Kathy we are keeping a close eye on the gulf coast tonight, where the first hurricane to hit florida since 2005 is now making landfall. The outer bands of the storm have already been battering some areas for hours. Patrick abcs Marci Gonzalez shows us how people are riding out hurricane hermine. Parts of floridas gulf coast gold coast. Strong winds, relentless rain, and the biggest concern, the storm surge expected to reach up to 12 feet in some places. The most important thing that we ought to all put in our minds is that this is life threatening. Mandatory Evacuations Ordered in some coastal communities. Please protect property and evacuate immediately. As even before landfall, hermines outer bands flooded still about four and a half inches of water inside of the house. Shelters open overnight and a state of emergency in place for much of the now soaked sunshine state. You know when you live in florida, this is what it is. You just listen and watch. If it gets bad, you leave. If you think you can ride it out, ride it out. Some riding it out with sandbags in place, windows boarded. Theres no way to make anything safe. Its mother nature. And this message for the first hurricane to hit florida in more than a decade. Could spawn tornadoes. Tropical storm watches and warnings are in effect all the way to the jersey store. Sure. Patrick the big island of hawaii dodges one big storm but another is on the way. Tropical storm madeline passed by today, bringing heavy rain and kicking up big waves, but , doing little damage. Its expected to weaken, but stay a hurricane as it passes the islands this weekend. This is typically the busiest time of the year for hurricanes and it is busy tonight. , mark, whats the latest. Mark we will focus in on the storm down to the south of us in florida. It is literally moments away from making landfall. What is that mean . It means the eye touches land somewhere. That has not happened yet. You canee flow. This is the airy getting strong wind. This has yet to make it on land. The storm surge will go in on the east side. On the westside side, it wont be so bad. We actually can see what kind of precipitation is coming out of the sky, and you can also tell if it is not a normal type of precipitation. This is the eye of the storm. What happens inside of can trap birds. That is exactly what this is showing now. There are a huge number of birds inside this hurricane. That will make its way onshore. Hopefully a lot of them will survive. Sometimes you find birds in the caribbean that make it into florida that she would never see and terms of hurricanes, so some interesting stuff. It is a hurricane and will be a hurricane as it makes landfall with wind s of 80 miles per hour. It is tough to tell how it will play out for the weekend. For us, nice and quiet. Chilly tomorrow, 50s. 73 for the ride home. It will be beautiful. Kathy thank you. An engine test ends in disaster at cape canaveral. A rocket and 200 million satellite destroyed in a fireball. Abcs david kerley shows us what was lost. Its a test that goes spacex rocket erupting on the pad, like a bomb going off. It wasnt just one explosion, several followed. The force of the blast felt by residents miles away from cape canaveral. It was like a small earthquake. That is a lot of power. Spacex was planning to test fire the rocket ahead of this weekends launch. It was filling the rocket with something fails catastrophically, it is clear the explosion starts there. So big it was picked up on radar. Along with the rocket, its cargo seen here. Inside an Israeli Communications satellite that facebook hoped to use, its first big venue in space. In africa, Facebook Ceo Mark Zuckerberg said in a post, i am deeply disappointed that spacexs launch failure Service Across the continent. It is the second major setback for space x ceo elon musk, a little more than a year ago one of its falcon 9s blew up on take off. Former astronaut mark kelly is on space xs crew safety advisory board. So this is a death now. This is just a setback . It is just a setback. We can figure out in this case what happened, and well make sure that it doesnt happen again. Mosquitoes in florida test positive for the zika virus. The infected mosquitoes were collected in the popular tourist area of miami beach. South florida has been taking steps to kill mosquitoes since people started coming down with the virus several weeks ago. We will be asking the federal and State Government for additional funding as we move on in this fight against a guy, but it does not mean we are stopping any of our efforts waiting for that funding to happen. Only state where mosquitoes are proven to be carrying zika. In illinois, the state finances are such a mess that people held a mock funeral. They carried a casket past the Governors Mansion in springfield to protest the lack of funding for many programs. Illinois lawmakers have not passed a full budget plan in more than a year. Key state programs are operating under a stopgap measure, which runs out in four months. Patrick expecting a 2017 tax refund. The irs says there might be a delay in receiving your check. A new tax law requires the agency to hold refunds for earned income and child tax credits until at least midfebruary. It might also take longer to screen those refunds for identity theft. Ups will increase the price of Delivery Service right after christmas. Rates will jump an average of 4. 