it came onshore two miles an hour shy of a category 5. as recently as this past weekend, most folks in other parts of the country weren t talking about this approaching storm. they weren t talking about hurricane michael. this was not florence where we tracked that storm starting as a low pressure system from the west coast of africa all the way across the atlantic. this was something different. and it turns out something vastly more powerful at the core. it is approaching for those folks who have roots in the southern u.s., a vital artery right now. and that s interstate 10 that runs east to west through this entire area. if you ve been watching our coverage, then you know meteorologist bill karins has been on this storm for hours. i would say days, as it s approaching. bill, did the strength of this at landfall surprise even you? i think i ll go through a period of like shock when this is all done. look at this list behind me.
right side of the eye. that s where the strongest winds will be at landfall. the hurricane center hasn t changed the forecast path. yes, the intensity has been getting worse. but the path has been almost right over the top of panama city here for 24 to 48 hours at least. the right side of that is down near towards apalachicola. mexico beach area. that s the area of most concern. but we still haven t ruled out anything. we re still watching this closely from destin to fort walton beach down toward panama city. and one thing, when you have a storm that s this huge and because of the topography of florida, because the southern portion to the north goes pretty much north to south, and then we go east to west, that water piles up here, has nowhere to go. so 200 miles away from the center landfall, we will get water levels of 8 to 12-foot storm surge. yes, there s not a lot of huge population centers here, but a lot of these small towns are going to be swamped with basketball hoop type water
better for tallahassee and kept it further from tallahassee. let s do the distance tracker. we call this what s left of the eastern eye wall down interstate 10. roughly about 40 miles away. that s why tallahassee and even though with that said, over here, this is a live wind report. 67-mile-per-hour winds. that s still 40 miles per hour away. you can imagine what it s like. much worse. we re more extreme wind damage is being done. the other major city in this area is, as we go through dothan. all of a sudden these bright red and pichks are staying symmetrical. doesn t look like it s about onshore for a hurricane for the last two hours. it s going to be close to how just you don t want to get in the bright red. you ll see massive amounts of trees down and instead of days without power, possibly weeks that s going to take to clean that up. dothan right now, roughly about 20 to 22 miles away.
you know, my guess is that we re going to say, absolutely horrific the mexico beach area, some other areas we haven t talked about pretty bad. but this is a good lesson because we ve always said the biggest nightmare scenario would be a rapidly intensifying storm coming toward a major metropolitan area. imagine if this, instead of imagine this was further toward the west if we were talking about pensacola or biloxi or even new orleans. really anywhere that s along the gulf coast. tampa, for example. charlie rapidly intensified daytime, almost similar to this one. that s why they always try to tell you to caution i always tell people prepare for one category worse than the forecast. this would have been preparing for two or three categories worse than the forecast. and, remember, with every storm that doesn t measure up to every bit of the warnings, that breeds cry wolf complacency among people. this one, my specific worry was
the flint river runs through this county. it actually dumps into this lake where i m standing. there s houses that surround it. so that s a big concern with flooding. another concern, even though they haven t issued a mandatory evacuation order for this area, they ve told people if you live in mobile homes if you live in houses that don t have sturdy foundations, go ahead and get out. take shelter somewhere else. we just visited a church in the area where they opened it up to people. they said, look. we have no cots, no supplies, no food but let s open our doors to anybody that might need shelter. they ve already got 50 people there that they said don t feel safe in their homes. we spoke with one woman, her and her grandson, their dogs. they re staying there. they live in a trailer and they said we just don t think we want to take the chance. that s what a lot of people are saying in this area that don t feel safe waiting it out at