your crews across the state and local fire rescue, they re getting to these places, but what can you tell us about what is in selma and the damage reports you re hearing? the damage reports we have thus far from the county is structural damage, trees down, power lines down, and the area is very difficult to access due to debris. so the information is going to be a little slow coming out, but they are working house to house and area to area looking for people who may be entrapped and those who are injured. they re going house to house now, and you re saying because of these downed trees, it s going to take some time to get to these people who are making calls? is that right? yes. it slows the process down as they try to navigate the debris and downed tree. how crucial is it to get to these areas before the sun goes down, before things go dark? regardless of the hour of the day, it s important to get to those areas as quickly as we can. we re in life safety mode, and
friday morning at 7:00 a.m. and that it would not let up until sunday, monday. so right now, if you re not here, if you re not with family, it s going to be very challenging. the roads are really bad. we re looking at between 36 to 48 inches of snow. wow. that s the latest projection if from meteorologists. as has been mentioned, wind gusts of 79 miles an hour so it this has been a very challenging storm. we ve also seen trees down, power lines down, poles down, visibility at zero for driving so we want people to put their safety ahead of their desire to travel right now. well, as you mentioned, it s their safety and first
that s where we find nbc s chris pollone. how are things looking there this morning? reporter: yeah, willie, it s going to be another day of assessing damage and cleaning up here in southwest florida. it s really remarkable, the winds of mother nature, when you come into a disaster zone like naples here, some streets have power and driving down them you really wouldn t know there s a storm, and then you turn a corner and you see homes wiped away, you see boats in yards, trees down, power lines down, broken glass everywhere. it s really just an incredible dichotomy and as you go up the coast, that s what you see, all the way, another 40, 50 miles up the coast of fort myers, and fort myers beach and further on where the storm made landfall. you mentioned sanibel. yesterday, search and rescue teams were combing the entire region, trying to figure out if
gorda earlier today, as the eye made landfall just to the south and west of that location. and it was pretty horrific winds there and intense lightning and thunder, something i ve never heard before in a hurricane, ripped apart punta gorda. after punta gorda, though, the worst of the damage i m at right now. i m at fort myers and it s like a war zone here. trees down everywhere, power lines down, stoplights down. really hard to maneuver around on the roads right now. how does it compare to other storms you ve seen? you know, it s pretty standard for a hurricane. i ve been in even category 5 hurricane michael in 2018, and it s not quite as bad as that. that s the worst damage i ve ever seen. but west florida is pretty well built. most of the buildings here are pretty sturdy. it s mostly just your typical tree, power line damage, things that are a little bit more