onto land. now, look, there is a great hope that we don t get the kind of storm surge that was expected here which is between six and nine feet, which would be far over my head from where i m standing which would mean the entire city here that s about 3,400 people would be flooded, all the way up to city hall. at this point we re not seeing major flooding yet, but the storm is clearly not over, still a category 3, and we are starting to see the water move in from these incredibly intense bands of wind that come through, and every now and then you get that pelting rain as well. i know that we have someone who s about 20 minutes away from steinhatchee in cross city. we ve got eugene o neill who is sorry, edgar o neill who is in cross city. what are you seeing there? what are the effects as you chase this storm? caller: right now incredibly
this, old oak trees, that just came crashing down on the roads, blocking the roads. people could not navigate through it. i ll show you something else here. our photo journalist david brooks is going to throw his camera across the street to the street light over there. that can give you a good illustration of where the wind and rain is blowing. when the rain starts to blow sideways you know that it s getting very, very intense and you ve got to be very, very careful navigating your way through that. as i come a little bit more forward, here s another thing you ve got to watch out for. take a look at that little banner, that advertisement banner across the street that s on that pole, that little temporary banner of that sign, that thing has been really whipping around. right now it s okay. but that thing has really been kind of swaying back and forth as the wind has intensified. that s the kind of thing that you ve got to be very, very careful about, because that s the kind of thing tha
dangerous the situation is because this particular storm is going to areas that don t normally get hit with something that is this large, this powerful, this much wind, this much rain, and this much storm surge. that is going to be a key factor in whether people make it out of places that are getting a direct hit. they may be used to seeing storms, but it hasn t happened in more than a hundred years in some parts of the west coast of florida. that s why the authorities are telling you that we know you ve been through some of this before, we know you ve been through something like this, but this is different. it is bigger, badder, bolder, wetter, stronger. so people need to understand. but the thing they always tell you in florida, you learn this from when you re a kid, that you re supposed to run from the water and you re supposed to hide from the wind. hopefully people, the majority of people have run from the water, the low-lying areas, and are hiding from the wind if they have to sh
needed. he s the county administrator for leon county. vincent, tell us what s happening in leon county as far as what s happening with the storm physically and what you are telling residents there. well, good morning, thanks for having me. yes, as you ve reported we are beginning to experience the outer bands of idalia as rain and wind are certainly picking up here, and we anticipate tropical storm force as well as hurricane-force winds today. we have been monitoring idalia since it was a tropical depression, and since very early on and indicated it would be heading our way and to, of course, rapidly intensify. she s done all of that and more. we ve taken the past few days to coordinate intensively and extensively with all of our emergency management partners and to advise our citizens and to prepare as good as we can. you may know we are no strangers
and off when governor ron desantis, his news conference there, right now i m looking around, there is still power in this area. the town s completely out of gas, we drove around last night when we got in around midnight trying to get gas. there was no gas to be had so people were stocking up and preparing for this. this is a city. some 200,000 people live here in tallahassee where the storm might make landfall south of here, far, far fewer people, hundreds of people along the coast. but you come inland, right in the past of this storm, tense and hundreds of thousands of people who could be affected by the wind and the rain, here the forecast is from anywhere from six to ten inches of rain, absolutely. they expect to see fresh water flooding, absolutely they expect to see trees down, and roads closed. it could be very, very difficult to get around here in tallahassee, not long from now. obviously the greater concern is