surge. >> tucker: yeah. >> we had to get high and dry as best we can. >> tucker: nice job. will nunnally, thank you so much for that worth. good luck tonight. >> tucker: we'll be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m., . >> sean: welcome to hannity, we begin tonight with a fox news alert. only hours ago, hurricane ian made land fall near port charlotte florida as a category 4 storm, areas around naples, fort myers, sarasota, they have been devastated by high winds and very severe flooding. new video showing water rising up to 12 feet in some areas. entire homes sadly washed away. now, this hurricane is far from over as much of florida now remains tonight in serious danger. here with the very latest we

have our fox news chief meteorologist rick reichmuth with us. rick this has been rough so far. >> really has. three things, the storm surge that broke records in fort myers and naples as well by a lot by the way, three feet higher than we had ever seen from any kind of storm surge in the past. that obviously causing all that flooding right along the immediate coast. then we have the winds, actual verified winds of 140 miles an hour in cape corral. a lot of this wind was really prolonged because it's such a slow-moving storm and then you have the rainfall. because it's so slow we get rainfall that just continues to batter the state and we'll see big time inland flooding concerns. this made land fall in the exact same space that hurricane charlie came on shore in 2004 which is amazing to have two massive hurricanes or two strong hurricanes like this come on shore in the exact same spot, hard to imagine, because it came on so strong, it's still a category 2 hurricane after having made land fall around six

hours ago, so still dealing with hurricane force winds and it's about half way through the peninsula of florida before it will eventually tomorrow exit the east coast and get back out towards into the atlantic. but a lot of rain here and it's primarily throughout this evening going to be focused on that i four corridor, so we're going to be watching significant flooding there, with that flooding more power outages, because it's also still real windy and the ground in florida is really saturated. they have had a really couple of wet months so the ground is saturated allows trees to topple over quickly and take a look at this, massive power outages going on. last i looked over 1.6 million households. hurricane warns still in effect all the way across the eastern side of florida, came on so strong that it's still going to be hurricane when it exits. take a look at this, little farther towards the north, talking about t.w. shannon warnings at least, because we are going to see a second land fall of this storm sometime friday night, somewhere around the georgia or south carolina coastline as a very strong t.w.

shannon potentially even a hurricane, because it will likely strengthen a little bit over this warm water out here in the atlantic. big flooding concerns in across parts of north carolina, georgia and by the time we get to saturday and sunday, across parts of the central and southern appalachian sean. we have a long way to get through the storm but in the immediate florida certainly under the gun in these overnight hours. sean. >> sean: rick reichmuth thank you. more on the ground fox weather max gordon is with us. max getting windy i can see it there. what's the latest i've been told tampa and surrounding areas people that stayed are being told to shelter in place. >> yes, that's right, sean. yeah, the conditions here are beginning to deteriorate right now. we're getting heavy bands of wind and rain moving through our area. originally we thought that this storm was going to hit us smack dab, but it did move to the south. still, that doesn't necessarily mean we're out of the woods. in some areas, especially inland, in the inner parts of

florida, we're expecting up to two feet of rain that's going to fall because of this storm. now, of course, we're also talking about power outages nearing two million customers in the dark, millions of floridians now without power. and so it's going to be a massive effort to restore that power. now, in the parking lot of our hotel here we have lots of linemen parked here waiting out this storm waiting to make sure it's safe so they can go out and restore power. about 33,000 utility workers and linemen are here from all across the united states. but they can't start to restore power until it's safe to do so. a lot of these linemen can't go up in their bucket trucks until wind speeds are below 35 miles an hour and it's going to be at least another day or so before a lot of areas are going to be safe with those types of wind speeds. meanwhile down to the south of us, very significant storm surge in the fort myers area, just absolute devastation down there. it's going to be incredible to

see what images the daylight will bring, it's going to be a very tough night for folks all across florida. sean, back to you. >> sean: max, thank you. we turn now to fort myers. they have been hit really hard today. there are reports of major destruction to buildings. we go to fox weather's will nunley is with you. will, fort myers got hammered today. i have friends down there, they've been sending me videos all day and it's been really bad. >> and i wish we could say that it's finally getting out of the way, but it's not. you can tell just by the wind that's hitting me right now, i'm in a section of fort myers, interstate 75 is just about two minutes away from me this direction, downtown's about ten minutes or so this direction. so we're not necessarily on the water front which has been hit much harder even than where we are right now. but we have pieces of the building that we're taking shelter in falling off around us. this is concrete tile or terracota tile, the roofing material that just crashes down. parts of this goes through

windows. gas stations, unfortunately we can't show them to you very well because the power's out all around us. we have a couple of street lights that have managed to stay on. but, you know, the roofs of these buildings are coming apart. we hear the tin slap the street here behind us and just take off as debris in the wind. also the traffic lights over us here, we have constant emergency alerts going off on our phones from rescuers basically saying we can't get to you. we know that there are people needing help but rescuers are not responding and not making rescue calls at this time because the wind has not died down enough. so we talk about the massive size of this storm, how much of the state of florida is wrapped up in this emergency and it's an incredible thing to think about. last time i was on with you, sean, i was a local reporter at waga in atlanta, it was just after michael hit mexico beach and i was trying to find the words then to describe what we were seeing and i'm in that same situation with you once again. because once we start to see the

