of florida. these are the new pictures we have out of south myers. you can just see that. it's unbelievable. you can see the level of flooding. and in somepl places the surge forecasted to reach up to 16 feet. one storm tracker said today was the worst flight he's ever had, there was a moment of real fear and said he's never seen anything like the winds or tur turbulence. the danger is also tornados. there's been multiple reports of that, and forecasters say the storm could strengthen again as it moves back to the atlantic coast where it will by the end of the week hit georgia and south carolina by friday. we'll pass off our breaking coverage now to anderson. good evening. tonight for people in florida there's one story tonight. it is far from over and will not be over anytime soon. when hurricane ian made landfall on florida's southwestern coast

this afternoon it came ashore as near category 5 strength, as a high category 4 after bidding for hours as it approached. >> oh, you got to be kidding me! you got to be kidding me right now! >> right now it is still a category 3 storm, still a major hurricane with damaging winds spanning out 175 miles from the center. >> oh, my god. >> no less troubling than the winds tonight, potentially even

worse hurricane ian is still pushing a massive storm surge onshore. forecasts as high as 18 feet in places where buildings living close to the water was why so many people moved there. take a look. this is fort meyers beach, and that is a community outreach center knocked off its foundation and floating down the street. making matters worse, the flood waters affecting residents who are doing the same to rescuers. a fire station here in naples is what first responders are up against along with anyone needing emergency help. and again, these conditions are not expected to improve throughout the night. if anything forecasters say they are likely to get worse as the storm surge comes in, more rainfalls on already saturated ground, and high winds continue. now, already more than 1.8 million people are without power. millions more are in the storm's path. we have two hours of live coverage tonight starting with our randy kaye in punta gorda who's been in the teeth of this storm now for hours.

first of all, randy, give us a sense what is going on right now. >> reporter: anderson, we're here in downtown punta gorda, and it's quite a situation. we've had now for hours these pounding winds, pounding rains here. earlier we had the eye of the storm, anderson, came right over as it was so calm. the birds came out, and that's what happens as you experience the eye, and now we're on the backside of this storm for hours. we've clocked 125 mile an hour winds here in downtown punta gorda, and i can show you just some of the debris out there that's been coming down. we've had trees that have come down. we had a stop sign that came flying down the street. we've seen pieces of metal. as you know this is what happens in a storm of this magnitude. there's certainly been a fair amount of debris and palm trees. what we haven't seen, anderson, is any real storm surge to speak of. we are only a few blocks from charlotte harper, and as you

recall back in 2004 that is when hurricane charlie came racing across charlotte harbor, and that brought a lot of wind and storm surge but not a lot of wind. this hurricane ian is a completely different animal. we were taking cover earlier expecting the storm surge is going to be here in downtown punta gorda. we also took our cars up to a high floor of a parking garage here, but still we do see some water, and we are expecting still -- they're still forecasting this 8 to 12 foot storm surge here in punta gorda and charlotte county. but, anderson, we've not seen that yet but we are now on the backside of the storm supposed to sit on top of us here still for several hours to go as we continue to watch and wait and see what happens. we know that there are high-water vehicles on standby here, 1,300 of them in the state. also the search and rescue teams will bow out. but in terms of what we're seeing and feeling here is just very, very strong winds and a

lot of rain, anderson. but still not a lot of water in the streets, which is good news for the business owners here in downtown punta gorda, anderson. >> randy, you clearly have gotten yourself some protection wisely to be out of the brunt of this. if you can have your team, your camera person just kind of show us the wind as it whips behind you because that scene in the white light, it really gives you a sense just how fast this wind is moving and that rain is just pummeling. >> reporter: sure. jerry, if you could just step out a little bit, we just want to show the viewers here what they can see in term of just the wind whipping. you can see it in the light, anderson. it is painful -- painful standing there. as you know.

you've covered enough to know we obviously want to keep our camera safe and the rest of us. >> that's the thing. people don't think about in a situation like this there's the wind, there's the water but also stuff just whipping through the air, debris, you know, trees -- branches get ripped off and the palms get ripped off. those have become projectiles flying through the air in the darkness of night. >> reporter: absolutely. that's why we have one light up just so we can show you. but to my left it's all pretty dark. so i'm keeping sort of one eye on you and one eye on the camera here and one eye on the darkness there because you never know. we were down here earlier and there were pieces of metal flying through the air, and as i said there were stop signs and pieces of palm trees. whoa. you just never know -- even the wind gust is coming at you. >> punta gorda obviously hit hard. randy kaye, we'll check in with you in the next two hours.

