water from the bay get pushed on to this main road here that s now completely inundated under water. look how far inland all far over the bay that is being pushed. i spoke to police officers here moments ago who worked in this city for 20 years. as much as bayshore does tend to flood even in a small rain event, they say they have never seen flooding and storm surge at this level. you are literally watching waves break over the edge, almost looking like a beach. i mean, it is an incredibly dangerous situation a very scary how quickly this water is moving. it really is one of the biggest threats why the area we are standing in right now has been under a mandatory evacuation since monday. recognizing that storm surge was going to be the most critical threat to much of tampa bay. as we are watching this slowly happen. and we are still waiting for
drenching rain at any moment the rain can pick back up here. perhaps you can make out behind me the gulf of mexico has been pushed in maybe 30 feet closer to where i m standing. water line has been dramatically pushed inward and we have seen the pinellas county sheriff reporting flooding here in saint pete. and if you re familiar with this area it s a very popular tourist destination. very large resorts. hotels and motels up and down the beach where i m standing right now. the area really is a ghost town right now. this is zone a in the evacuation area, mandatory evacuation. and it appears that most people heeded the evacuation warnings in this area. the governor has said if you have not evacuated this area by now, if you go to reach for the phone or if you call for emergency service, unfortunately people may not be able to respond to you. back to you. brian: wow. the calm before the storm it seems somewhat calm compared to other shots, matt.
people did not vote to shelter everybody. that s his problem. ainsley: city is a lot more liberal than upstate new york. steve: ashley, thank you very much. america s top story where we are talking about hurricane idalia. let s go to robert ray. he s in clearwater, florida. west of tampa. near the ocean where things are starting to pick up. and, robert, where are you? are you standing on a street or are you near the beach or where are you? yeah. good morning to you. coronado street here in clearwater beach. the actual beach where the gulf of mexico is about oh, i would say a football field or so away you see this road is inundated with storm surge as we expected. we expect potentially up to 7 feet. we could see here as an outer band is following the eye of idalia and it s making its way through here right now kicking up this water and pushing in to pretty heavy wind gusts right now. we had some rain moments ago, and that s what we re seeing.
ainsley: matt, you are wearing shorts. what s the weather like there? steve: three-point line. brian: matt, what s the temperature? it s been very warm. warm and muggy all night long despite the wind and rain. you can stand out here and not be very cold. very hot, actually. ainsley: so is the water, which makes it worse. steve: makes it like a fire. that s what janice has told us. matt, thank you very much. he is at saint pete s beach which is just a little south of clearwater where robert ray was. listen, last night, we were watching fox weather. if you don t have fox weather if you don t watch fox weather you should. we watch it on our roku tv. they have the best reporters and the best maps. and they got it all going on. and there, once again, you see hudson, florida again. we are going to go to the governor, i believe, in tallahassee very shortly. the interesting thing about this particular storm, as it makes landfall in the next half hour to 90 minutes, as a category 4,
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,