9 starting december 26. The higher rates will cover u. S. Ground shipping and air freight, shipping and freight. The extra money will help pay for expansion and overall improvements. Walmart is eliminating 7000 jobs mainly in accounting and , inventory. The company says its streamlining how those jobs are done. And workers will be offered other jobs within the company, although they might take a salary cut. Walmart employs more than two Million People worldwide. Kathy we could learn soon murder case against brendan dassey. A federal judge three weeks ago threw out the murder conviction against the Manitowoc County man and ordered him released from prison. Dassey and his uncle steven avery are serving life sentence s for the murder of teresa halbach. The state has 90 days to decide whether to appeal the judges decision, file new charges against dassey, or do nothing and let dassey walk out of prison. Tonight, averys lawyer tweeted that an announcement about dassey will happen tomorrow. Earlier, 12 news asked the attorney general today when a decision could come. We are not prepared to make any announcements on that. We have made some decisions, but im not prepared to announce that right now. Kathy steven avery is also appealing his murder conviction. Averys lawyer last week filed a motion asking for the testing and retesting of hundreds of pieces of evidence. Patrick tomorrow, services will be held for a nun from wisconsin murdered in mississippi. Sister margaret held and a fellow nun were found dead in their home last week. Held member of the School Sisters of st. Francis. A prayer vigil will be held at st. Joseph chapel at 9 30, followed by Funeral Services at 11 00. Archbishop Jerome Listecki will officate. Also tomorrow, the traveling Vietnam Memorial wall stops in germantown. It is open to visitors 24 hours a day and will be in germantown through monday. And as we mentioned earlier, the milwaukee rally is back. You can check out all kinds of motorcylerelated events at all five local harleydavidson dealers, as well as the and looking even further ahead six flags in gurnee, illinois, is getting a new roller coaster next year. The joker is named after the famous batman villain. The 12story coaster doesnt just drop riders over a 90 degrees hill. It also sends them tumbling endoverend. The joker is set to open next spring. Kathy thousands of kids around the area went back to school today. At nicolet high school, they rolled out the red carpet for students on this first day. As wisn 12 news Mike Anderson reports, the kids say they could get used to this kind of treatment. If youre a student off to the first day of a new school year, there nothing else like it. Nothing like having the principal praising instead of punishing. I try to get us all to a special start. It is a good day. The school rolled out the red carpet a couple of hours before the stars arrived. And by the time they set foot on it, the Royal Treatment was freshmen ben breland and liam thompson rode their bikes in. They never once thought high school would like this. It feels pretty great to be honest to be in high school and not in middle school anymore. I did not know it would be like this, so it is pretty exciting. Parents Angela Barnes and steven mays have a freshman son. They were a little nervous sending him off but the open , arms welcome calmed those nerves. Exciting. It gets them started on the right foot. It is a tradition that goes back to 2008, and this year is just as good as the first one. Kathy the tradition started as a way to calm students first day jitters. U. W. Eau claire students got a unique welcome back today. Campus police handed out popsicles and safety tips. Officers say students are most likely to have items stolen at the start of the school year. The popsicles were just to help everyone keep cool whle moving in. The first day back at school was extra special for a teacher and student in oakfield. Patrick wisn 12 news first introduced you to teacher jodi natasha fuller in may right after schmidt gave the young girl one of her kidneys. The operation happened at childrens hospital. Lets bring up our two celebrities for today. This is mrs. Jodi schmidt and natasha fuller. Patrick today, the two got a heros welcome at a districtwide assembly. Both have recovered from surgery and are doing well. They say they share a bond that a scary mix up, how to young boys traveling alone ended up on the wrong flight to the wrong cities. Kathy we will show you the Russ Feingold im Russ Feingold and i approve this message. Narrator listen to senator johnson on Student Loans ron johnson its just kinda free money, young people dont really, necessarily understand finance. Narrator what senator johnson doesnt understand is, more than 800,000 wisconsinites have Student Loans. But he wants to eliminate federal Student Loans and keep Interest Rates high. Kinda free money. Narrator with senator johnson, opportunity for middle class kids would disappear. Ron johnsons not for students. Not for wisconsin. Patrick a scary airline mixup for the families of two fiveyearold boys. Kathy they were put on the wrong planes and sent to the wrong cities. Us the famlies are demanding , answers. Tonight, a highflying mixup. Fiveyearold Andy Martinez flying alone put on the wrong plane and ending up more than 200 miles from home. Where is my son . His