shortly after airtime i spoke with a couple. they are in a flooded home in fort myers. we taped the interview because their phone battery was running down. i talked to them about 30 or so minutes ago. don, how are you holding up tonight? what are the conditions like right now? >> well, the rain has slacked off a little bit, but we don't know if it's going to come back around, you know, approaching the backside of it. it's been pretty -- pretty hectic. i think it started about 11:00 or so, 11:00 or 12:00, and it's just kind of sweating the gulf coast i'm going to say probably about four, five, six hours just sitting there and not moving at all. >> you said it's calmed down a bit. do you feel like you're in the eye orb or it's often hard to tell you're in the eye? >> i don't think we're in the eye because i think it's going north above tampa. we're in fort charlotte in that area. i think we still might get but

right now i think it's gone further north. probably i'd say 30, 40 miles, 50 miles north of us. >> we think we're on the better side, un, you know, the good side. >> belinda, i understand part of your roof was ripped off. >> yes. my husband was sitting -- he was sitting with his phone just doing nothing in the dark, and i came out, and he said there's something dripping on me. he got up, and the ceiling -- the family room ceiling came down. and we have solar panels but we live in florida. we have a cage around our pool, and we think -- we know it's gone, and we think it just slipped up and it took a piece with it and then the water sat down for a while and finally came in. >> so how high did the water get or how high is it? >> we're 2 1/2 feet above sea level right now, and the water is coming in through our house right now, so i'm going to say

probably 11 feet, maybe a little more. and we're about 7 miles from the beach, maybe a little more than that. >> so you have a couple inches of water on your ground floor. >> well, we have it from where it caved in, and at the front door it's right at the cusp of coming in, and it's a ground store coming into the laundry room, it's beginning to seep. my car in is there, and his is outside. really we have nowhere of going anywhere. >> we probably have three or four inches on the lanai. it's probably receded down about 2 or 3 inches right now. >> i don't know how many storms you've been through, how long you've been in florida but have you seen anything like this? >> we were here for charlie and it wasn't like this. >> we've been here 23 years now and the only one we weren't

really here for -- we couldn't get back. everything was closed down and this is the first time we've decided -- but this is totally different from anything i've ever seen before. >> because charlie in 2004, i mean i was down in tampa bay at that point. the storm didn't hit tampa bay, which it was expected to, but it was taking a similar track this one. although obviously this one is much bigger than charlie was. is there anywhere else you would go right now, or are you just planning to -- you're there and going to stay through? >> well, they told us not to leave. >> at this point the streets are flooded. we called the 911 number. they're going to call us back, you know, when we can get out of here. i mean, at this point i don't know whether we'd have to go to

a center, we can get a hotel or something. probably a hotel is going to be out of the question. from that point on i'm not really sure what we're going to do. >> how long do you think it'll take to fix all the stuff that's damaged? >> depending on i would say if you got somebody to do it right away, you'd probably be looking at four to six weeks. but i know as bad as it's going to be everywhere, i'd be surprised if it's going to be fixed that soon. >> yeah, it'd be hard to find workers, enough people there to do the work. don, beleinda, i'm glad you are safe at least. >> thanks for the call. >> thank you. >> let's get a sense of the big picture. jennifer gray in the weather center with an alert. what is the latest? good. >> well, we have a flash flood emergency. you can see it includes venice, port charlotte, arcadia.

