this storm to contend with. it and also keep in mind that this storm is very symmetrical, we have hurricane force winds that extend 45 miles from the center on either side. so that s about a 90 mile swathe that s going to get the hurricane force winds, tropical storm force winds extend 175 miles from the center. and all of these areas from the center of the storm to the east, now sort of outline the state, they re all going to get 16 to 18 feet of storm surge. in apalachicola, that s expected to double from what it is now. it s going to be in a lot of people s second floor. also keep in mind, we have had wind reports already of 89 miles an hour in apalachicola. st. joe has had wind gusts up to 1 h00 miles an hour. the leaves are still on the
coming, but it wasn t until this morning when they woke up and it was wham for category 4. so a lot of people in the destin area, they feel relatively safe, they know how to handle hurricanes, but obviously taking precaution. and the worst of it, wolf, and john, it sounds like john is really starting to feel it. yet to come, about a half hour from now, and i ll be here for two hours outside of my own show, so we ll be riding the storm during that entire time here from destin. wolf, back to you. thanks, brooke, we ll get back to you soon and we ll look forward to getting more of your reports, once again, brooke, be careful. john, you re still with us, tell us more. reporter: all right, wolf, i just happened to notice i looked down and realized that i m standing in a couple of inches of water already. the water now flowing in from all this rain, this isn t the storm surge, it s just the immense a of ra immense amount of rain and then
is city of panama beach is home to 12,000 people normally, and 10s of thousands of tourists. it does seem as if the tourists all got out. the restaurants all closed, the tourists left, that s good, but the residents, as you have been hearing, that s a big concern here, maybe only half of them left. there could be tens of thousands of people who have decided to stay in their homes. so many made the decision to stay when it was a category two storm. these winds speeds simply keep on getting stronger and stronger. 140, 150 miles an hour wolf as this storm approaches the land and it will stay that way as it moves up the coast, passing maybe tallahassee, so this wind could be a big concern, not just here along the coast, but also
of the hartist hit areas that could last for weeks, they expect they will have to be building systems during those outages, telling us they have folks from 15 different states telling us the way is clear. they can t get out and start working on anything until the winds are below 30 miles an hour. we also heard from secretary nelson who said that teams were prepositioned. telling us just a short tile time ago, in this briefing, obviously they re urging folks, after the storm has passed because they need to check the roads. so they can find passage for emergency vehicles and also to eventually get all these other resources in to begin to clean up the damage.
all that doesn t matter, because this is an incredibly strong storm, one of the strongest storms we have ever experienced in the history of these records being kept, back in the 1800s. john berman, you were asking how long you re going to be in it. you re in the strongest part of the storm, this ring right around the eye, with the orange and red colors right there, you re still going to be in it for i would say a good two more hours. you re going to be experiencing these incredibly strong winds. we have had winds of 100-mile-per-hour sustained winds in panama city, 116-mile-per-hour gusts have been reported in panama city beach. we have also had 129-mile-per-hour gust at the tindle air force base, which is right here, and they re experiencing the eye of the storm. 1:30 at kendall air force base.