counties. he has also called up 7,000 national guard members. local officials have warned residents to get out now, and have ordered more than 300,000 people to evacuate their homes, including my home of tampa. my family has already evacuated. please listen to the warnings, especially if you re in an evacuation area. terrified residents have been boarding up windows and desperately digging huge trenches, while others have stripped supermarket shelves bare of water and essentials. tossing it over to max gorden, lives in st. petersburg, florida, reporting for fox weather, your hurricane headquarters. good afternoon. as you mentioned, evacuations are underway here in pinellas county. evacuation zone a, b, c. folks in those zones have been told to get out as well as people who live in mobile homes. that mike right now we are sending an evacuation zone a, most susceptible to storm surge. we are expecting conditions to deteriorate over the next day or so as the storm does move in
it could cause catastrophic flooding. aishah: i m in for sandra smith. state and local officials are telling more than 2 million to leave their homes and get out of the way of the massive storm. ian strengthening to a category 3, ripping through western cuba, 125 mile per hour winds and heavy rains slamming the island and causing heavy flooding. john: i said good wednesday, only tuesday, wednesday is when it s go time in florida, just hours to go now until the storm makes landfall, many are attempting to avoid the storm-packed highways, and those hunkering down have been clearing supermarket shelves and emptying the gas pumps. aishah: and charles watson and max gordon are live in the tampa bay area, where officials are bracing for what could be the first direct hit on the region from a hurricane in more than a century, john. john: looking ugly there in the next 36 hours. first to steve bender tracking ian for us. where is it headed, how strong is it going to be? we