they're receiving about two to three months of rain in just 24 hours. we've already seen up to 18 inches of rain here with this storm and another 3 to 8 expected. so we have huge problems here with the flooding, and that's what we're going to see, anderson. this storm is still a category 3. it's still a major hurricane. we've got winds of 115 miles per hour, and it's only moving at 8 miles per hour. so that's a huge concern moving forward. it's how slow the storm is moving not only for the wind damage it's going to create but also the flooding we're going to see today, tomorrow, and on into friday. >> what should we expect to see over the next couple of hours? >> well, you saw that shot from randy. we've seen bill out there as well, and it is just incredible. the winds whipping through, they've been in these winds since 2:00 or 3:00 this afternoon. they did get a tiny break when they were in the eye, but you've seen the winds and debris that's coming. so when you have winds of 100 plus mile per hour for hours on

end you know it's going to wear down the tree canopies, peoples roofs, the street signs. that's why you're seeing more and more debris litter the streets because of everything being worn down by the wind. so we have a lot of gauges that are now out. they reported well over 120 mile per hour winds where randy is multiple times throughout the day as this storm continues to venture off to the north and east. their conditions should start to improve within the next hour or two, but you're going to see the center portion of the state dealing with those hurricane force winds, the torrential rain for the next several hours throughout the nighttime hours. and then, anderson, a lot of these places down across southwest florida we haven't been able to get to, when we see first light tomorrow, we finally start to get helicopters in the sky looking at aerials over these areas i think we're going to be shocked at some of the damage we're going to see tomorrow. >> do you have a sense what

cities now are in the path of this or towns? >> right, so we're going to see places like orlando as this storm moves up to the north and east, really be impacted by this storm. hold on one second. i'm trying to click through. places like orlando and as it exits daytona beach as a tropical storm this is tomorrow afternoon or thursday afternoon. basically going to cross over the state. this is the area, central florida where we could see up to 30 inches of rain potentially, and then as the storm continues to push back out in the atlantic we're also going to see another very vulnerable places like charleston, savannah impacted by storm surge. we could see 3 to 5 feet of storm surge by the time this crosses again into georgia and south carolina by friday afternoon, so this is far from over. >> jennifer gray, appreciate it. curfews are in effect up and down the coast including in fort myers. chief mcmillen joins us now by

phone. we've seen images of massive flooding in fort myers over the last several hours. how dire is the situation there? >> we're holding tough here. we're getting one of our last bands coming through, hitting us pretty hard. we've still got those hurricane force winds and rain coming downch we actually lost a lot of power. we even lost poweren our eoc, went to generator back up and the generator went out also with all the wind and rain and terrible conditions we're dealing with. in our oc we're flying blind here, but we've got great responders and backups and contingency plans. we made a first push and we have downed palm trees and there's palm trees down. there's trees down, buildings actually have been hit pretty hard. hit and impacted with a lot of water, a lot of flooding. we're hopeful, though, even

though we've gotten to 7 p.m., where we actually get dark down here. and we have high tide. high tide is starting to roll back into our river, so we're hoping that will take the storm surge we experienced back with it and we'll be able to get out and more pushes to start getting to our residents that we actually for the last six, seven hours have actually been waiting to get to. >> i know earlier today you said that you were not going to be responding to calls while the roadways weren't safe. when do you think you might be able to go out and answer calls? because obviously for first responders it's incredibly dangerous out there in the dark with stuff flying through the air. >> absolutely. this has been one of the challenges when it comes to hurricane ian. it's not been cooperative at all. we're on plan "b" right now. there's so many different constituencies we're working through. our goal here with this particular plan once we get through the last band of winds and the winds die down below

that 45 miles per hour, we'll start doing some recon on the roofs and see how safe it is. we're actually looking at working with our fpl partners to actually cut some grid, the power -- thought gnat we have power here but want it make sure there's nothing in water going to be live that puts our first responders in harms way because we have to make sure they're safe. >> so what is your message to people in the city who are facing serious flooding who may be in their homes? what should they do? >> number one, be encouraged. number two, is actually take heed. the city of fort myers put out a cu curfew as well as lee county. so we don't want anyone leaving their homes. the last thing we need to do is put people into an unknown situation. so if they can be encouraged, hydrate themselves. we're coming for them in the morning. we have assets and resources, other different areas that sent resources. we are coming. what we need to do -- and i know

it's a tough thing to say, anderson. its a tough thing to say moo our folks is just to hold on. we want to make sure they do not venture out. it's not safe to go out but come to them as soon as possible. if they're still here and able to think for a little bit and they're family's still here just wait for us. be encouraged. do not go out. >> chief that's good advice. appreciate it and what you and all the folks there are doing.g. coming up next what a a sto chaser saw when the eye wall crossed over punta gorda. and top p emergency management official talks about what his agency is preparing it handle as hurricane ian hits the state. oye above the gumline th floss. for a cleaner, healthier mouth. listerine. feel the whoa! so how many vaccines have you given to people? me? about 1000. walgreens...millions. no way can i miss her big debut. with your booster, i think you'll be there.