video coming out of some of these barrier islands, we see how much this storm surge flooded and rushed into these towns and communities, you know, just encompassing houses. we're going to be in the same scenario where we're just going to be in awe of what we see and i'm very worried tonight about the people who are trying to ride out this storm in their shelters, in their homes awaiting rescues as cell phone towers begin to fail around us and again millions of people without power, sean. this story is still ongoing. it's going to be ongoing for days. >> sean: max, i had friends in fort myers sending me videos, literally one video would be okay, you see the water going right into a town flooding every home in its path. >> yeah. >> sean: a tennis court. maybe only this much water. ten minutes later it's four feet high and it was coming in that fast, rushing in that fast. have you seen a lot of that and a lot of homes being flooded? >> we have, and for what scenes we can get out. of course we have to be

calculated in how fast we can go into an area and we're waiting for word from our fox weather team when it's going to be safe to proceed into some of these areas especially with night fall but yes we saw the storm surge and it just comes in like waves lapping up against the buildings, battering those buildings with a tremendous force of water. that's even coming into downtown fort myers. we heard reports from the mayor here who's also dealing by the way with 80% he said of his town without power tonight. but some of that same storm surge rushing into the downtown area of fort myers. so this is large scale chaos and devastation that we're talking about with this storm. and i don't those terms lightly. >> sean: i've been able to see it myself all day. friends of mine have been sending me videos of the area. i know a lot of people in southwest florida they're in our prayers tonight. joining us now thank you max, near atlanta is our very own nate foy. what's the latest there nate.

>> sean conditions are getting more intense but nothing like will has seen in fort myers. i can tell you between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. tomorrow is when the orlando area is expected to experience the peak of hurricane ian. of course it is losing steam a bit, but they really have to worry about flash flooding. they're expecting up to 30 inches of rain and you know this storm entered in southwest florida, it's going to exit the state to the northeast of us in daytona beach and we're right positioned between those two places. so tomorrow morning is going to be the moment that all these homeowners here, they're really scared of, especially after seeing, you know, the people in southwest florida. i've got to say i worked in southwest florida in fort myers for the past six years before i started here back in february. my heart goes out to those people. you know, i was covering hurricane irma when homes were under water in bonita springs just south of where will is light now. and i want to stress, and this applies to central florida, the most dangerous part is often

after the storm passes. after irma some generators failed and people at nursing homes died because of that. so florida officials are really working to make sure that doesn't happen. but as for the situation here on the ground right now, i can tell you that 20,000 people in orange county have lost power. we're approaching two million people in the entire state that have lost power. five counties in florida. nearly 100% of people in those five counties have lost power. so, again, you don't have to worry so much about the storm surge threat. a lot of people from fort myers when i was there would come to orlando to avoid that storm surge threat. but you can't escape the flash flooding. and as the storm slows down, that is going to be the key concern. people here have cleared debris from their yards so that they don't clog the storm drains. they've done what they can. they've seen the devastation. they've seen the strength of this storm. governor desantis calls it a top 5 storm to ever hit the state of florida. so people are scared, they're hoping for the best, and we'll certainly be here to cover it sean.

>> sean: all right, nate, thank you as well. by the way i lived in southwest florida, had a place there for many, many years, i know naples, fort myers, sarasota leading up to tampa very well. the way the track of this storm is, that's the area where it hit very, very hard. fort myers, naples to the south, sarasota to the north and it literally is going right in from the western side of florida and then it's going to make a turn right up that i-4 corridor you hear about every election, right over orlando and then make itself towards the eastern seaboard of florida, that would be ponta ved, r. a, jacksonville florida, that area, and then you have to look at what happens in savannah georgia and moving up to charleston south carolina all the way in this hurricane. look at this, i think that's from the naples fire department. there's a lot of videos, that was under water all day, i believe that is the naples fire department and i've seen pictures like that all day from fort myers, from naples,

sarasota, and now people that are living in tampa, saint pete, that area, you are being told at this hour to shelter in place, those of you that were not evacuated >> joining us now with much more on what his state is now facing is florida senator marco rubio is with us. senator first our prayers, our thoughts are with our fellow americans, our floridian friends, sorry you're all going through this. this is a rough one. what do you know especially about southwest florida, what happened naples, fort myers, et cetera, sarasota? >> well, i think the reporting that preceded me on the air kind of describes the images we're going to begin to see tomorrow. we know that the storm surge is very significant, historic really and i think we're all going to be shocked by some of the images that are going to emerge. one of the water gauges that measures in fort myers was high an hour ago and rapidly rising so there's still a threat there and even as we're dealing with that, we recognize this storm is

not moving inland and now we move to a second kind of risk and that is the flash flood. the national weather service has issued its highest alert possible, expecting upwards in some isolated areas of up to 12 inches of rain but certainly four to eight inches. so they're now talking about real flash flood threat in many parts of central florida as this storm moves in the overnight hours. and the worry there of course is it's overnight. some people will be asleep, might be in the way of these flash flood advisories coming their way but a lot of rain that's going to come through central florida and northeast florida. so tomorrow's going to be another terrible day for florida for people in eastern central florida all the way up to the northeast part of the coast, even as we begin to see the images emerge tomorrow from southwest florida and the damage that was done there, these flash floods over the next few hours and into the early hours of tomorrow are nothing to play with, they're very significant, the threat is very high, probably the highest it's ever been certainly that i can recall in such a wide swath area.

