quite a situation and it s not over yet. i was john, thank you. i was struck by the descriptions as well. the picnic tables, the rushing water as she described, and she said she had initially planned to stay at her motel and decided to heed the warnings and evacuate and she is so glad that she did. check back with you soon. thank you, john. we re getting new images of hurricane idalia taken from the international space station and it really shows the sheer magnitude of the powerful storm from above. yeah, take a look at these pictures. this is how astronauts on the space station are seeing the storm as it churns across florida and soon into parts of georgia and the carolinas as well. really an impressive picture of a large and powerful storm. one that rapidly intensified and slammed into florida with very powerful winds and storm surge. stay with c cnn news central. we re back in moments. ( )
flooding, you think a couple of inches of water in your basement. that s not what we re talking about here. you were talking about water over doorways, over buildings in some cases here. yes, i m talking about a whole building just washed away. and it was a swing in the pavilion. it was a pavilion with a swing and it washed away. picnic tables, we just saw i just saw them floating down the street. and the water is rushing it s still doing it. i think early this morning was when it low tide. and now high tide is just about to i don t know what time it is. but it s supposed to hit again. and everything is floating. something was saying that the old houses with the bad storm in 1896, now they re saying that the houses are they re wondering if the water is just going to pick up the foundation and send them down first street.
out. they re trying to inform you to get to higher ground. here s a look at the flash flood threat as well. you can see we ve got this moderate risk for excessive rainfall. not just in florida, not just in georgia, but this spreads into the carolinas because that s where the storm is going to go. if you live in any one of these states, keep in mind the storm may not be to you yet. but it is on the way and we ll continue to spread as you go through the rest of the day. back to you. expanding beyond florida as allison said. we want to bring in john berman and sarah sidner. john, you ve been in tallahassee, you ve been speaking with folks. your interview with the motel owner who described seeing picnic tables floating. what are things like right now at this moment? to hear those stories along the gulf coast, the big bend areas, to hear a woman describe what he s building told, everything is floating, she says. everything is floating. the gulf has just moved in
have seen picnic tables floating, everything is floating according to one woman you spoke with a little bit earlier, that motel owner. yeah, and i keep listening as you play more and more sound from different places. these are some of the first reports we re getting in from those hard-hit areas. horseshoe beach which is up the coast some from cedar key where you re talking about the picnic benches floating by. we re also understanding that the water flowing underneath some homes that are up on stilts, so so many different areas experiencing this devastating storm surge. i m up here in tallahassee. the capital where the disaster response is being coordinated most of the storm, i think, has now finally moved through here. we still get some rain and some wind gusts. but the worst of it has passed through. but brian todd who is on the other end of town, brian, you ve been digging around, speaking to officials to try to get an assessment of the situation. what are you hearing?
and i was only doing marketing on social media. within a month i had a line wrapped around the block . you also had outside seating? we also had outside. this is beautiful. we finished this renovation about two years ago. it seats an additional 100 people. the summer of 2020, cities like louisville fees and shortened the processing time for outdoor dining applications helping restaurants get back on their feet. let s buy some picnic tables at home depot and serve food outside. and everyone loved it. i think we see that a lot of that has happened to restaurant owners, once they saw that, people really wanted to sit outside.