n ordered to evacuate as hurricane rita now is bearing down on the state shr gulf coast in just a moment.t. florida governor rhonda santos will join us first herest with the very latest from thisrs category three storm weather. in meteorologist ian oliver is with us in thisoliver. looks like it s going to be a direct hit right over. looks like somewhereoks li nortr fort myers, right towards tampa. yeah, anywhere from naples. igto the southern part of tampa bay, the mouth of tampa bay: stl still a reasonable scenaril o ao here. this is a monster of a storm, still a category three , as your mentioned,ee max, winds at 120we miles per hour. we actually had this inner eye wall that s been degrading, but there s an outer one that s forming. what that does is it spreads out the wind field overh a much larger area. we ve seen these impacts starttw already. tornado warnings throughouarnint the afternoon and evening across much of south florida. we ve got some active onesh flom right
something that they can repair. what is one ofat the steps in place for the aftermath as this storm goes north into otherthers states ? maybe, hopefully out tota the atlantic, eventually? wa well, obviously, as you said, john , wnte want people tt be safe when it hits . and so we re that s our numberre one focus. now, once it hits , if there are people that are in need of s rescue, you know, we ve gosivet massive amountams of assets. i ve got national guard, i ve got urban search and rescue teams. sets f wero have assets from other hav states . we have florida fishflorida fisr and wildlife that have water c operations. i have the coast guard helpingot ou gt. o do so so those operations, as soon as it s safe to do, they will go if needed. help pe they will go to try to help people. once you have that situationf cr taken care of, of course, yous want to resume services. and so getting the power back on, making sure fuel is in the gas stations and making sure people have communications.