>> sean: i know there's's been a lot of coordination between you governor desantis, senator rick scott, you have mobilized every single agency within the state of florida preparing this, knowing that it was likely going to be this bad. i was pretty impressed, i saw an ap picture today, and it had what looked like three or 4--look at this poor guy swimming inside his living room. that home is probably going to have to be rebuilt. but you pre positioned and staged all these electric company trucks are on stand-by literally to flood into florida. i saw a picture, looked like three football field's worth of utility trucks ready to go in and make the repairs that will be desperately needed in the days to come. that's pretty impressive staging and pre positioning, i would say, for the state of florida. we can show that big picture that i sent over earlier today. >> yeah. so part of it is now, as we're

talking about earlier, some of the utility companies are making and in some of these areas the grid is not going to be repaired it may have to be completely rebuilt which of course will extend the time frame that will take, that's a serious threat. you're absolutely right, florida unfortunately because we've been through so many storms has good systems in place, the governor has done a good job organizing that, the merge sit management, and fema's been very cooperative and will come in and back whatever the state needs. but there's a lot of work to be done, we don't even know the extent of it, you have to clear the roads and get the crews in there and save lives. lee county their 911 system is completely down being rerouted to col year they are getting calls that we can't respond to because it's not safe to get to and almost the entire county's out of power. we have multiple counties where there's no power whatsoever. so we don't know some of the harrowing things going on right now. but these crews are ready to go and we thank them, from all over the country ready to go, but it needs to be safe before we can

move in and that's going to take at least another 24-36 hours before work can even begin in these parts. >> we know that, let's say weather forecasting is an important science, most models leading into today, and i'm not blaming everybody, everybody's doing the best job they can, had this storm hitting a little bit more north, more towards the tampa area. it came in a little bit southwest, and that being naples, that being fort myers, that being sarasota. but you still had 2.5 million people that were in the evacuation zone. that's a lot of people to move. in some of these areas people did not evacuate and my understanding is, is that there are requests out there looking for people, if you have any information about anybody that may be in trouble, as soon as they're able, they want to send them in. do you know anything about those efforts? >> yeah florida disaster.org, if

you go on that web site, florida disaster.org you're going to be able to go to a site where you can register, whether you're one of those people that stayed behind or you know someone that did so it gives spot workers a census that they can begin to check on and get information about the households. look i think most people did leave, as you know a lot of people know that part of our state is somewhat seasonal so it doesn't have their full population but there's still a lot of people there. hopefully many of them left, sounds like most of them left but these videos are coming from somebody, there are people that stayed behind and right now if you're in lee county or even collier county, but especially lee county and you are trapped by water there is no way to get to you. it's one of the reasons we do these evacuation orders. you just have to hang on and do the best you can because hopefully some point tomorrow the rescue crews can come out and respond. conditions are still not safe. once that happens you're going to see something unprecedented, they'll come by air, by boat, volunteer groups like the cajun navy ready to go. they're ready to move.

>> sean: let me ask you, if anybody in this audience knows of somebody that didn't evacuate currently in an area and they can't get out, if you go to the web site that senator rubio just mentioned, floridadisaster.org/info and you input the name of the person and the address that the person is at, if they contacted you and said this is really bad here and i can't get out of here, you can put their name and address on that web site and then rescuers will know exactly where to go to help them out. those efforts, hopefully, senator, can start tomorrow. let's talk about other rescue efforts that are going to be needed here and also the coordination as it relates to the federal government, you mentioned fema. i know the white house has been in touch with you and governor desantis. what is the latest on their efforts to help? >> well, look, fema's pre positioned, everything in the state is needed, fema's ready to provide as a back stop or to add on because obviously the state

has its own supplies they're the primary responders but they'll need more and then army corps is ready to go. i talked with fema director this afternoon about help removing debris from the road to get people in, we'll need heavy equipment. but the most important thing if he hasn't done so, and i expect he will, the president will approve the major disaster declaration. i led the entire florida delegation in sending a letter in support of governor desantis' request because that will allow for individual assistance. now the individual, who, for example, has no home to go back to will now be able to apply to fema and quickly get the assistance they need, find a place to live, find a way to feed themselves while we work through this. and the same will be true for small businesses through the sbas, i expect that declaration if it hasn't been made will come shortly and that will open the door for the individual assistance. i think it's really tough to tell you we've seen [audio disruption] >> water damage and surge in

southwest florida, a tremendous amount of flood damage in central florida including agricultural areas and rural areas that there might be some people we don't even know are there yet because they didn't sign up beforehand and so forth. but a lot of people ready to help, the conditions have to be right but when that happens you'll see the help come. >> sean: and by the way anybody around the country, i know americans always step up and help their fellow americans in need, they have set up a web site that you can give donations to obviously. it's florida disaster fund.org is the official one. again, if you know anybody that didn't evacuate, somebody that is trapped, you can go to floridadisaster.org/info, input the person's name and address and rescuers know exactly where to go. i know this has been a busy day for you senator, and coordination and the preparedness seems to be as good as any i've ever seen so we wish everybody in florida the best. our prayers are with you all.

