of the pressure, winds go up, pressure goes down, that is a strengthening hurricane. 70 mile-per-hour sustained winds or, rather, these are wind reports. so gusts in sarasota florida of 70 mile-per-hour, almost hurricane force winds. and i just got an update from sarasota, basically sorry, tallahassee, florida, saying be prepared for a duration of hours of 100 mile-per-hour sustained winds. so, hide from the winds. you have to run from the water and, unfortunately, people who stayed in place, you are going to be there for the next several days because it s going to be very hard for emergency vehicles to get out. looks like we have a couple tornado warn storms just south and east of the tampa area. so we could see the potential for structural damage with these three-point line tornadoes. and we are looking at landfall within the next couple of hours. but the core of the strongest winds now scraping the big bend of florida. we have been telling you this is the most vulnerable coast l
low-lying, guys. they will see flooding and surge that comes in. this is going to continue for hours and hours, even after landfall and it s going to make its way into georgia and the carolinas. but, in the interim, this is what we re experiencing, a road that is now a rushing creek or even river. and the ebbs and flow of the winds. here we go again with another gust. back to you. steve: all right, robert. thank you very much a live report from clearwater on the west coast of florida. ainsley: he is in clearwater. let s bring in our fox weather correspondent in tampa not too far east of robert. nicole, what are you seeing out there? as we are witnessing that catastrophic storm surge really start to take effect. we are now looking at what is likely close to 4 feet of storm surge as we see the rain continue to fall here in tampa bay. you are watching all of the
the mom called the lady down there and she said i will be her grandmother. i m picking her up. she picked up the young child, the college student, the freshmen with a bunch of her friends. they are inland house five bedrooms and hunkering down together. steve: that s what you got to do. looking live at hudson, florida, up the koppes from where robert was stationed a little while ago. and as you can see the winds right now, it is a category 4 storm and they are projecting that it s going to make landfall in the next half hour to hour and a half. something like that. matt fin is joining us now live from saint pete beach. not far. a little further up from tampa as well. how are the conditions there, matt? we have had really steady consistent winds as you can see for hours now and throughout the night the conditions here dramatically fluctuated several hours of heavy downpour,
reporter: yeah, john, we ve been on this bay shore boulevard all morning watching the storm surge and the impacts here around the immediate coastline of the tampa area, and our viewers may not know this, but there is the port of tampa that s over my left shoulder directly about 10 miles behind me. this is a critical supply chain for the entire state of florida, including petroleum. 45% of the state s fuel comes through that port behind me. and we just so happened to find ourselves the ceo of the port of tampa, this is paul anderson, and appreciate you coming on with us today, a lot of people want to know how the storm is impacting the availability of fuel across the state. yeah, thanks, derek. i just returned from the port. it s less than a mile from here. our fuel terminals, we have six major terminals that serve about
viewers to hear and this be re-i assured that the supply to fuel for the state of florida which largely comes from the port of tampa here, 45% of it, has significantly not been impacted by the storm. but there s still several hours of storm surge potential where we re standing now. john, you heard it from the man himself, paul anderson, that is good news. it is good news, because it s going to be needed in the recovery effort all up the coast into the big bend area where i am. thank you so much. all right, joining us now by phone is shelly who is the manager of a beach front motel on cedar key which has seen devastates storm surge. i understand, you evacuated. you are not on the key anymore. but what are you hearing about your motel? caller: it s flooded. everything is flooded. i ve seen pictures of the tide