cnn newsroom. good to be with you. thailand is reeling right now after a massacre inside a child care center. at least 36 people were killed, including 24 children. they were gunned down or stabbed. the children inside were sleeping at the time. investigators say the shooter was an ex-cop who had been fired and just appeared in court on drug charges. one of the teachers described the moment she saw the shooter. translator: around noon i saw him enter the gate. the staff was having lunch. i suddenly heard what sounded like fire crackers. he pulled the gun from his waist, loaded it and was about to point the gun at me. i called to another teacher who was holding a kid. i didn t expect him to also kill the kids. authorities say the gunman later killed his own wife and stepson, then took his own life. mass shootings are extremely rare in thailand. what else do we know? reporter: this is a peaceful, quiet area that is now believed to be the scene of thailand s deadlies
they have four shelters opening this morning at this hour here. they can hold about 4,000 people. but the evacuation order right now under way for zone a is about 40,000 people. so they re hoping that they will use those shelters as a last resort and go find family or friends on the east coast of florida or just get out of town. i spoke with the spokesperson for the emergency operations center here in punta gorda and he told me that their motto is hide from wind and run from water. he said a wall of water is not your friend. so you don t want to stick around here in punta gorda. certainly the north of here as you know, there is a lot of concern and the tampa area, the st. peterburg mayor certainly has been voicing his concern saying this could be the storm that they never hoped would come to their shores. and, of course, the director of the national hurricane center saying that this could be the storm of a lifetime and the near worst case scenario for tampa bay and that is be
i told each one of them, my conversation separately, whatever they need. sincerely, whatever they need, contact me directly. joining me now jamie rome, acting director of the national hurricane center. good to have you with us this hour. we saw in the most recent update, the 2:00 p.m. update that the storm was rapidly intensifying. the major concern at this hour seems to be the storm surge and also just how long this storm could sit. what are the areas that you re most focused on at this hour? i think water is going to be the big issue with this storm, both the incredibly heavy rainfall. you can see it starting to sweep over the southern portions of the florida peninsula. and the storm surge near to the east of where the center makes landfall, and those two when they combine together, it creates a lot of flooding issues. speaking the the mayor of tampa in the last hour, she was pointing to the separate saturation that they re already seeing on the ground there that they
you. well there is no mourning like you know mourning. there is scared death and i watch out of the window all of the time. i watch our monitors 360 all of the time. i watch around me and my family all of the time. and if anybody is coming at my at the wrong angle, and stood there too long, i watch their eyes, i watch every movement because the torture is still there and those people that wanted to become famous off my son, that still hasn t gone away. and i m waiting for i m waiting for the help to hit every day. it is one minute past the top of the hour and we are speaking with joel and mary rich, the parents of seth rich. about the impact conspiracy theories have, especially on them in light of how their son s murder was covered and the narrative created around it. we ll continue the conversation just let you know. we re also following breaking news about queen elizabeth ii. apparently gravely ill. and steve bannon due in court in the next half hour or so. we ll be c
send the nation into a fall, which raises prices for everyone if we do not cut social security and medicare. i ain t going to do it. there you go. thanks, bud. thanks, joe biden. thanks, biden. he did it again. thanks, biden. desantis doesn t have a lot of control. you can say thanks, biden. ron desantis airport is really bad, but miami airport? come on. that s part of the joke. this shows mika s humor. she knows that desantis it s not his airport. miami-dade. yeah. south florida, miami-dade. but it s not-not but that s the joke. you blame the hurricanes and iran, thanks, biden. the level of stupidity reaching new highs. incredible. president biden, that was him right there, speaking with staffers at the democratic national committee headquarters in d.c. yesterday with the message that republicans would,. thanks, desantis. if they take over congress in the upcoming midterms. you blame somebody for something that they have nothing to do wit