>> thank you sean. thanks so much. >> sean: all right senator thank you >> here with the latest updates on the sides and strength of hurricane ian, fox weather hurricane specialist bryan norcross is with us. bryan, a little bit south of where we thought it was going to land, maybe a little bit outside of the evacuation zone. maybe more people trapped than we thought would happen. but they have plans in place for rescue tomorrow and families, if they know the location, can go to that web site that i've been mentioned. what's the latest? >> yeah, it's going to be a very difficult situation, sean, because this is a multi stage disaster. we saw the first stage happen today, and then we moved to stage two, and stage three at least of this. let me show you. here we are at 9:00 p.m., 105 miles per hour but this is the most important number, moving at eight miles per hour. so that's a bike ride in terms of the speed that this is going to move across the state. there it was at land fall, 3:00

this afternoon, and, you know the circulation comes around like this. so the gulf water was being pushed at 3:00 this afternoon into naples, into cap teva, over sanibel and the nearby shore lines there, and then, as we went forward in time today, this system moved in and that changed the wind direction a little bit and then it pushed the water up the ca loose a hatchy river flooding downtown forth myers. so we ended up with both fort myers and naples and the surrounding areas all under water and under a hundred plus mile an hour winds. now tonight phase two is just starting. this area of rain. so it's hard to make out the center of circulation. it's kind of in this area here. but the -- up to the north of it we have this incredible area of rain, 12-19 inches of rain has fallen today there. they're predicting record flooding in that area and this is the part of the system that's

heading in the direction of orlando and that is just going to pick up and pick up and pick up. so let me just look at the timing here and you see the winds are going to come down as we go forward in time, that is peak winds, but the gusts in orlando, and as you said earlier, all of central florida is under a hurricane warning because even with 65 mile an hour winds, gusts are expected to be in the 70, 80, to 90 mile per hour range. and timing it out, watch this, the hurricane force gusts are in this area here in orange. so i want you to watch the orange and the time here. so here we are at midnight, south of the orlando area at midnight tonight. and the -- by the way, the hurricane force sustained winds are right here. but as we go forward in time, here we are at 6:00 in the morning, in come the hurricane force gusts in orlando and the surrounding area there. and there we go to noon, this thing is crawling up the state. still, hurricane force gusts in central florida. then we go to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow

and, guess what? hurricane force gusts are just finally leaving central florida, and then add on top of that that incredible rain that i showed you, this is south florida, this is an extreme flash flood alert from the national weather service for that whole central florida corridor. and i want you to keep your eye here and on orlando. this is for tonight into tomorrow morning. now watch as we go to thursday into friday morning, still orlando is in that flash flood corridor there, and then it moves on up the carolinas. sean, the national weather service in melbourne in charge of the orlando area says extreme rainfall flooding may prompt numerous evacuations and rescues. they call it potentially devastating to catastrophic just from the rain nothing to do with the wind and the power and all of the other problems expected beginning tomorrow in central florida. >> sean: bryan, let me ask about this phenomenon called a reverse

storm surge. tampa experienced it this morning. for example, around 8:00, the tied was beginning to recede from tampa bay. they called the phenomenon the reverse storm surge. when storm winds push water out of the bay, for example, tampa's mccay bay was three feet below expected levels during low tide at 10:30 and the down side of this is when the water comes rushing back at high tied, forecasters were predicting six to eight feet in terms of a storm surge. explain what that is and why that happens and how bad was it? >> well, in the same way that the hurricane pushed water in the gulf up into naples and then up the river to fort myers and in over the islands there, that's the winds pushing the water. well, if the winds are coming off the land in tampa, they're pushing the water out of tampa bay. so that happened, and the

concern from the national hurricane center, is that, as the storm moves north, those winds are going to switch and slam the water back into tampa bay. so that's why they have that storm surge alert in effect for the tampa bay area, depends on exactly how that switch happens and how quickly it happens, because it will come flooding back in if the tide happens to be right and the wind shift happens to kind of, you know, make that happen. >> sean: all right, bryan, very informative and helpful. thank you for that report. we appreciate it >> here on more with where this hurricane will be going from here, the founder of weather bell.com, our good friend, also the official meteorologist of the sean hannity radio show joe bastardi is with us. joe, you actually about 24, 30, 36 hours ago said there's a possibility this might come in more south than we think, meaning below tampa. you ended up being right in your call. let's talk about how bad -- >> well we had --

