it s our best internet. powered by the next generation 10g network and with 99.9% reliability. plus one line of free mobile for an entire year. it s the mobile made free event-happening now. get started for just $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get one free line of unlimited mobile. comcast business, powering possibilities. good morning. we start this hour with the breaking news. hurricane idalia is now a powerful category 4 hurricane. it has been a rapid intensification over the course of the last several hours from a category 3, now officially a category 4 hurricane according to the national hurricane center. catastrophic storm surge and destructive winds are nearing florida s big bend region as we speak. idalia is about 50 to 60 miles away from the shore churning with 130-mile-per-hour winds. we just got that new forecast from the national hurricane center just moments ago and i want to go straight to derek van dam who is on the ground for us in tampa. s sara sidner is w
we are in tallahassee. derek van dam is in tampa. bill weir is in steinhatchee where landfall happened 20 miles away. that storm has been picking up there. the effects have been rapidly intensifying there as well. we will get to everybody throughout the course of the hour. i want to start, sara, with you. looking at your live shots throughout the course of this morning, talking to you, the intensity, the up and down, bands as they have gone through, it s something to see. we experienced landfall about 15 minutes ago? reporter: yeah, we have vacillated from beautiful to terrible. beautiful to terrible. back and forth. that s just the way hurricanes work. but this is a very dangerous storm no matter how beautiful it is where you are on the west coast of florida. it has made landfall in the most dangerous position for people in that area, the big bend area. they need to shelter in place according to authorities. they need not to try to evacuate if they haven t at this point in
the poles. i was curious. some power companies have talked about potentially shutting off power when there s high wind incidents. i wonder if you think this is an appropriate response or if you think they should be working to harden the structure more than just ending power i think both. look, i can it s very expensive to secure these power lines. in terms of actual structure. we look out there. you see these large towers carrying multiple wires. the wires are like that thick. they re carrying a lot of energy. sometimes those entire towers come down. i am not expert enough to know when it is appropriate to shut down that line. that s one of the reasons why i think having the technology to have these meters on each of these facilities tells you where the danger is. so i can picture i m getting out of my expertise here. you re talking about huge numbers of americans suddenly not having power because the company makes a determination that the we also know how man
hurricane idalia, which is a category 2 hurricane which has just strengthened. the wind speeds are now at 105 miles per hour, and they are gaining. but it is not the wind that has people the most worried about this hurricane. it s the water. it is the storm surge, predicted to be 10 to 15 feet right where i m standing in steinhatchee. the steinhatchee river right now sat low tide. at high tide, it s another 5, 6 feet higher than where it is. add 10 to 15 feet on top of that, and the area where i am standing right now is feared to be just completely covered in water about eight hours from now. that is the concern along the florida gulf coast. about 45 minutes south of where i am in the town of cedar key, the mayor there issued his town and his people a stern warning. we re here to beg our citizens to heed this warning. this storm is worse than we ve ever seen. it is worse than we have ever seen, he said. a storm like this has not passed in this direction in over 100 years.
ashore as a category 3 in the big bend region which hadn t seen anything like this ever. dana: even before i think in the 1800s is when governor ron desantis said might have been the last time this area saw one. not the most populated area but people are in the evacuation zone there. many people left. some were left behind. you have to imagine they are undergoing quite a bit of impact right now. bret: the hurricane is lashing the coast near keaton beach bringing with it the potential for catastrophic storm surge. forecasters are calling this storm nothing short of unprecedented because since 1851 as far back as weather records go, the state s gulf coast has never seen anything like this. dana: right now the life threatening storm is packing winds near 125 miles-per-hour prompting tornado warnings and alarms and impacting millions of people trying to cope with imminent danger. florida governor ron desantis warning earlier saying it will be felt far and wide. wherever y