coast of florida. 155-mile-per-hour wind speeds. that s just two miles short of a category 5 hurricane. it s expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of here in the port charlotte area. rain 12 to 24 inches across much of the florida peninsula, challenge create freshwater flooding. the impact of this will be felt by millions in florida. already 200,000 people without power. that s before the storm even makes landfall. this will uproot people s lives. its a life-threatening storm. this is the sunshine skyway bridge that we have pictures of. you can see the winds kicking up. it will have an enormous impact. let s go to chad myers first at the weather center. the 11:00 a.m. advisory out now. what do you see? still see the 155-mile-per-hour eyewall winds. inside the eye it could be down to 5 or 10 in the middle, but we re working our way onshore. the eye is not onshore. the eyewall is coming onshore. this is what it looks like from space, this is called the visible image
brian todd is? pete petersburg. you re really starting to feel it. reporter: that s right, john. as you know, when you covers storms of this intensity, you go through periods of lull and then intense energy. well, this is the latter. this has picked up energy where we are in petersburg. check out the storm surge here. they re also smashing up against the jetty behind me. mike and i will try to give you a sense of the energy. what they are fearful of in downtown. the water levels over there, you can see in that look that seawall, the water levels have receded. that s deceptive. it will be high tide in a few hours, that water level will rise, and as it gets more intense, it would push the surge
bangkok, in downtown, really one of the main shopping districts. there are large apartment buildings, there are tall, you know, high-rise office buildings as well as some department stores. and it s certainly not doing anything for the economy here. actually hurting the with economy here, so the government has said you must dissolve this. we will negotiate and we will dissolve parliament, but because that did not happen, the government rescinded, and so this sort of situation here has boiled over again and again and again. and certainly violence today, don, seven people skilled, confirmed by the hospitals here. the protest leader shot in the head yesterday. what s the status on that? the last we heard, he was still in critical condition. shot in the head last night. and that s all that we know as far as his condition healthwise. we should mention, though, he s sort of a divisive leader. he s not backed by all of the red shirts. there s been some tensions in