to a category 4 storm before it makes landfall in just hours on florida s big bend. you are looking at live pictures from cedar key where the rain is whipping sideways and whipping hard. idalia is less than a 100 miles away from the chore churning with 120-mile-per-hour winds. forecasters are not mincing words. they describe it as dangerous, life threatening oig and a once in a lifetime storm that could bring catastrophic storm surge of up to 16 feet in some places. we got new forecasts from the national hurricane center and we have team coverage from the florida gulf coast. sara sidner is down by the water in crystal river. and it is a very different pibt from what we saw yesterday. what are you seeing on the the ground right now? reporter: we are starting to feel some of those bands. we are getting the wind now. we have also seen the rain as well. and of course the water extremely choppy and rising. now, i want to get straight over
so this is significant for tampa bay. and the impacts here will be great. you can just pan down bay shore drive, both sides of this beautiful, beautiful boulevard have been completely swamped and overturn by the sea. just incredible to witness this. remember, we ve got high tide that just occurred. and there is another spray, you will see that was from the coastal seawall, that is about 50 to 75 feet over my cameraman s right shoulder. so you can just imagine the winds and the water being pushed up and over that area. so just incredible sights here. people are familiar with it, but still unnerving sight if you are witnessing this from your home outside your window. let us hope that people have gotten to higher ground. there is a reason why people live in the tampa bay area and in places like crystal river because they want to be near the water and it is a beautiful place to live until it is not. and that storm surge happens. we ask hear the winds pushing
conceptualize, that that probably won t happen, but 12 feet is expected. when we look at the map showing exactly where all of this water is expected to go, yes, there are areas where you are going to see 12 if not even more than 12 feet across these areas. basically east of saint marks, all the way down through cedar key, we re forecasting 12 to 16 feet from the national hurricane center. but you saw on that 3d image even 4 feet is enough to start inundating homes and businesses. and you are going to have that near appalaciacola, down towards st. petersburg and sarasota. so even some of the other areas that maybe don t get as much as 12 feet, maybe they good et 4 o you will still have that storm surge inside of homes. so now sustained winds now of 125 miles per hour, moving to the north/northeast at 17 miles per hour. and it is expected to intensify even more getting up to a category 4 right before landfall crossing over into georgia and then the carolinas before going
back out before open water. again, we ve talked about storm surge being the big concern, but also flooding from the water coming down from above you. so as we take a look at the forecast radar, again landfall time still looks like it was between about 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. roughly this morning eastern time. and then the system continues to slide into georgia, you are likely going to have power outages across georgia, south carolina, even north carolina possible as the storm continues to make its way out towards the atlantic as we go through the rest of the day today. you ve already got some of the really heavy bands starting to impact not only the panhandle but also the peninsula. farther to the south there are already several tornado warnings, still one active just to the east of orlando. and we have a tornado watch in effect for a few more hours. an additional one likely to be put out this morning because this area will continue to see tornadoes and also we could be seeing them eventuall
people who live here, they are not used to something like this because this is almost a once in a lifetime event for them. but they are very aware of what can happen with the flooding. and look, here is the absolute truth, that there will always be people who say i m not leaving my home, this is what i know, whatever happens happens. but here is the problem with that. if you have never seen an event like this, if this turns out to be 7 to 9 foot storm surge, those people will need to be rescued. and that is why authorities are saying we cannot come help you during this storm when it is at its height, when waters are rising. we don t want you to be in a position where you are literally trying to save your own life, going on the top of roofs for example. so they are trying to get people to understand that they may never have seen something that is this extreme. and you make that point in terms of the intensity and scale of what we re looking at right now, lack of precedence certainly i