves come shooting down on top of us. right behind me you see one of the many, many flooded streets in charleston. and i m not even going to try to go in there to show you how deep it is. i can tell you it was ankle deep about an hour and a half ago. i m not going to go in there now because as you can see
proves me wrong. it s unpredictable. you don t want to come out in there. there s the big gust. you don t want to come out in this. we saw people walking around and driving around. it s not a good idea. stay home. stay inside. don t come outside. when you do, when the sun does come up, be careful driving around. there are so many trees down in this area. you never know when there will be a live power line involved with a tree being toppled. indeed. driving around may be severely compromised. there have got to be places where there are trees down. suzanne kennedy, thank you so much for that. you re welcome. indeed, one other place we know about where there s a tree down, this one had much more violent intent, did the two that suns was telling us about, the 3700 block of ingamore street in washington, d.c. a tree went into a house and knocked out power. it s 4:00 now, 4:01. we want to do resetting for you. maybe the most potentially serious situation, frankly it s not all