for every twirl. i got a shot so my sister won't get sick. way to go, big bro! so while we're here... ...flu shot, as well? let's do it. when you need to talk vaccinations, our pharmacists are here. ♪ ♪ bath fitter doesn't just fit your bath. we fit your life. when you're tired of looking at your tired old bath, we fit your style, with hundreds of design options. when a normal day is anything but normal, we fit your schedule, with our unique tub over tub process, installed in as little as a day. when high quality is the only quality that matters, we fit your standards, with a lifetime guarantee. bath fitter. it just fits. visit bathfitter.com to book your free consultation. for people who are a little intense about hydration. neutrogena® hydro boost lightweight. clinically proven. 48-hour hydration. for that healthy skin glow.

neutrogena®. for people with skin. ♪ my relationship with my credit cards wasn't good. i got into debt in college and, no matter how much i paid, it followed me everywhere. between the high interest, the fees... i felt trapped. debt, debt, debt. so i broke up with my credit card debt and consolidated it into a low-rate personal loan from sofi. i finally feel like a grown-up. break up with bad credit card debt. get a personal loan with no fees, low fixed rates, and borrow up to $100k. go to sofi.com to view your rate. sofi. get your money right. ♪

so we just got this footage in. it's pretty remarkable. a time lapse video taken from a webcam in fort myers. what you're watching is the storm surge rolling in, going down one street and then going down the street quickly, relentlessly, flootding the entire neighborhood. you see the storm surge there. the city is seeing record flooding tonight, and the full extent of the storm surge, well, that is yet to be felt in some places. as we continue to watch this -- i mean it's incredible to see this water just move down that

road. in punta gorda whereas you saw in randa kay's report before the break they are experiencing punishing winds. joining us right now is thomas who's trapped in a home in the city in fort myers. thomas, how are you doing? where are you, and what's happened? >> we're good. we're safe. we're in the second story of the north fort meyers home on the river. it's flowed towards the bottom of this house and we're safe on the second floor. my concern is if you're showing the pictures here on north shore avenue in north fort myers, we have multiple residents including elderly residents trapped in one-story houses that probably had 10-foot ceilings in 7-foot flood waters.

>> wow. >> the wind has subsided, basically they're much calmer. i feel these people should be rescued -- >> hey, thomas, let me ask you. we are showing the video you sent us, and the camera is on -- i take it you took these images. the camera is on the second floor landing, you pan over and look down stairs and looks like water or debris floating. >> that's the ground floor. it was my beautiful home. and again, my concern is that's how high that water is in a one-story house. i've got another two doors down and she's trapped in a house that at most has a 10-foot ceiling in the same 6, 7, feet

water i have on my bottom floor. >> how deep do you think that water is in the video. >> i think by 6 feet. >> my thing is i think these people could be rushed in before. these people are on this street are in dire straits. >> have you been able to contact emergency officials? obviously -- >> my family has, you know, but the story is when it's -- when it all calms down. >> sure. >> but, you know, we've been through the worst of it. we're on the back end of it now. i would love to see these people in these first floor houses rescued tonight. these people are in trouble. >> let me ask you, thomas, we've frozen the image now looking out one of your windows and you see water in the distance. how deep is that water? >> that water is maybe 5 feet, 6

feet. it varies, but you can see it as in relationship to the house. for some of them it's halfway, three quarters of the way up. those people have to either be standing on furniture, whatever. and, you know, some of these cars floated away. we had cars float away. you know, these people need to be rescued as soon as possible. >> we just talked to some first responders, and obviously one of the things they were saying is in the dark debris is flying through the air, projectiles. they wait until the winds are below 45 miles an hour, and that's when they can go out. >> yeah, i feel for them and i know how hard their and job is, but that part of this risk is mostly past us. they would have water depth to deal with, maybe more than flying debris. i mean we've had everything go

by us previously, boats, docks, houses, everything is flowing down the river, but the debris is a lot. the debris through the air is much more manageable right now than it has been. >> yeah, and you have supplies on the second floor? >> we do, yeah. i feel like we have our situation under control. very concerned about people in the one-story houses here. >> yeah, you're a good neighbor to call and be concerned. thomas, appreciate it. and thank you so much for the video you took. it really helps us get a sense of, you know, of each of these spots. thank you, thomas. >> yeah. much worse than expected. i mean, you know, irma hit here without anything quite like this. this is much more than we expected. >> were you there for charlie? >> no, my parents were here for charlie. charlie was very bad.

