seeing as the day concludes what is happening there on the ground. amen, authorities have been working on restoring the power, something that we have been discussing. we are learning more and more about the stories of those that survived. it is really interesting when we talk to some of those individuals who were here during the storm, some people might ask, why didn t they evacuate? the governor today talked about that. initially, over the weekend, before the hurricane hit, the projections had shown that the hurricane would go north into the tampa area. and it is crazy to think that some people, the governor said evacuated tampa, and came into this area because initially they didn t think the storm was going to come here. so some people might be thinking, why a lot of the residents stayed here during the storm, of course it slowly made its way here. we are just learning these stories. we have been working in this area right at the entrance of fort myers beach. there is a s
biden spoke directly to the americans and puerto rico well at fema headquarters earlier this week, watch. what we are seeing the devastating images and florida i want to be clear, to the people of puerto rico, we are not gone away. i am committed to you, and the recovery of the island. we will stand by you for however long it takes to get it done. president biden says that he plans to visit both florida and puerto rico and conditions allow. so when we come together to help those in need in florida, and the carolinas, please do not forget our fellow americans in puerto rico, they need our help, our empathy, and the resources of the federal government. we are going to start the second hour of ayman now with an update on the aftermath of hurricane in. let s go straight to nbc s god vinegars who joins us from fort myers. it is our live report from florida, tell us what you are seeing as the day concludes what is happening there on the ground. amen, authorities have been wor
i m pamela brown in washington. we re following two major stories on this sunday night. hurric hurricane fiona hammers ps puer rico and it could be days before the lights are back on. president biden pays tribute to queen elizabeth with final mourners in line to pay respects. tomorrow s funeral is hours away. you re in the cnn newsroom. and we began tonight with the latest on hurricane fiona. the storm has made landfall along the southwest coast there, puerto rico and officials say the entire island is already without power and the storm is causing catastrophic flooding. i want to turn to cnn laeyla santiago who is live. what are the conditions like where you are right now, leyla? reporter: we re on the forth eastern part of the island, capital san juan. still coming down, still rain, still wind. in the southern part of the island, the same if not more. the last time i talked to you, we talked about the critical patients, the hospitals and buildings that depend on power f
even the middle keys could be 2 to 3 feet. you will certainly get some very fast water flowing through the cuts there, especially in the lower and the middle keys. but where it goes from there is the size of this cone getting bigger and bigger and it is because this is the average error times a little bit. so two-thirds of the storm should fall into this cone. this is a completely different storm if this side of the cone is involved. this is a different storm for tampa if this side of the cone is involved. i think everybody is kind of looking down the middle because the computer models are trying to figure it out. the gfs, the american model, was way out west, started charging to the east. the european model is way over here, started charging to the west and now they re literally only 50 to 75 miles apart. so that kind of gives you a good runway. it also gives us a good runway if that actually occurs what the storm surge threat might be. from tampa to inglewood, bonita spring
a pretty low lying area. that storm surge they re preparing for, what exactly might that look like when it comes to the businesses and the homes in that area? reporter: well, to give you a sense of howe things look where we are right now, we re at a park that s surrounded by three bays, the old tampa bay, the tampa bay and then that third bay. what they re worried about, especially the folks in pinellas county, that storm surge is going to flood things no matter what. even if that forecast track ends up having ian moving parallel to tampa bay and the tampa area, they still believe we re going to see a lot of that water making its way inland. so they want folks to go ahead and come out and get these sandbags. the lines at these three locations were pretty long. it s our understanding they re going to continue to do this today and tomorrow and most likely into wednesday. however, emergency officials again have been telling folks, try to get this done early because we could