business correspondent ashley webster live in spring hills, florida. and ashley, it is the calm before the storm where you are in spring hill right now. it is indeed. good morning, steve. it s a very mild, pleasant morning. but that s going to change quickly over the course of the next 48 hours. i m in front of a gas station here in spring hill. we are about 50 miles north of tampa. everything looks fine, right? not so much. this gas station ran out of gas about 4:00 yesterday afternoon. you can see the sign no gasoline of any grade, including non-ethanol. in fact we were noticing the last person to use this particular pump managed to squeeze out 18 cents. but it s not just the gas that s a problem and the shorts damage as we see people driving around early this morning looking for a pump that actually has gas. but the supplies are starting to go down. batteries, flashlights and water in particular. it s hard to find right now. you can t find a isca of water anywhere. i wan
hour. there will be catastrophic flooding and life threatening storm surge. if you are in tampa bay and counties north and south of that it could be something that happens. if you re under an evacuation order. evacuate to higher ground that will be safe from the type of surge and flooding. bill: our fox weather team coverage considers. adam klotz standing by to tell us the latest. dana: first we ll go to phil keating. he is in a beach community a half hour southwest of tampa. sounds like a good place. it is. it is old, classic florida. the time to get out of town is now. no joking around at this point. most of the people in this town have evacuated already leaving it a ghost town. there is hardly any humans within the eye can see. the brass monkey over here, a famous restaurant bar and grill boarded up yesterday and sandbags on the ground. across tampa bay mandatory evacuations began yesterday for all neighborhoods along the coast. the real issue is the bay itself and
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
could be called catastrophic conditions there. we ve never seen storm surge like the kind that is predicted in this area of florida. they re expecting surges up to 15 feet, the height in the past was four feet. so they re trying to shut it all down right now. that s what you re looking at on the right-hand side. airports closing, schools closing, waterways. ever battening down the hatches ahead of what is termed a 100-year storm. so most people by far have not witnessed anything like this who are living in florida right now, this is the stunning space image for you the space station. gives you a sense of how mammoth this area that is affected is, that is ready to lit florida. max gordon is live in st. petersburg on the ground in one of those areas that is expected to see some of this devastation. i can see just a little wind picking up there now as you get ready for this. hi, max. hey, good afternoon. mandatory evacuations are in place in pinellas county. folks in evaluatio