they were hunkered down in the shower forever. but irma was a cat 5 basically direct hit on this same house, and this is much -- was much, much worse. >> wow. thomas you take care of yourself. >> okay. >> cnn's brian todd in largo, florida, for us tonight. brian, what's the situation there? >> reporter: well, anderson, the danger still not past here. we're still getting pounded with wind and rain, but we have been able to fan out and come across some areas of real devastation. this town of largo just northwest of st. petersburg. this house completely burned out. this was a large fire that started in this house this afternoon when a power line snapped off of a transformer in the front, and our photo journalist is going to take you to peer into the windows here of what's left of this house. now, some of the structure is still standing, as you can see. but just about every room -- room after room here just burned out, debris everywhere. we spoke to a neighbor who

actually gave us vid wroe we sent in earlier of this house while it was burning. very dramatic video of that from this afternoon. the neighbor told us that the people who lived here -- who live here, this house has been in their family for generations. there was a death in the family recently and the people who owned the house came back here to renovate. they'd just started to renovate this place when this happened. thankfully they were not here when this fire occurred and no one was hurt here, but you can see the devastation and now here. and, again, we went to a mafred home park not far from here in largo. we saw rooms ripped off the homes there. this is our initial fanning out, anderson, in this area of st. petersburg. and as you talked to your previous guests, which i heard repeated just neighborhood after neighborhood in this section of florida, anderson. >> how hard is it getting around? as you said you've just been fanning out.

i'm not sure how long you've been at this location. if you were driving, what was that like? >> i can tell you around the st. petersburg area it was not too bad to drive around this afternoon and this evening after the storms hit in earnest. they have kind of been a little bit fortunate if you can call it that in the st. petersburg area, flooding not as bad as they thought it would be. some of the wind damage not quite as bad as they thought it would be. again, they're just getting initial assessments now. they can't even send first responders out just yet because of not only the darkness but the wind dying down to the point they might be able to send someone out. some of those assessments might not be coming for some hours. i can tell you driving around wasn't too bad. i know points further south are devastated. >> it's so strange being there it's one of those things you don't expect. a fire in the middle of a major storm like this, but as you explain it, a downed power line, that's what can happen. it's one of the things that

first responders are most concerned about, downed power lines when thehey were out, and obobviously the debris in the a. brian, i appreciate your reporting as always. thank you. we'll check in with you, next a storm chaser trapped along with you and others in punta gorda, florida. wel be right back.

[laughter] hey, i was thinking about going back to school to get my master's... i just saw something that said you could do it in a year for like $11k. hmm! order 11! yes, see you at 11. ♪ 1111 masters blvd. please. that'll be 11 even, buddy. really? the clues are all around us... some things are too obvious to be a coincidence. ♪

just before the break we were talking to a man who's stuck on the second floor of a flooded home concerned about his neighbors in fort myers, who says he's very worried about the people living in single-story dwellings nearby.

across the area, though, first responders hammered by the same storm. ben mcmillen trapped himself with several other people. ben, what's happening where you are in punta gorda, florida? >> yeah, hey, anderson. kind of a devastating story in this small town on the western coast of florida, about 20,000 people. this is the third major hurricane in the last 25 years to impact this town. we had hurricane charlie in 2004, hurricane irma 2017, and now this one. i was here for this one and this is another one today. ian being category 5, the strongest hurricane on earth and a much wider wind field with that slower speed coming onshore. we've talked to see many people on your show tonight who really are still dealing with the devastation of that eye wall. it was so slow and didn't subside until dark. i don't know we're going to know the devastating sights until we start to assess what is happening out here.