mother, mirabel martinez, telling me she panicked when jetblue employees presented her with the wrong child, her own son missing. After travelling to the Dominican Republic with her son, martinez says she had to fly home early, andy staying with relatives for a summer vacation. Andy seen here leaving santiago with a group of children on the day of his flight. Moments later, jet blue mistakenly putting him on a flight to boston, the other boy sent to new york carrying andys passport. Martinez now asking for the faa to investigate. This never should have happened. Jetblue telling abc news it is now reviewing the incident so it doesnt happen again, but adds that the children were always under the supervision of jetblue employees. President ial nominee donald trump is suing a british newspaper. Melania trump wants the daily mail to pay her 150 million. The paper printed a story linking trumps former Modeling Agency to an escort service. Her Attorney Says the report is completely false and has damaged her reputation. Patrick you can celebrate the life of milwaukeenative gene wilder this weekend by seeing two of his classic films on the big screen. The amc cinema at mayfair mall is among those across the country showing willy wonka and the chocolate family and Blazing Saddles on saturday and sunday. Willy wonka is showing at 5 00 both the days, Blazing Saddles at 7 30. Tickets are 5. Gene wilder passed away this week at the age of 83. Check out this wild encounter in los angeles. Two young bears decide to go dumpster diving, looking for food. Their meal was interrupted by a dog, which managed to scare the bears off. Kathy crazy. Patrick the story goes deeper than that. They stopped off at two nearby pools to take a swim. Their day was not done yet. Kathy in sports, the packers close out the preseason with a loss in kansas city. Patrick plus, how the badger players feel about being denied a chance to do a lambeau leap saturday in green bay. Kathy and, week three of operation football means conference showdowns, including a wild finish in the classic a tonight. Dan needles is in next with big 12 sports. First, here are tonights announcer big 12 sports presented by menards. Dan aaron rodgers, jordy nelson, randall cobb, the entire offensive line, and most of the defensive starters all rested tonight in the final preseason city, so its no surprise they lost. There were some bright spots from players fighting for jobs. One of them is former badger jared abbrederis, who you have to believe is a lock to be on the roster. Great adjustment here to catch the 40yard pass from joe callahan. Abbrederis also had a long punt return. On the defensive side, josh hawkins is making it tough to cut him. Hawkins with his second interception of the preseason. The chiefs did beat the packers 177. Bart houston was named for bart starr, and on saturday, bart houston will make his first start at quarterback for the badgers against lsu at Lambeau Field, w entire career. Even if this game comes down to a lastsecond touchdown, dont expect to see any celebrations like this. That is because the ncaa has made it clear they will penalize any player that attempts a lambeau leap. Lsu coach les miles went so far as to say hed make his players hitchike home if they attempt a leap. Its the rule i guess. I didnt see that. Is it . Its excessive celebration. I was gonna what if i did a fake one . You know what i mean, like i dont know. Hell warn ya. Thats a good one. Im not gonna do anything to thats a good one. Im not gonna do anything to hurt the team. Thats kinda of the whole deal. We have to do an extra 1015 yards on kickoff, so im not gonna be worried about that. Dan crews made some final touchups to the turf at Lambeau Field today, painting logos of both lsu and wisconsin on the field. We are told it is not the same crew that painted the turf at the hall of fame game last month. After saturdays game, the crew will have plenty of time to get ready for the packers home opener on september 25. And, week three of operation football kicked off in muskego tonight, an early season showdown in the classic eight conference. Check out the catch here by waukesha wests Brian Dobrich who bobbled it but hung on , despite losing his helmet. That set up the first score of the game. Right before halftime, the warriors tied it on this td pass from frankie cistaro to michael madia. Peter maccudden had a great night for waukesha. The wolverines back in front. They fell behind. On the final play quarterback , robert kobza scored on a 1 yard leap over the pile. Waukesha west stones muskego 2624. Stuns muskego 2624. Kathy we have a final look at your forecast next. Patrick mark the National Hurricane center says it is official. The hurricane is making landfall now. It never got a huge strengthening, but nevertheless it is still a hurricane and will cause big problems. This is heading right towards tallahassee. The possibility of tornadoes tonight and tomorrow, and flooding rains. This will impact our weather in a good way. Place across the country, so i pressure is in control and stays in control through monday. Dicky from hollywood its jimmy kimmel live. Tonight, winona ryder, casey wilson, this week in unnecessary censorship and music from yg. And now, in the meantime, heres jimmy kimmel . [ cheers and applause ] jimmy my name is jimmy. Im the host. Thank you for watching. Thank you for coming