ripped through the state as a powerful category 4 storm. almost a category 5. the highest, most powerful kind of you hurricane there is. sheriffs deputies in sarasota county are going door-to-door right now in the hidden river community warning neighbors about the potential for flooding because of a possible levee break. days after the storm, the effects still being felt across the sunshine state. meantime, more than 1.2 million floridians are without power. officials say it s unclear when electricity will be restored to the hardest hit areas in the western part of florida. ian is being blamed not only for the loss of property that you are seeing on your screen, but also as least 45 fatalities. that number likely to grow as rescue crews gain access to areas that have been blocked by damage. the coast guard says it has rescued more than 200 people so far and volunteers have gone out to save even more. the cajun navy, a volunteer group, came to the rescue of a woman in fort m
we begin with our chief meteorologist rick reichmuth in the fox weather center. rick? yeah, landfall about 55 minutes ago just around the georgetown, south carolina area. that s where the worst of the storm surge is. the storm surge on shore already. winds sustained were 85 miles an hour. a category one storm. we look at the satellite picture. looks like a mess. it s turning into a more typical storm that you might see in the northern latitudes or at least a combination between those two kinds of storms. the rain field will stretch out. we ll see the wind field stretch out as well across a lot of areas. in general, a weakening wind trend now that we have the storm over land. the winds gusting 46 miles an hour. that s an offshore wind. that is pushing water, not allowing storm surge there to be coming on. we have rain here. some of the storms out across east earn north carolina will have a tornado thread there. there s one tornado warning out there to inside of the outer
climb along with the flood waters. we re learning at this hour that sheriff offices across the coast getting a number of calls from people trapped in their homes they didn t evacuate but as the lead county sheriff s office said winds need to drop to 45 miles per hour for them to safely attempt these rescues. we re going to have every corner of this disaster covered from reporters on the ground to residents in its path. but we begin in an area where residents have been advised to shelter in place, the tampa saint pete region and that s where we find fax weather s max gordon who is standing by. max what are folks bracing for there tonight? p pfrjts hey there, laura. well, this is an area where folks here were expecting the storm to make a direct hit and although it moved further to the south we aren t necessarily out of the woods just yet. some areas here are expecting around 20 inches of rain, and we are experiencing some of those heavy bands of rain right now as well as those
like a freight train. we re seeing record-breaking and terrifying storm surges throughout florida and ft. myers, the water is so high pickup trucks are almost completely submerged. water levels have risen more than 6 feet in the last switch ho seven hours. let s get to tom sater in the cnn weather center. an updated forecast should come any minute now. what should we expect? it was just handed to me. forgive me for reading off. we still have a category 4 hurricane and five miles east of punta gorda. it will stay at hurricane strength through orlando. this will rake the entire peninsula. we had grove city a gust of 128. when we talk about the southern kind here, a better picture on radar will give an indication what we re looking at. here is the new track. keeps it as a 4 of course now moving inland but notice it s a category one. it will lose strength now that it s interacting with a land mass. that s typical. however, the winds have expanded now as these storms do. in fa
Hours from now. they re warning the projected storm surges across the coastal regions could be, i m quoting now, non-survivable. for residents who are still in those evacuation zones authorities have said the time to go is now before it becomes impossible. florida senator rick scott knows what it s like to weather these storms. he s the former governor of the sunshine state. he joins us now. thank you for taking the time to join us. this hurricane and the forecast it s expected to make near florida s big bend which is where the panhandle turns into the peninsula, it has not experienced a storm of this magnitude in more than 150 years. what are you most worried about as of this moment? well, kaitlan, i worry about life. i want everybody to survive this. this is a this area of the state is a low-lying area. and people are just are not used to thinking about these storms are water events. so what i care about is i want every floridian to stay alive.