>> what's the biggest danger right now? is it wind or storm surge? >> to our south here punta gorda on the southern part when you've been speaking with people there, it's definitely the water. it's going to take several days for that water to subside, but there's wind damage across the region as well, those extremely strong winds today creating many power outages of which i'm in the middle of one right now. there's 20 wrash 25 people stranded in this hotel lobby going to have to spend the night here to do what they can to get back to a food and shelter. it may take some time, several weeks to get this area back on its feet. >> you're trapped with a group of people. what does that mean exactly? where are you? >> at this point we really don't have a way out the hotel. the eye is still churning out of the area. we can leave out the back door if we had to, but it's not safe. there's scattered debris around the streets, no power, and i think the important thing is having those roadways cleared by crews and public officials as

they slowly work their way in the area. first responders of course will be out in force at first light, trying to figure out which roads are safe, where to go first and where the people are that need rescuing. >> we continue to get footage of the flooding in fort myers. take a look. [ sirens ] >> that is something. the son of the man whokeep chard that video tells us his father lives on the second floor of a condominium. he's lost contact. last time his dad was in a stairwell. want to check with the mayor of cape coral who himself is trying to account for people trapped in this community. appreciate you joining us. first of all, what are conditions like in cape coral right now?

>> well, right now the wind has subsided somewhat. we still have tropical storm winds. we also have storm surge that we're still dealing with throughout our city. we've been getting many phone calls from people that had rising water in their homes, but because of the winds, we still have our public safety, our first responders are sheltered in place until those winds subside, and then we'll -- as of right now we have about 300 fire calls in the queue and at least 100 police calls that we haven't responded to. >> i know emergency personnel as you said have gotten a lot of calls. what are the dcriteria for when you can respond? >> basically it's the wind speed. it's got to be less than 45 miles an hour before we will

give the first responders the green light to respond out into the community for their safety. and that's the most important thing. once that wind subsides less than 45 miles an hour, then we will be out there. >> what about infrastructure, utilities, you know, electricity and water? where do things stand? >> right now our city is about 95% without electricity. as far as water and sewer, we do have -- experienced some water main breaks, so we do have some areas of the city that is without water. and we have been getting phone calls from residents all afternoon and all evening. we know we have a lot of down power lines. we have some structural damage out there. we've had some roofs collapse, one residence. so we are waiting to go out and do what's called our first push.

it'll probably be daybreak. right now we are anticipating the winds to be below the 45 mile an hour about 5 a.m. in the morning. >> appreciate what you're doing. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> i'm joined now by cnn john berman who's in tampa. john, how are you? >> reporter: wet, anderson. very, very wet. the rain here has been pouring all day. we're seeing some of the worst of it now and the wind has picked up, some of the strongest wind we've seen yet, 40 to 50 miles an hour and could stay like this all night long. you've heard jennifer gray talk about several counties adjacent to here have put in dire flash flood warnings. expect anywhere from 12 to 18 inches of rain over this 24-hour period and that's as much as they usually get in three months. they've asked cars to get off the streets here.

they've asked cars to be off the streets here. most of the cars we've seen now are police in this area. you get a sense now of the concern here. the winds could knock out power lines. they might lose power here, obviously a very large city with hundreds of thousands of people. but it's the fresh-water flooding they are most concerned about. the idea about as much as 2 feet of water coming down swelling the rivers and streams that then flow in there to tampa and the tampa bay area even as they're a little less concerned about the storm surge here, there could be push up from the bay into this area, but they're watching this very closely, anderson, and it could go on for many, many hours to come. >> and is there a sense of when that storm surge if it is to come, sort of what time of the storm that would happen? >> it's so quirky, as you know,

anderson. storm surge can be a strange thing. we've seen the water get sucked out here. the other is the hillsborough river which dumps into tampa bay literally itself. we've seen that river get sucked out, but it's been out there for hours and hours and hours and hasn't come back in it, and it's just impossible to know right now when it does come back in if it comes back with a vengeance. they downgraded their storm surge warnings here to 4 to 6 feet, maybe 7 feet. if it's 4 feet even 4 feet would be a real problem because so many people live so close to water here in the tampa area. these rivers and canals go right up to practically the peoples homes. it hasn't happened yet but it is something they'll bebe monitori throughout the night. >> john berman, appreciate it. be careful, john. coming up frightening moments not tar from tampa. our crew was there. we'll see how things are looking tonight in bradenton next. the prequel is pretty sweet too. ♪ ♪

