And we have several huge stories today. We're going to start with our

national lead warnings of quote un-survivable storm surge flooding.

For some parts of Florida in the southern United States,

Hurricane Helene was just upgraded to a powerful category

free storm.

It's already wreaking havoc on bridges and roadways

such as this one you're looking at in southwest Florida.

For those in the big bend, that's where the Florida Panhandle meets the

peninsula, the storm's outer bands already have brought

extensive flooding and we're told that worse is yet to come. Listen to what

federal and state officials are saying. Right now it looks like it's a dead-on hit to Tallahassee.

This is an unusually dangerous storm that threatens to bring heavy rain and potentially catastrophic flooding.

This will be a statewide event.

We expect strong winds throughout the state with hurricane force winds,

wind gust up to 80 to 100 miles an hour.

You just heard from the North Carolina Governor and the Georgia Governor,

we're standing by to hear from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the next hour.

And as you heard, it is not just Florida in Pauline's path.

Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,

are all facing historic flooding, some 60 million people across 12 southeastern United States

are under some sort of watch or warning related to this hurricane.

Let's get right to CNN's John Berman and on the ground in

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