sure. we call landfall when the center of the eye crosses over a beach or anywhere. right now we re getting the eye making landfall, but that doesn t count for landfall. that just means that the worst of the wind is now coming onshore for grand isle. 150-mile-per-hour storm. this blew up, as we knew it would, overnight. when the sun set and the air mass cools off, the warm water in the gulf of mexico exploded this eye. we watched the pressures dive like we ve never seen. only two or three storms have ever gone down this quickly in the gulf of mexico or the atlantic ocean in any future or any past. so here we go. there s the storm coming onshore in grand isle. i ve beening looing at wind gusts and overwash in grand isle. it s not very good there and about to get worse as the eyewall comes onshore. we have the extreme wind warning stretching almost up to the west bank into new orleans. anywhere you see that red, you re going to see wind gusts
they ve seen many a storm. they average once every four years at least a category 1 hurricane. there will be minor damage here or there but it s not going to be crazy damage. and then it would be nice if the winds were low enough and the storms were low enough to keep highway 12 open. it has a lot of overwash and it closes regularly. those are the headlines, brian. we ve done this a lot of times together. hasn t been a lot of this is breaking or new. everything s offshore. now that we haven t had tornadoes in a while, so there hasn t been any sizes. i have a graphic i wanted to show you and share with our audience we did last hour. this is from the new and extraordinary goes weather satellite, which you are familiar with, parked over the east coast of the united states. this shows day turning into night. you see the population centers light up. so in other words, if you re in
have both brooke baldwin above mexico beach. we have brian todd on the ground as we get their signal back up again. that s the road on the left side of the screen. that s the road that brian is on, trying to get into there. wow. so we re going now, we have, i believe we re in touch with another colleague on the ground there. chad myers, are you with us? in this severe weather center? because our signal keeps we keep losing it with brooke and brian. but brooke was talking about that right turn of the storm, and it was just, you know, just right in the bull s eye there was mexico beach. you know, the flight path that she s been taking all along the beach showed the big empty space which is where tindal air force base was, and we could see the overwash of that beach there. and we expected it to be just as bad here in mexico beach, and it is. it s breathtaking to realize
was making landfall. many of the people here have never seen a storm this strong and they have no idea what overwash of an island will do to a home, what the wind could do to your home and what to do to your home to make it safer after you evacuate. it is so helpful to get your historical context and all of your cautionary words. we will check back obviously many times throughout the program. coastal evacuations begin today for residents along the carolina coastline. for more than one million people the order to leave is kayleigh hartung is live. reporter: by 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night officials hope to have carolina beach here evacuated. that s when the tropical storm force winds will be in the area. over the past couple of days we ve seen beautiful weather here making it difficult for people to wrap their minds around what s ahead. these waves you can start to see
off the barrier island by 8:00 tomorrow night. that s when they anticipate the first of the tropical storm force winds. where we re standing, this platform, is about maybe 13 feet above sea level. they anticipate here that there s going to be overwash. in other words, it s going to flow over the sea barrier on this barrier island. that means much of the island will be underwater. in some cases in the town itself, it could be nine feet or more. people are boarding up. a lot of people are taking this seriously, and the law enforcement said if you re here after 8:00 tomorrow morn, you re on your own. you can call 911, they will pick up, but they won t come out. you have to wait until after the storm. there they re talking it could be days because the flood waters, the sand, the electrici electricity, they anticipate if it goes out, it will be out for more than a week. it would be dire circumstances even after the hurricane winds have subsided and the flooding