Jose diazbalart picks up our coverage right now. Hurricane milton is Bearing Barreling toward florida as one of the recent hurricanes in recent history and dangerous category 4 storm is churning north of mexicos yucatan peninsula. Milton is set to make landfall in florida late wednesday in to thursday and its expected to trigger a Lifethreatening Storm Surge and it could be the worst storm to hit the Tampa Area in more than a century. The mayor saying if you choose to stay, youre going to die. Joining us is our meteorologist. How are people preparing there . You can probably see some of those Preparation Efforts happening as we speak. This is outside of this is normally a busy wharf and completely shut down. Flood protection barriers are outside of these businesses. People bracing so that they can protect the businesses that are here. We are seeing these kinds of efforts all around tampa. I want to take you to some of what we saw in Treasure Island that is outside of pinellas county. W
The State Of Emergency at this hour. In just ten hours time, from 2 00 a. M. To noon today, Hurricane Milton growing from a category 1 hurricane to a Category 5. The strongest hurricane in the gulf in nearly two decades now. Authorities expecting major damage in florida. Mass evacuations now under way along the florida coast. Tampa bay among the Areas Bricing for a severe impact. And this hurricane threatening an historic Storm Surge, up to 15 feet in some areas. Ginger zee standing by, shes live in florida with the new forecast just from the national hurricane center. Also breaking as we come on tonight, amid this tragedy unfolding already from Hurricane Helene, the Death Toll now at least 230, the national Guard And Fema on the ground for days now, and tonight, theyre also now dealing with false claims and Conspiracy Theories being pushed by former President Trump. Republican Senator Thom Tillis making it clear border issues are not affecting aid in North Carolina. And just moments a
roads and have you seen anything like that. as things continue to get worse , any flashing lights, police trying to keep people out of the way? no, i don t see anybody. and there s no lookie looks out here either. i don t see anybody walking around. i don t see the police out here either. but you are going to see us exit in about 20 seconds from now because i m watching these waves come in. they re a little bit stronger, you guys are right. jane: not only do you have the waves coming at you waivers are unpredictable. you could get that big push of water and you get that dangerous spot so bob, we ll let you go to get to some safer ground but two to three feet of storm surge already there and we re expecting things to get even worse as time goes on. already on the beach in clear water, but ian, as we know, this still could continue to get worse not only for clear water and st. 35e9 but especially for big bend where the worst catastrophic events about to come up.
rain, that could lead to flash flooding. that s going to be another concern of the torrential rain that we have been seeing leading to more flooding. craig, we are working to get our mayor on the phone here. reporter: what can folks expect tonight going into tomorrow. tonight, you are going to see conditions deteriorate in myrtle beach. there is no doubt about it. we got the center o f the storm approaching myrtle beach as we go into the night. high tides after midnight in the area, with the storm arriving just after that, that should help ease that coastal flooding a little bit. we are still looking at that big push of water. when you don t have to deal with the water and the high tides, the northern side of the storm is where we have been seeing most rain and as that begins to
island adjacent to hawaii from the water there. in the mid levels of the atmosphere we are getting this really big push of water, which is great news, but of course it is dangerous across the northwest. people are urged to stay off the roadways because they could see an additional several inches across portland. up towards seattle looks like we could see snow. mainly rain for you. then this is eventually going to get into the cascades and the mountains of the rockies and the sierra nevada. where they need it. this is really quite good news, especially for northern and central portions of california where we have been into an extreme to exceptional drought. this moisture will get into northern and central portions of california. we also need it over southern california, but not this round, unfortunately. look at the rainfall deficits. only over 16 inches needed to really bust that drought across portions of northern california and redding. 9.5 deficit in san francisco and l.a. 7 inch de