>> sean: go ahead. >> we actually had that forecast position from saturday, we held it. you know, a lot of people weren't watching what goes on. i don't expect -- you know, i'm a weather nut, so there's this constant -- there's about 3-5 million people that are just weather fanatics in the country that were watching what different forecasts look like so they know what my company has had out. we have a lot of clients in florida, and we always felt the land fall would be between tampa and naples, probably in the middle of it. it wasn't too bad from five days away making a 30 mile error is not that bad. the thing we had to be concerned with with tampa, of course, is all the forecasts that were up to the west of them and that would be shoving that same kind of situation you see in naples. and this happened in 1921, sean, and that was the big fear, and it was a well-founded fear, okay? i'm not disagreeing with that. that if the storm went in just north of tampa, then they would

have that 15-20 foot surge up tampa bay. but you want to know why this is very, very difficult to happen, and you saw it with charlie, because when a storm is moving parallel to the west coast of florida, the vectors around the storm change. and we see this, and there's actually papers on it done with typhoons in taiwan, that the frictional affects, if the storm is moving to the right of an island, parallel to it or the right of a peninsula, it will pull it in. and once it gets in, guess what it does? it goes looking for the water on the other side. you notice how hurricanes, when they're to the right of florida, tend to stay off shore, matthew, dorian, remember how they stayed offshore. because the same kind of frictional affect on the east coast will keep this offshore. so what you're seeing here is, like charlie -- remember charlie was forecasted up to tampa, too, remember? and where did it go? it went in south right here

because the friction pulled it in. so what happens is, this is going to get to the atlantic coast and it's going to get there, i think tomorrow afternoon. it looks like it's coming quicker, a little bit quicker to movement all right? once it gets there it's all bets off off for north. the national hurricane center has issued the hurricane watch from northeast florida to south carolina. remember we were on last night saying i'm really concerned about this. >> sean: let me get your focus for one second here if i can. >> all right. >> sean: so it comes in from naples, north of naples pretty much the ground zero where this landed, which is fort myers, north of that sarasota then tampa. okay. so it's coming in from the west coast of florida. it then is slightly turning left headed right up to orlando, as we mentioned earlier, and it's picking up steam the whole time, still category, hurricane category winds with it. so strong winds, still dangerous for people. then it makes its way more

eastward towards the east coast of florida. then it goes into, what, jacksonville, ponta vedra then where from this savannah up to charleston, south carolina? >> well, the center doesn't go in there. you know, i can't add to what the outstanding people before i came on have said about what it's going to do. what will happen -- up into the florida coast. what the concern has been and what we've been trying to tell people is, that northeasterly wind that's ramming 30-40 miles an hour into the northeast coast of florida already is piling water up. what happens when the system gets offshore and is a hurricane again and comes northward? then you'll have the storm surge from that coming up the coast. in the meantime >> sean: we have to move on but i have a quick question. north of jacksonville, because it will go to jacksonville after it gets out of central florida, then does savannah have to worry

and what parts of south carolina do we have to worry about? >> yes. yes. savannah, charleston all those places, i think they're going to get hit by a hurricane. and the compounding problem with the storm surge is the pre-existing water piling up. i'm sorry i'm so animated about in. >> sean: no, i know, for those that don't know, joe is a storm chaser, he eats, breathes and sleeps this, knows every storm -- what was the name of the hurricane, the biggest hurricane in the 1920s? quick quiz? >> i'm not sure 1920, but i know about the -- i don't think there was a big hurricane in 1920, how about that. >> sean: how about 1926. >> one year there wasn't a big hurricane. well, the 1920s window window had a lot through southern florida, 1929 cape hurricane, and 19 27, that went into savannah after hitting south florida. look at that déjà vu. >> sean: joe bastardi weather bell.com. thank you. we have now break developments across the state of florida now

joined by florida senator rick scott is with us. senator, let's talk about the rescue recovery efforts. i know the state of florida, we've been putting it up on the screen. if people know relatives, friends, that might be trapped, there is an input web site, we'll put it up on the screen where people can go and put it up, and i think it's, what is it, floridadisasterfund.org. >> sean it's floridadisaster.org. first my heart goes out to everybody impacted. i hope everybody's safe our first responders will get to you as quickly as possible. i've been talking to sheriffs, mayors, police chief fire and rescue across the state and they're committed to getting to people as quickly as they can. great coordination between local state and federal. i talked to the fema administrator yesterday the lady that runs southeast for fema are committed to doing everything they can, the state's doing everything. so hopefully everybody stays safe. don't do anything foolish. and then we've got to look at

this. we're going to have significant rain and wind. tampa orlando and north. that's going to be devastating. we're going to see a lot more power loss, we're going to see a lot more flooding. so everybody's got to hunker down and be careful, take care of each other and don't do foolish things. we're all going to get through this, we're a resilient state but my heart goes out to everybody impacted and stay safe. >> sean: let's talk about naples, let's talk about sarasota, let's talk about fort myers in particular tomorrow as this storm now makes its way to central florida and then the northeastern part of the state, the jacksonville area. but as soon as rescue efforts start in those areas where they were first hit, what will that entail? because you might have a lot of these areas. >> the first thing you have to do is get the wind down. the first thing you have to do is get the wind down so the vehicles can get out. as the vehicles get out they'll do everything they can to open

up the road to get to people as quickly as possible. i know they'll actually do some rescues by air, some rescues by water if they need be. but we've got to get the roads back open because that's how you get the power back on. but the first thing you do, the first thing you do is get the roads open so you can get to the people that need being rescued. there will be people injured, hopefully we didn't lose anybody, but they'll need to get to a hospital and we have to get to them as quickly as we can. i know, i've talked to the sheriffs, been with the sheriffs all across our state they're absolutely committed with fire and rescue to get there as quickly as they can. but everybody has to be careful, hunker down don't do anything foolish right now. be careful. >> sean: i think that's good advice for everybody and know that help is on the way as soon as you are able that's going to happen. one more time, if i may, senator, give out the state, to its credit, has put out a special, if you know anyone that didn't evacuate, is in an evacuation zone that fully

