Anderson cooper in braden florida, where the winds have really picked up significantly just in the last ten minutes or so, they are really starting to whip here in downtown by, by The River. I just want to get a sense of sort of the wins. Its sort of hard to tell when youre actually in it you get a sense in the light over there. Theres just been a steady downpour of rain and you can see it there. It reflected in the light as i was talking to erin in the last hour, there is a lot of along The River here. Theres a lot of Palm Trees, a lot of these really large branches of these Palm Trees are just ripping off flying through the air and there are sort of littered all over the ground. I want to walk if i cant over here a little bit and show you the Manatee River is over here. And nellis, is that way. About ten minutes ago, we could see lights over in pinellas obscures me in palmetto, we dont see the lights over there anymore. I dont know if theyre still there and just the visibilities. So
Barreling down the Gulf Coast straight into floridas West Coast. 120mileanhour winds and violent Water Pummeling the bridge. And this is santa Bell Island where floodwaters appear to be swallowing a house. And in Fort Myers, a tornado rips through neighbourhoods, obliterating properties. The winds are ferocious, the storm churches unstoppable and floridians are worried. Lets go to her senior correspondent in tampa. Steve . Jesse, we see rain come down in sheets. The wind is starting to pick up as well, we could see anywhere from 616 inches of rain here that has been going steady for the past six hours. The Storm Surge is another concern here in the tampa area. This could be a Worstcase Scenario depending on where the storm actually makes landfall. We could see up to 10 feet of Storm Surge here, anywhere from 15 feet along other parts and along the coast. When it gets over 40 miles per hour, they cannot come out and rescue and right now it seems to be hovering right about that range. Th
Being felt everywhere. It has come in as a category three storm with 120 mile per hour sustained it went even higher gusts according to the national hurricane center, we are talking to Rental Rain extremely dangerous wind. What is being described is lifethreatening Storm Surges that are now pounding portions of the state. At this hour, a Lifethreatening Flash Flood warning has just been issued for nearly 2 Million people. That includes tampa, saint petersburg, and clearwater. You just saw Bill Weir in st. Petersburg. You could see all of that developing there right now, over half 1 Million homes and businesses have lost power with conditions deteriorating by the minute this storm has also spawned a Record Number of tornadoes, all across the state of florida, far beyond where the storm has actually making direct hit tonight, there have been 19 confirmed tornadoes. So far, the sheriff Of St. Lucie county has just confirmed that there have been multiple fatalities after an outbreak of tor
That Storm Surge could be the worst part of this storm. So we will be on that during this hour. Ill be watching. Thanks alex. Thank you. We are going straight to bill karins. Msnbcs meteorologist. Nbc News Meteorologist for the latest on the situation there. Bill, what can we expect now in florida . This is when all the damage is happening. We cant show you where the worst Storm Surge is. But we know it is moving in. We have had reports of a ten foot Storm Surge in sarasota. As we go down the coast, all the way to naples, its been at least five to six foot Storm Surge. That is higher than helene in most cases so we have new significant damage that is being done tonight. As the storm is moving inland. The winds are still pushing that water against the coast. It is still rushing in. The other thing you will notice, the black line is the center. Just north of the center which has been the past five hours over tampa, torrential rain. We are talking two to three inches per hour. Now that is