places, particularly concern in the port charlotte area. 16 feet could go blocks, in some cases miles inland. that s well over the roofs of some of these mobile homes and houses that might be on the coast. and then the rainfall. that s what we ve been experiencing here in tampa overnight, it s been pouring much of the overnight hours into the morning, expecting anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of rain here. dire flood warnings for most of the entire florida peninsula. as far as hurricane-force winds, you can go up the entire peninsula, yes, it will make impact, landfall sometime in the next few hours south of here, but then they could feel hurricane-force winds here in tampa, orlando and then as the storm moves further east into the atlantic itself over the next day or so. so millions of people right in the path of this storm, could very well be one of the worst storms ever to hit the u.s. coast. expected to make landfall near punta gorda, again, about 100
areas. let s go to brian todd who is across tampa bay from me live in st. petersburg. brian, what are you seeing? reporter: john, i can tell you that the energy and the voracity of this storm has really picked up. as you can see we re getting hit with rain and wind hitting us sideways, when it starts to hit you sideways when you know you re starting to get into the dicey parts of the storm. this was not like this about a that are hour ago. we are really getting pounded here at this pier in st. petersburg. you talk about storm surge, we are not going to get it as bad here as port charlotte and areas like that. look how bad the storm surge is getting here. you see the waves slapping up against the jetty here, we ve been hit by waves a couple times already. we will start to stroll this way as i point to where this jetty is basically tasked with protecting the city of st. petersburg from this storm surge. you can see it is slamming up against these jetties, slamming up over the jetties a
have evacuated or were told to evacuate in this county. that s about two thirds of the county, so they are certainly taking it seriously and the county officials are telling me they are not afraid to increase those evacuations before it gets too late. john? randi kaye in punta gorda. i m so glad they made that decision to evacuate. 155 mile per hour winds, almost no one has experienced that type of hurricane. it could be and will be one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall in the united states over the next few hours. jim and poppy, starting to pick up and rain here. all of florida almost all of florida is going to feel the impact of this and the concern here is that impact could be historic. john, thank you for being there. bill, randi, our whole team and all the crews on the ground bringing us these reports live. we will get back to you in just a minute. our chad myers is monitoring all of this from the severe weather center. chad, i understand you just got a new u
we were just seeing with bill. the wind picking up, plenty of rain coming down. we are just at the edge of downtown punta gorda. let me just show you these boats, there is a guy walking around out there. there are still people who are out on their boats, some of them were going to stay on their boats that we spoke with, but there of course is a lot of concern about the storm surge, talking about 12 to 16 feet of a storm surge here. we know that the city of punta gorda has actually cut off all emergency services now, so if you are in need you are in trouble because none of that is going to be up and running again until after the storm and charlotte county overall is going to cut off all emergency services when they have sustained winds of 39 miles per hour. they haven t done that just yet. but certainly a lot of concern about the surge and the flooding here and the amount of rain because this is a slow-moving storm how long it s going to sit on top a lot of this area.
below a category 5 storm. it is expected to make landfall, the eye, just hours from now. let s get straight to our colleague john berman, he joins us from tampa. good morning. what can you tell us? good morning to both of you. yeah, we just had one of those rain bands pass through a moment ago where it pours and pours, and then it stops and it s like this where you almost get dry conditions, and then it will pour some again. not long from now once the storm moves closer, it s just going to be a drenching rain here in tampa for hours and hours and hours. they are expecting 12 to 24 inches of rain over a large part of this state, which will create fresh water flooding. the rivers, the streams and the lakes will flood and that s as along the coast they experienced this historic storm surge and we just got word that that storm surge is expected to be even worse than expected, up to 18 feet near bonita beach which is