these intense pelts of rain and wind. the town of saint marks, we re going to be monitoring that because that town is very, very vulnerable to storm surge. this is the way it looks in tallahassee. now, there was a sign behind me, one of those little banner signs, those advertisements on a small pole. it was getting whipped around. it s been uprooted and things like that, that s a spear flying around. you got to watch for debris flying off the trees and off the buildings. that is a real danger still in tallahassee. i m going to toss it back to my colleague boris sanchez now. a lot of danger, a lot of opportunities for danger out there where brian todd is. thank you for the reporting. the director of emergency management in hernando county. we spoke yesterday and you were putting out a warning about how powerful this storm could be and how serious it could be especially for areas along the
predicting the danger and the right places to evacuate. you mentioned you were speaking to the sheriff in taylor county. have you heard of any people trapped at this point or loss of life? i have not. and that doesn t mean there isn t. obviously, as the storm blows through, you re going to lose power and cell connectivity. they were up to 300,000 people in the state without power. so it s possible, the calls haven t gone it. i m not getting real-time information on that. the emergency operation center others at the state level. but it s almost certain that there won t be people out there that stayed behind that are going to get themselves into some trouble in the hours to come, unfortunately. senator rubio, it was mexico beach in 2018, i think it was. it was fort myers beach last
the brightest skies we ve seen in some time as it s still raining here. you mentioned that hurricane idalia is now a category 1 hurricane as it moves into georgia. that s actually pretty impressive given that it s been inland now and made landfall around 8:00 a.m. it s been over land for a long time relatively speaking. still, a category 1 storm as it moves over areas and devastating freshwater flooding. but the concern in florida is still the storm surge along the west coast, the gulf coast of florida, and especially the big bend. let s talk about that. joining me now is the senior senator from the state of florida, marco rubio who i believe is in miami. senator, thank you so much for being with us. what are you hearing, what updates are you getting on the situation, especially along the coast where that storm surge is? first of all, i think the
they re seeing it back off a little bit and they re seeing a debris line there. talk to us about how this could work over the next several hours up and down the big bend area, even where you are. could you see the surge recede some and then come back in again? reporter: okay, that s a great question. and what we got to do, we got to visualize how a hurricane rotates. counter clockwise, okay? and so i am on the eastern side of where that center of where idalia made landfall, where bill weir is located, i haven t checked a map, but i believe he would be on the backside of the storm. so the wind direction will be completely opposite to what we re receiving here. and that s important. let s compare it to ian from september of last year. there is a major difference to what happened in tampa bay that had the water sucked out because
coming in, the water is just it s everywhere. we have a guy there that s reporting. he s telling the story about it. and it s devastating. the pavilion of a different hotel is washed away and you just it s just i was watching the picture and is they re just it s awful. i was going to say you did say i was going to stay at the motel. you are at the motel? no, i was going to stay there and reside ide out the storm. but then we had the mandatory evacuation. everybody was telling me don t do it. i m glad i didn t now. it s pretty bad. the pictures that i m seeing i can imagine. it s terrible. i can imagine you re glad you re not there right now given the level of flooding. you did say you re speaking to