flooded, they don't have any help. if you go to the web site it's floridadisaster.org/info. you can put in that person's name and address, maybe a loved one, many a friend, you've been talking to them all day, they're underwater, they're living on the third floor of their house, second floor of their house and rescuers will know exactly where to go and they will be the first people rescued as part of this effort in terms of volunteering, donating, florida disaster fund.org, that's available for people as well. anything you would like to add? do you feel that the federal government and fema, do you think they have been cooperative enough that you believe you have confidence in their ability to get everything you need down to florida as quickly as possible? >> absolutely. but it's going to be everybody. it's going to be our locals, it's going to be our power companies, our communication companies, fema, the state, everybody's got to work together. fema has a great person running the state of florida, she'll do a great job working with local government and state government

and do the right thing. we just have to keep everybody safe and our rescuers will get to you. >> sean: senator rick scott thank you. joining us in sarasota charles watson is with us. charles what's going on there? sarasota got hit pretty hard today. >> yeah, sean. you know, i was going to tell you that conditions seemed to be getting favorable as ian is moving more north and east, but, that said, we are still seeing some pretty gusty wind here, that's certainly contributing to a lot of debris that's being blown around and power outages. and speaking of power, fortunately we are near hospitals. so we believe we're on the same grid. so we haven't had the misfortune of losing power today, but that is certainly not the case for most people in sarasota county. as we p, three-quarters of the county are without power right now. and that's something that folks are probably going to have to

get used to for at least a couple of days as utility crews that are on stand-by wait for more favorable conditions so that they can get out there and try to restore service for hundreds of thousands of customers right now. but i've got to tell you, it will not be easy because of the debris that is all over the place. you take a walk back here, and this is what you see all over the road right now, large tree limbs like this, relatively small compared to some of these big trees, but when you actually pick something up like this, it is not really easy to move around. so utility crews are definitely going to have to navigate those things like that, debris like that out in the roadways as they try to go and restore power. on top of that, there's the rainfall that continues to come down here. so you have to worry about the trees and the saturated ground. the trees could topple over into roadways, onto homes, and also

bringing down power lines. so that is also something that they're having to deal with out here. it is certainly a troubling situation out here. things do seem to be getting better, but they are not out of the woods just yet here in sarasota county. sean? >> sean: all right, thanks for that charles, we appreciate it. tonight also at this hour as millions from florida are suffering from the devastating impact of hurricane ian, the president of the united states, well, he's enjoying a lavish democratic fundraiser. he pretty much ignored the hurricane all day and instead earlier he spoke at a pre scheduled white house conference on hunger and nutrition. now the conference honored the late congresswoman, jackie walarski who helped organize the event. she died in a tragic car crash in august. at the time of her death biden ordered flags to be lowered at half mast, released a heart felt tribute to the long serving

lawmaker and is even meeting with her family tomorrow. but today apparently biden thought she was still alive. you can't make it up. >> i want to thank all of you here for -- club bipartisan elected officials like representative governor brawn, senator booker, representative jackie -- jackie you here? where's jackie. i don't think she was going to be here. to help make this a reality. . >> sean: i don't have words for this. usually these obvious examples of biden's con nahtive decline are totally ignored by most in the media mob but today multiple reporters demanded answers rightly so from the white house press secretary. how did that happen? what is going on? what is wrong here? needless to say, the white house press secretary didn't have very good answers. take a look. >> what happened in the hunger event today? the president appeared to look around the room for an audience member, a member of congress who passed away last month, seemed

to indicate she might be in the room. what happened? >> so the president was -- as you all know you guys were watching today's event, a very important event on food insecurity. the president was naming the congressional champions on this issue. >> he said jackie are you here? where's jackie she must not be here. >> i totally understand. i just explained, she was on top of mind. >> i'm trying to get my head around the response. if the late congresswoman was top of mind for the president and her family was expected to here and that's what he was thinking about why was he looking for her? i'm not trying to be snarky here. >> no, and, again, i think people can understand. >> one more time back to the question about the congresswoman. >> i'm not sure why. why? why one more time. >> the confusing part is why, if she and the family is top of mind, does the president think that she's living and in the room. >> i don't find that confusing. >> sean: just simply tell the truth that the president is and has been for a long time a

cognitive wreck and our country is facing crises on multiple fronts as a result, although according to in the left biden cannot be held liable for every disaster. according to them every crisis is caused by climate change. naturally this week they were once again politicizing even the weather. we've had hurricanes all throughout our history but this one is, of course, has to be politicized. take a look. >> can you tell us what this is and what effect climate change has on this phenomenon? >> we could come back and talk about climate change at a later time. i want to focus on the here and now. >> listen, i'm just trying to get to, you said you want to talk about climate change but what affect does climate change have on this phenomenon that's having now because it seems assist storms athe storms are intensifying. that's the question. >> i don't think you can link climate change to any one event. >> this is exactly what client scientists have been warning about and now we see it up close. >> this is the quote from governor desantis on climate