[ sneezing ] are you okay? oh, it's just a cold. if you have high blood pressure, a cold is not just a cold. cocidin is the #1 doctor recommended cold and flu brand specially designed for people with high blood pressure. be there for life's best moments. trust coridin. president biden signed the inflation reduction act into law this afternoon. ok, so what exactly does it mean for you? out of pocket costs for drugs will be capped. for seniors, insulin will be just $35. families will save $2,400 on health care premiums. energy costs, down an average of $1,800 a year for families. and it's paid for by making the biggest corporations

pay what they owe. president biden's bill doesn't fix everything, but it will save your family money. at fidelity, your dedicated advisor will help you create a comprehensive wealth plan for your full financial picture. with the right balance of risk and reward. so you can enjoy more of...this. this is the planning effect. the citi custom cash℠ card automatically adjusts to earn you more cash back in your top eligible spend category. hi. ♪ you don't have to keep tabs on rotating categories... this is the only rotating i care about. ... or activate anything to earn. your cash back automatically adjusts for you. can i get a cucumber water? earn 5% cash back that automatically adjusts to your top eligible spend category, up to $500 spent each billing cycle with the citi custom cash℠ card. i love it... [voice vibrating]

a number of tense moments in this hurricane including this one when transforms blew near our cnn crew including meteorologist derek van dam. take a look. >> oh. we just had some -- some

transformers -- yeah, transformers just blowing behind us. >> derek van dam joins us now from bradenton tonight just south of tampa. so strange to see it up close. i've always seen it eerily from far off a great distance. to see it so up close, that's worrying. what does it look like now? >> reporter: well, i mean, that video was shot a long time ago earlier this afternoon, right? we're in hour nine now of tropical storm force winds. hurricane ian doesn't want to give up on us even though the eye wall is moving slowly marching across central parts of the state. we continue to get these violent gusts of wind that makes it difficult for my team and i to stand up. we're taking shelter in a safe place, but you'll see behind me there are a few cars, and even though we're still under a mandatory evacuation here, but most ofbratenten has been plunged into darkness.

i guess we're joining the 1.8 million customers without power across the state of florida. but we're included in this at our hotel we're hunkering down in at the moment. of course there's generator power. some of the most startling things we saw today was debris flying and getting lofted into the air by some of the strong gusts, and also a phenomenon i had never witnessed before as a meteorologist was this reverse storm surge that we witnessed in the river that runs east, west here directly behind me. the winds were so powerful it pushed the water out where we could see the exposed river bed before the tide started to surge back in and covered it back up. but, anderson, that was an incredible sight, and i think it caught a lot of people off-guard, because those types of things are a rarity and only comes around when you have this powerful of a stororm bearing dn on you. >> it's remarkablele to see. derek k van dam, appreciate it. thank you so much. cocoming up next, a storm

chaser who says he narrowly avoided being killed by flying debris, what he calls the most intense storm he's ever seen came ashore. this is where i want to be. call your doctor about sudden behavior changes or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be life threatening or permanent. these aren't all the serious side effects. now i'm back where i belong. ask your doctor if latuda is right for you. pay as little as zero dollars for your first prescription.

new astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid free spray. while other allergy sprays take hours astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can... astepro and go. ♪ here goes nothing. hey greg. um...hello? it's me, your heart! really? yes! recording an ekg in 30 seconds. tada! wow that was fast! good news, pal. i'm not detecting any of the six most common arrhythmias. what next? let's get some fresh air. been cooped up for too long. yeah... ♪ get kardia mobile card at kardia.com or amazon. pain hits fast. so get relief fast. only tylenol rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. and now get relief without a pill

with tylenol dissolve packs. relief without the water.

this is what it looked like as hurricane ian came ashore with 150-mile-an-hour winds in venice, florida. >> holy -- how is this possible? >> stairwell? >> for what? >> gosh. >> yeah, let's go down. if we can. but please be careful. it's going to be so sketchy. you want to wait until it dies down a little bit. oh, my gosh. >> storm chaser logan parham took the video. i understand you experienced the second eye wall and were in a dire situation. describe what it was like. >> the first eye wall was bad enough and we got the measured vortices after the first eye wall cleared. the second eye wall, it hit -- and we expected it to.

