a news conference shortly. about 23,000 have been put on alert and are all over this place coming in yesterday we crisscrossed this area. we saw maybe 10, 12, sheriff s patrol cars, these electric vehicles, linesmen crisscrossing much of the state. a situation where everybody is on pins and needles to see what comes next and what they do around here, at least, is these feeder bands come in and then they just blow everything through. jose, what is your sense of the way the people are preparing for this as you get blown around there? obviously they ve been through a lot on the gulf coast. they ve seen hurricanes in the tampa area and north. how seriously is everyone taking this, the people you ve talked to there? reporter: people are taking it seriously. a lot of the folks i was speaking to here last night say
the place where we re staying at, at this area have gone to their homes, i was speaking last night to a lady who lives in a mobile park home, and they re just saying this is the only place we have. now, there s been a lot of information out. people have been told they have to leave this area. this is an evacuation zone and many have but many have decided to stay. what i can tell you, willie, is that in a matter of seconds we re going from pretty peaceful as far as rain is concerned with some wind to all of a sudden these feeder bands coming in and it is just horizontal rain and horizontal wind. so far we took a power hit 30 minutes ago. there s about 60,000 people here in the state of florida, mostly obviously on the west coast that have lost power. the governor is expected to hold
to wilmington, that s been added and will last until 10:00 p.m. this evening. that is a tornado watch. so what does that mean? as the system moves to the farther to the north and east this area is going to have the best chance to see some of those tornadoes, brief maybe, but still impactful. developing and potentially rain wrapped as those feeder bands work through. anywhere from wilmington, cape hatteras down to orlando, i think, you know, those are the spots that you want to watch coming in with the feeder bands leaving us with the potential for some of those tornadoes to develop well after dark. we know when tornadoes happen after dark, it is very difficult, a lot of people may have left their guard down at that point. we want to stress that s important. the tropical alerts extend into places like georgia and south carolina with hurricane warnings as that system continues to work towards those communities, that s where we ll be watching over the next 12 hours for impacts for them.
down because that northern eye wall is soon approaching our friends in the perry, florida, area. this has been downgraded to a category 3 storm but as i said, the threshold is 130 miles an hour. you re at 125. not much solace for anyone. this is still a very dangerous storm. stay with us. want to go to crystal river, florida, where we find jose diaz-balart. crystal river is 80 miles north of tampa. jose, have the conditions changed there since we talked to you last? reporter: they haven t. the feeder bands are coming through and sun emerging and fascinating to hear how bill was talking about the different surges that we re going to see and we are already experiencing. this is the seawall here in one of the canals that feeds into this lake area. and it s breached and this is up, you know, normally you have
six, eight feet of wall. you know, that s up and that s coming in. we ve seen in the last maybe half hour or so some transformers explode but little things that are fascinating to me. the birds are out. and they re out and there s actually a family of manatees that live right here, a mom and calf is right here. we haven t seen that yet. but these feeder bands that come through right now, a lull, but in a matter of seconds we re pelted with rain and some heavier winds but it seems for this area at least people are feeling a little bit hopeful that they re not going to be experiencing that 125-mile-an-hour wind that is about to hit that area, you know, a little north of here. but interesting the news conference that the governor had