change. i am not in the pews of the church of the global warming leftists. this is what he thinks about climate change and now his state is getting hit with one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit. >> well, perhaps --. >> sean: we had haines in 1922. this is 2022. it's hurricane season. anyway here with aformer arkansas governor mike huckabee and former senior advisor to president trump steven miller and lara trump. laura we'll start with you. people are at risk tonight people are under water they can't be rescued in fort myers, in sarasota, in the naples area and they want to talk about climate change when this is hurricane season and during hurricane season, you usually have hurricanes like we did a hundred years ago. >> yes. well, of course the democrats and their marketing arm, the main stream media, never let a good crisis go to waste and, of course a life threatening

hurricane, as you just mentioned, is no different. we know exactly why they're doing this sean. we are headed towards a midterm election where they are desperate to get their base inspired in any way possible because they have failed epically on every possible front for the american people. so they're now trying to claim that one of the quietest hurricane seasons in 30 years is somehow due to climate change. i'm still trying to connect the dots there. by the way, this was a big hurricane, it was a category 4 storm. i grew up in wrightsville beaming north carolina. i saw plenty of hurricanes growing up. when i was just a baby in 1984, hurricane diana came through, hit my home. that was a category 4 storm. i have been through many hurricanes. i remember my mom, as a very little girl, she told me watching an oak tree in her front yard in north carolina when hurricane hazel came through, category 4 hurricane. we have seen this time and time

again. you look at 2005, that was such an active hurricane season, we went through the entire alphabet and had to start over again because we had so many named storms. so somehow trying to draw together the fact that we have a big powerful hurricane and convincing people that climate change is something they need to drop everything and run to the polls and vote on november 8th for, of course, totally ridiculous. i would like to suggest, as you have all night, sean, that if your audience cares, like these folks in the main stream media should care, they can go to florida disaster fund.org to help out with the rescue efforts. that's what they should have been talking about. >> sean: lara great point. the guy we're looking at in the video that's not a very good idea if you're in the path of the hurricane. not a smart play p governor let me go to you, climate alarmism is on full display every day isn't it? because when joe biden became president, we were paying a a little over $2 a gallon for

gasoline, it's on the rise again, 5.75 average in california, it's double the price per gallon than when donald trump was president. donald trump got us to energy independence. we were a net exporter of energy by the time he left office. now we have a president, because of this climate alarmist world view religious consultism i would call it, it caused us to abandon energy independence. joe has been begging opec numerous times to increase production. he met with the pariah nation in saudi arabia begging them to increase production. they pretty much declined his request. then he's trying to make a deal with the iranians wanting to report iranian oil and make the mullahs rich again. that doesn't seem smart or going to the thug dictator in venezuela sending an emissary and the entire time we have more energy resources than all of

these countries combined and it would be good for national security, it would create high-paying career jobs, it would lower the inflation rate, lower the price at the pump, lower the price to deliver goods to every store we've purchased products in. why aren't we doing that? why are they buying into this? >> sean we have to understand that for the people on the far left, this whole idea of the climate and climate change, it's not a political issue. this is their religion. they are what romance chapter one versus 25 talks about in the new testament. they worship and serve the created things rather than the creator and we have a group of people that are oblivious to the fact that we haven't had a major hurricane in two years. they look at this one as if it is a 1-off event that is just did beginning of the apocalypse. it's horrible. by the way what a great job you've done tonight. some of the defendants you've had have given some of the best

explanations of what's happening and why it's happening that i've heard on television today and i congratulate the guest selection today. one thing they didn't do is to try to tell us that congress could change all of this. amy klobuchar in the u.s. senate intimated that the passage of the inflation reduction act would have a real impact on hurricanes. this is when people start worshipping that which is created rather than the creator. it is a dangerous religion, and we should, as a country, reject it and get back to the simple things of science and real faith and trust in god, helping organizations, not just florida disaster. i would also suggest samaritans who do it all because of their faith. i don't see the leftists going out there creating organizations to try to help people put their lives back together but i see christian organizations do that and i salute them for it. >> sean: let me go to steve. steve, you know, make you can

build on what governor huckabee's saying here about the agenda. and maybe what lara was touching on as well. this agenda of climate alarmism, which has resulted in us abandoning independence, but more importantly you have joe biden pushing this narrative dividing half the country, quote, maga republicans, obama in the last week, insinuating republicans oppose open borders because they're racist. or hillary clinton comparing people at donald trump's rally in ohio to nazis. is that because they can't talk about inflation at a record high, record high gas prices, open borders, they can't talk about the lack of law and order in our towns and our cities. they can't talk about any educational success, any foreign policy success. so that's all they're left with. >> that's exactly right sean. they can't defend the record, they can't defend open borders, they can't defend rampant crime.