but when it hit, it hit very strong, honestly a lot stronger sustained wind speeds than the first eye wall. and it got very scary because the parking garage that we're in -- still in right now with no power -- is -- it was buckling. it was shaking. all the cars, including our vehicle, was bouncing up and down like it was going to straight just lift off. it was a scary moment. everyone was rushing to the stairwells and to secured vehicles. so, very strong winds. >> what was the first eye wall like? >> well, the first eye wall was kind of a slow build, honestly. it had us very, i guess you could say doubtful at first because, you know, it came on very, very slowly. and then it built and built and built and then it got to the point where it was like, okay, this is the eye wall. and radar confirmed that for us. and eventually when we got past the sustained winds, we just ended up in these measured

vortices, which are basically like mini-tornados that rotate around the eye of the hurricane. those were -- we were getting thrown with those vortices left and right. >> how does the storm compare to others you've been in? >> for me personally, this is the most intense storm i've ever been in. >> has the storm surge reached our area? >> so, as far as we know, we got some general street flooding at the moment but nothing too insane believe it or not. so, that's a very good sign. but nonetheless, what's preventing us from moving from this parking garage is really just the amount of debris around right now. >> logan parham, i appreciate it. thanks for what you're doing. appreciate it. >> absolutely. thank you guys. massive storm surges have swamped streets in many parts of southwest florida. downtown naples submerged today, power lines knocked down. more of the devastation there,

teresa heightman is the mayor of naples. thank you so much for joining us. talk a little bit about the immediate needs of this point in the storm. hey mayor, i don't know if you can hear me. it's anderson cooper. try to get back in touch with the mayor. mayor heightman of naples, florida. we'll try to check back. you can see the downed cable and electric lines there, the fires starting. we saw brian todd earlier showing us a residence that had been burned completely really because of downed electric power lines. this is one of the concerns that first responders have about going out in this, especially in these high winds. they wait, as you know, until the winds died down past about 45 miles per hour. the mayor, it's anderson cooper.

can you hear me? >> hi, anderson, i can. thanks for touching base with naples. >> so, what are the immediate needs right now? >> for everyone to stay inside and continue to be hunkered down until we can go out and assess the situation. we still have water on the streets. we have downed power lines, and it's a dangerous situation. we've already had several citizens that have just had to be retrieved. and right now we just need people to stay inside. we'll let them know when it's safe to go back out. >> at this point, i mean, if someone calls 911, are first responders even able to go out? i know many jurisdictions, the rule is, you know, if the winds are higher than 45 miles an hour, law enforcement doesn't go out. >> law enforcement is out or they'll be out shortly. the city manager is going out

now with police and fire to assess the situation. we were not able to do that earlier. so, i really hope -- i know a lot of people are watching through cnn. please stay calm. be patient. we probably won't open the city until tomorrow because we're under an emergency curfew. and please, we have already had to recover people that were just around city hall, where i have been since the storm started. and we really need you to stay safe and stay inside. >> can you talk about the incidents of people having to be recovered in your city? what kind of things were happening? >> well, we just had some citizens that were out on paddle boards or thought they could swim, and it just happened to be within our neighborhood. and the fire department was able to assist through paddle boards in recovery for them. we really are in a dangerous,

devastating situation. we have abandoned cars everywhere. we have, again, down power lines. and it's dangerous. this -- there is no need for this to be entertainment. we do have web cams up so you can see the pier. and when it's safe and sound, which really will be in the morning, we'll open the city back up, and we'll announce that through the media again. >> definitely not a time to go paddle boarding. mayor, appreciate what you're doing. thank you. >> thank you. wewe're live ahead with the mayor of other hard-hit city, fort myers. a town official in fort myers s beach says the damage is very serious in their words and the extent unknown. our breaking coverage continues in a moment. and cibinqo helps provide clearer skin and less itch. cibinqo can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections and do blood tests.

tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. do not take with medicines that prevent blood clots. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma, lung, skin and other cancers, serious heart-related events, and blood clots can happen. people 50 and older with heart disease risk factors have an increased risk of serious heart-related events or death with jak inhibitors. this is the moment. but we've only just begun. speak with your doctor about cibinqo today. an innovation from pfizer.