cnn tonight. listen, one of the most catastrophic storms in florida s history, possibly the deadliest, regained strength to become a category 1 hurricane tonight. south carolina is now bracing for ian s wrath sometime happening tomorrow. and the very latest on its track in just a moment. we have yet to learn the full scope of the destruction caused by hurricane ian in florida. but what has certainly come into focus today truly is hard to find words for. at least 17 people have died so far, and that is linked to hurricane ian. president biden warns there could be substantial loss of life, perhaps more killed by a storm in florida than ever before. but it s really too soon to know more. and also too soon to say that the danger has now passed. i mean, there is debris everywhere. there s water everywhere. power lines are down. trees have been shredded. boats thrown on top of one another. countless homes destroyed, entire buildings washed away. fort myers beach took the brunt of
this update just moments ago. hurricane ian is a storm moving closer to floor at that s west coast bringing high winds, extremely heavy rain and life threatening storm surge flooding. already ian hitting key west with major storm surge flooding. more than 2 1/2 million people now under some level of evacuation warnings. officials escalating their urgent appeals to evacuate. if you are in an evacuation zone, your time to evacuate is coming to an end. you need to evacuate now. meteorologist chad myers is in the cnn weather center. chad, what s the latest on the predicted storm track here? it is still forecast to put all of that water into charlotte harbor, christine. this is and has been kind of looked at as a charrincharlie, s is not charlie. this is florida s katrina. charlie could almost fit inside the eye. the wind speeds of charlie were so significant but only in a small place. this storm has wind, surge, flooding, waves and even rainfall inside of florida of almost
of this hurricane. it could make landfall the next several hours and then work its way up the peninsula slowly, very slowly, bringing hurricane force winds here to tampa, to orlando before it heads out over the atlantic on the other side maybe sometime later tomorrow. obviously millions of people feeling the impact of this, a life threatening storm in some ways a near worst case scenario for some of the people south of here. there was an 8 a.m. update just in from the national hurricane center. i believe we have michael brennan at the national hurricane center to give us a sense of the very latest. sir, if you can hear me, where is ian, where is it going? it s located about 55 miles west of naples, we re expecting catastrophic impacts along the southwest border coast later today. the storm surge could be as high as 16 feet above ground level in the area near port charlotte, from inglewood down to the beach. can you walk me through the timeline from now over the next 24 ho
this storm will only continue to intensify. if you want to leave, as the governor has said, now is your last chance. we cannot send first responders into harm s way because you decided not to leave. 155 mile per hour winds. that is what hurricane ian is now producing as it bears down on florida s coast. i m john berman live in tampa this morning. brianna keilar is in washington. this is cnn s special live coverage of a storm that is getting more powerful by the minute. the national hurricane center just reported it had a plane flying through the center of this storm measuring sustained winds, sustained of 155 miles per hour. that is just 2 miles per hour short of a category 5 storm and it could still strengthen before it makes impact over the next few hours. expected to make landfall, direct landfall southwest of where i am south of where i am near the fort myers area. the wind speed just one of the major concerns here. the storm surge, which the wind speed only exacerbat
we have teams on the ground as we prepare for the eventual landfall. we are in florida, and carlos suarez is in tampa in gulfport, and carlos, as we ve been discussing, tampa, that is where the real worry is because they re worried about storm surge and a lot of the residential areas there are vulnerable. reporter: that is exactly right, jim and poppy. the concern is the forecasted five to ten foot storm surge with hurricane ian. we are in gulfport. that is about a half hour drive outside of tampa where a number of businesses right before the barrier islands have already boarded up. they have their plywood out and sandbags in place. other business owners, they re about to start doing that right now. in fact, mike jackson, you own a shop out here. you ve got your sandbags almost in place but you have to start doing some work out here. we have to board up the windows and try to cover up these windows an the door. we still have to sandbag our door after we put some spray foa