they can't defend rampant inflation. they can't defend empty store shelves where you can't get baby formula. so they're using the politics of demonization. they're accusing republicans of being fascists and bigots and enemies of the state, abhorrent schranders unforgivable libels and it is gross and unseemly to suggest that republicans are responsible for hurricanes? for the love of god, we've had extreme weather events since the beginning of time. through whole human history, the whole earth's history. as you mentioned some of the more severe storms were a hundred years ago. so to imagine there's a plan republicans or democrats are blocking to get rid of storms and hurricanes and ice and floods? i mean, the only person in the world who actually believes that is maybe joe biden because his brain is so shot that he doesn't know what's going on. but it truly, it truly offends

me as a citizen to have the president and his party suggesting that republicans are pro hurricane? the climate's been changing since the beginning of time and if you really cared about the climate, what you would be doing is you would be supporting common sense energy policies that produce a clean and efficient here in the united states. >> sean: all right, i've got to thank you. steve miller we appreciate it. governor also, please, our prayers to your daughter, thank goodness she had a successful operation and she is recovered and recovering, we send our best to you. we go to orlando where multi media journalist katie burn is standing by. katie orlando about on to be front and center with the storm. coming in now with reports. i have friends there, writing me at this time saying winds are picking up and it's about to hit. >> yeah, you know, we just heard from our charles watson talking about how the storm is moving northeast and, hey, that's right

where we are in orlando. i can tell you conditions have been getting worse since early this afternoon. now we're starting to see those winds picking up. the rain has been consistently falling down but when you've got the mixture of those two you'll start to see debris getting tossed around on the ground, pieces of the palm trees on the roads and you'll probably hear the wind around me. what's interesting about orlando is right now there's a lot of people who came here from southwest florida evacuating that area looking for safety here in orlando but what happened, yesterday those hurricanes warnings actually expanded inland and decided to include orlando. so people hunkered down here riding out the storm here as well. so the hotels are sold out in a lot of locations. people are spending what they wanted to be a vacation trip indoors because the disney parks are closed today and tomorrow same with universal studios, in fact disney reports the guests are being asked to shelter in place while we ride the storm out. nearly two million people without power right now in florida, and we've got thousands

of linemen set up all across the state here ready to respond. when it takes for crews to get out there into the areas really impact jude all right we appreciate it katie thank you for being with us. and of course we'll continue to pray for the people all across the great state of florida. here with much more with florida's 19th district right in the heart of where this storm hit today. southwest florida, that includes naples and fort myers and other communities hit by this hurricane. florida congressman byron donalds is with us. i know you've been putting out videos today, you've been all over this today. you've been in contact with the governor, with our senators. you guys got walloped today. how bad? >> it's been devastating sean. the storm surge has been anywhere from as little as three feet to as high as 16, 17 feet. downtown naples, marco island, ba neat a beach, fort myers beach, sanibel cap teva islands,

cape corral, fort myers all got a major storm surge, we've never seen anything like this in southwest florida, the damage has been devastating to southwest florida. >> sean: byron you know i know the area as well, i had a condo in naples for a long time. let's talk about sanibel. i heard sanibel got hit particularly hard cap teva same thing. what do you know about what's happened in those areas? >> just complete devastation. we won't fully know until tomorrow the full impacts but sanibel from what i've tab has been seeing easily six feet to ten feet to 12 feet of storm surge and the island is a barrier island so people need to understand it's very skinny and narrow so it's easy for the island to be overtaken by water. obviously we have homes and businesses there. there's many natural wildlife

refuges that are there. one of our major wildlife hospitals is on sanibel island in southwest florida. so pure devastation right now. >> let's talk about rescue and relief efforts. i assume there's going to be people that need to be rescued in fort myers, likely naples, likely sarasota. tell me about those efforts and when will they likely start? >> well, one of the concerns is the evacuation orders may not have been residents who railroad not in the direct coastal region. southwest florida, we've been through hurricanes before and through the last several ones, even hurricane ian irma citizens were able to hunker down and ride through the storm. the storm surge warning is where the devastation is. that storm surge turned out to be real. those evacuation operations look like they're going to begin tomorrow morning when first responders can get out and it's safe. the winds are still high.

they have to be below 45 miles an hour before we can send emergency crews out there. my hope is nobody in those zones actually stayed. my hope is that they got out. but we'll really know the full impact tomorrow. >> sean: we're be watching out for that and of course the rescue efforts restoring power making sure people have food, water, supplies, et cetera. all right, we appreciate you being with us >> up next, we've got to take a quick break here, we have a major record set in major league baseball and we've got the tape. let's put it this way, magic number 61 was set tonight. ♪ becoming a morning person starts the night before with new neuriva relax and sleep. it has l-theanine to help me relax from daily stress. plus, shoden ashwagandha for quality sleep. so i can wake up refreshed. neuriva think bigger.

♪ >> sean: all right, before we go on this rough news night, baseball history tonight, yankees slugger aaron judge hit his 61st home run tying the great roger marist who hit 61 back in 1961.

there it is, way back. it's going, going, it's gone. good-bye. he has now tied the record and he'll have, i guess another week, week and a half to break the record. congratulations to him and the new york yankees as well. our prayers are with the people of florida. we love you all. stay safe. stay with the fox news channel for continuing coverage. laura's next. we'll see you tomorrow. ♪ >> laura: i'm laura ingraham and this is the ingraham angle with a fox news alert. the state of florida has been devastated by one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. at around 3:00 p.m. today hurricane ian slammed into the southwestern coast of the sunshine state in cayo costa. the cat 4 storm had winds top off at 155 miles per hour and storm surges feared as high as 15-18 feet. now nearly two million people in florida have lost power with the storm moving at a glacial pace those numbers will con