Hurricane Ian hit the state's west coast with winds of over 240 km/h.

So this is a devastating storm for parts of Florida, not just on the southwest coast but also inland associated with some of these impacts.

This is going to be a storm we talked about for many years to come.

It's one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.

S.

The authorities have warned the pounding rain and wind will continue as the hurricane crosses florida to the atlantic ocean.

The state's governor says that it could take years to recover from the devastation left behind.

This is a major, major event.

It's going to be going to be a tragic event in many ways and we understand this is not just a 48 hour ordeal.

This is going to be something that is going to be there for days and weeks and months and unfortunately in some circumstances even years, the flood waters as well as winds are causing the most damage.

The hurricane has knocked out electricity to more than one million homes and businesses in the city of Tampa.

The power of the storm sucked the water right out of the bay even though the hurricane weakened as it moved inland, authorities are warning of devastating rain wind and even tornadoes still to come as it tears across the state.

Let's get a closer look at this with Matthew Capoccia meteorologist with the my radar app, He's in port charlotte florida.

Matthew.

What more can you tell us about the situation in florida right now.

Hey, good morning.

You know, I can say personally, I've never witnessed a storm at least firsthand this intense what we're seeing right now, conditions are beginning to die down here where we are, which is good to finally have a break from the wind and the rain and everything else.

The first half of the storm was bad, especially for areas south support charlotte we're talking enables, we're talking Fort Myers, we saw their highest storm surge ever recorded more than 2 2.5 m, which completely inundated the coastline where I was, we saw significant winds in the order, I'd say 100 40 plus kilometers per hour and plentiful rainfall.

Then we got the, I ordinarily the second half of the storm is weaker in this case it was far stronger from a win standpoint.

We saw winds gusting close to gosh, 1 72 190 kilometers per hour.

We saw absolutely plentiful rainfall to the point where even beyond storm surge, every place that we were trying to drive through or around was inaccessible due to extreme flooding with rainfall rates of five plus two, perhaps centimeters per hour, it's an extremely difficult situation and now this is the first time in my life I've looked out the window and can't find a single light anywhere.

The only lights we've seen all night long were actually hunkered down in a garage right now are from transformers blowing to power flashes.

Why was the second part of the storm so much stronger.

You know that's something that I think we're gonna have to be discussing for quite some time because honestly it didn't really follow the textbook structure of a typical storm.

We had expected this storm several days ago to be in a weakening trend towards landfall.

Instead this defined all odds rapidly intensifying this morning to a borderline category five.

And so many things really surprised us about this.

So what's the damage like the damage from what I can see is that of a miles wide Ef two Ef three tornado.

You have a lot of people whose homes are underwater or roofs that are missing.

You'll have my goodness.

I mean the building were underneath right now had its roof peeled back.

Lots of areas are still underwater.

Further inland from freshwater flowing.

It's just one thing after another and I think until daylight comes in about three or four hours we won't really understand the scale of the devastation.

Matthew poochie meteorologist with the my radar app in port charlotte florida.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's pick up on some of those points with a jit Niranjan from dw environment.

Um as we heard, they're not a textbook storm that we're seeing there.

What what's different exactly what are we seeing here.

So I mean this was one of the strongest storms in U.

S.

Recorded history but it's definitely not going to be one of the strongest storms in the U.

S.

S.

Future.

I mean these sorts of events are becoming stronger because of climate change.

They're not becoming more frequent.

I mean hurricanes generally but these kind of category 3 to 4 to five storms definitely are.

And so this is a kind of projection that climate scientists are saying we've got all sorts of new factors that were brought in by burning fossil fuels and heating up the planet.

Like sea levels have risen higher.

There's more warmer air can hold more water vapor in it.

So when it does rain it rains much harder.

And on top of that you have all sorts of other factors that are maybe a bit more difficult to plot out.

But one thing that we're seeing often is storms that are starting to just slow down and this looks like what's happening here that's slowing down.

Which means there's more time in which the rain can just be inundate flooding onto an area that's already inundated.

How then can places like florida which already have problems with flooding keep up with this sort of extreme weather and these sorts of events.

So the unfortunate truth is that there are limits to how much communities and people in regions can adapt to these sorts of events that are getting stronger.

There is a huge amount they can do before they get to the point where places are actually unlivable and so to actually reduce the damage and the death toll and the amount of infrastructure that gets destroyed, there's all sorts of things they can do.

So having good evacuation plans, warning people early and making sure that people respond in an effective way.

Clear communication from politicians.

All of that will reduce death tolls and make people able to actually cope with the events much more.

But you still have the problems of homes that will be washed away.

People have to pay more for their insurance premiums to be able, I mean some people won't even be able to ensure their homes anymore.

So what's this all mean?

What do governments have to do?

Because from what you're saying, it may not be more frequent events, but even more severe events.

Is that what you're saying?

Exactly.

And so I mean there's two very clear things governments can do.

I mean, first world leaders who promise to hold global warming at 1.5°C above pre industrial temperatures.

They can honor that pledge.

They can put in the policies in place to actually get there at the minute.

We're almost looking to double that temperature target.

And that means stronger storms, stronger hurricanes.

On the other hand right now, they need to accept that we've already heated the planet about 1.1°C and that means that the world is hot of the world is different to how it used to be 100 years ago.

And that means they need to put in place the adaptation measures to actually allow people, like we just said, to evacuate in the face of danger to have the support they need when they do lose their homes and to have plans in place so that people don't end up suffering unduly.

But is it that simple to just decide, okay, we're going to hold the temperature at this certain level.

It's definitely not simple.

But the reassuring news is that the technology is almost completely there and it's cheap.

There's so many things that governments could be doing that would hold warming far lower than what they expected to do if it does end up going over the limits that kind of they've agreed on.

There are ways to suck common outside back out of the atmosphere, but these are less tested, less proven.

So what scientists keep stressing is cut emissions now and faster and you save a whole lot of suffering for the rest of the century and john thank you very much for coming in from D.

W.