Burning up homes, cabins, businesses and resorts. This is what a city on fire looks like. The mayor of gatlinburg believes more than 100 structures are now damaged, including his own home, likely destroyed. Adding to the loss of life, burn victims in critical condition. A historic drought and Hurricane Force winds have fueled these flames. Burning embers have blown and spread for mile. High winds knocking down trees, trees hitting power lines falling on this very dry, extreme drought like conditions and everything was catching on fire. Reporter thousands forced to evacuate. Many taking shelter in makeshift centers, some abandoned pets in a hurry to get out. Others drove through flames. For them the only way out. Now, all people can do is watch and wait, knowing when they are allowed to return home, there may not be anything left. Our community has they. A lot of uncertainties. Peoples are telling people forced from their homes they are not sure when they will be allowed back into their
Been so far. That is how we roll wrap up the month today. These temperatures already way above average by about 10 degrees. Low 70s tampa, 71 moving down toward venice. The dewpoints very sticky, middle and upper 60s. 70 degrees plant city. It is muggy and that is why it is so warm this morning. The southeast winds wind air. Will see gusts up above 20 milesperhour. Max defender 8 quiet this morning. We could track a few stray showers this afternoon with High Temperatures up around 83 degrees. We will wafer slightly better chances tomorrow before the week cold front arrives. Half the end of the hurricane season. That is right. Officially at least on the canner calendar. We had a hurricane in january traffic is generally light up until around 6 30. That seems to be the case today. This includes 75 down toward brandon. 301 also looks good. Downtown tampa starting at 1 00 this morning, frank the will be closed between tyler and cast ban. Will need to use florida. A tornado that tore throug
Takes awhile to kick in. It sounds like a major problem. Reporter it could have been a major problem. Today it was a routine upgrade that didnt work. In between a window of several minutes where if you called 911, your call could have been in limbo. We were doing a routine hot fix on our software. Reporter thats like you and i updating our smart phones, and just after 10 00 this morning, the 911 system at the Public Safety building crashed. Reporter is there a backup plan when updating technology . There is. Reporter did it work today . The contingency plan worked today. Reporter the contingency plan, youre looking at it, calls diverted here to the st. Pete police department. A handful of dispatchers working alongside the st. Pete city employees. The problem discovered just after 10 00, and the lines were down for several minutes. Theres an emergency in those 4 minutes. What happened . At this point i couldnt tell you. Reporter at this point he says no calls went unanswered. Does that