only for florida residents but all americans because of the massive costs of that storm. can you even begin to calculate the impact on insurance rate payers when you put together what happened in houston and now what s going to be happening straight up the center of florida next week? it s definitely going to have an effect. the good news is that in andrew 25 years ago, there was no insurance backup, or in other words, a real insurance fund. as a result of andrew when snurn companies went bust, when they fled the state, when the two big ones state farm and all state were shedding policies right and left, there was such massive insurance losses that the entire state of florida was paralyzed
of how government and regulations have their place. i remember after andrew a rigid new set of building codes that were implemented not only in south florida but across the entire state. how big of an impact do you think that will have when we have to face a cat 4, cat 5 storm? joe, you obviously have great insight. that was one of the biggest lessons learned from 25 years ago. i ll never forget being in a helicopter over ground zero which was downtown homestead florida. i saw only two buildings left. one was the bank building, and the other one was an old florida cracker house which had been built back in the 20s to withstand the winds, and everything, i mean everything, was levelled.
wind, sunday at 2:00 a.m. this is overnight into sunday morning landfall worse event. when the storm rises, it should be west over land already. when the sun rises, that s when we will have the worst damage, we have the cone of uncertainty, it could shift off the east or the west coast. we re just as vulnerable. it doesn t favor who will get it worse. a forecast in the middle. 48 hours to go. everybody from tampa, sarasota to ft. meyers, down into flawed, west palm and miami, everybody needs to be prepared in case the eye of the storm comes over you, again, it s only a shift of 20 to 30 miles makes all the difference. let s try to get into the what to expects. now we are getting close enough. down in the bahamas, with independent won t be that bad. it looks like the worst of the storm will stay to the south t. first really bad effects as i mentioned sunday morning the
sliver. it will only be about half of that, and that will track who gets the worst of it. that s why all the people that s why yesterday they ordered the evacuations in areas of coastal counties outside of tampa. they know if we get a drift to the west, we could be talking about more of a direct hit almost like a charlie type storm in areas on the west coast of florida or maybe wilma. that s where wilma made the first land fall. florida is narrow. the storm from the south, there will be effects of hurricane force winds throughout the entire state. we re trying to pinpoint who is going to get the worst winds. who is going to get the category 4 winds? who is going to have their houses destroyed that won t be able to get back in them for weeks or months? that s what we re going to try to pinpoint in the next 24 to 48 hours. bill, thank you. we ll speak with the former florida governor on his state s preparations for the storm. with us now, senior political analyst mark halperin, nat
proceed, it s a catastrophic storm. it may even instead of weakening get a little stronger before landfall. we have hurricane warnings as you d expect in south florida, bahamas, hurricane watches. these will be expanded later on today t. whipped field is huge, this is much bigger than andrew was t. tropical storm force winds are if yell loaf. now, if you get into tropical storm force winds, that s when you lose power, 70 miles per hour, you can get structural and roof damage and the serious stuff and life threatening stuff. that when you go through the eye ap the hurricane force winds, 185 miles wide from the center. florida is 140 miles wide, everybody will get the tropical storm force winds. so let s get to the actual forecast path. this the a 5:00 a.m. update the next will be 11 of the a.m. it halls it at 150-mile-per-hour