get about 100,000 bus business clearwater and saint pete. when emergency services tells you they can t guarantee the safety of these buses coming across the causeways, you saw that the secret service tore the tents down in front of the forum, which meant you had very few entrances and earn would be standing outside. if you think it s going to be a driving, sustained rain, windy rain, you know, you got to make that decision. it s the right thing to do. you got to err on the side of safety. s ahead as you said yesterday. we re going with a full slate of speakers. ann romney will be speaking, governor bob mcdonald of virginia, nikki haley, and the keynoter, chris christie. give us a preview. i think chris will be chris tonight, but i think earlock a little bit about the mitt romney storm from his perspective, why he thinks we need a change in the white house.
but as the morning progresses, we anticipate it will deteriorate fairly quickly. we expect the rain gusts to pick up and seeing more rain as the day continues. gretchen, steve, brian, back to you. steve: all right. elizabeth prann live in new orleans. we thank you very much. by the way, the sun has just come out officially here in tampa, which up til this point, had pretty much been dampa. brian: maybe tomorrow we ll be outside. steve: we got a fail. brian: 26 minutes before the top of the hour. headlines. the federal government actually pushing to get more americans to ask for federal assistance. a new poll shows that 15% of those surveyed admitted to getting government help like food stamps and unemployment assistance, and you got the usa.gov announcing, quote, this given that only 15% of you turn o government for assistance in tough times, we want to make sure we know about benefits that could help you, make sure you know that. more than one in seven americans already on fo
gulf as it s about to become a hurricane. let s head now to maria molina who is working her model, live in new york at the extreme weather center. what have you found? good morning. it does appear that isaac is now trying to develop what appears to be an eye wall. we re starting to see that happening. you can see it right there on the tropical satellite. a blob of showers and storms. right there is what looks like could be an eye wall, which would be an indicator that it could be gaining hurricane status this morning. we do have an update coming out at 8:00 a.m. and we ll see ifle national hurricane center thinks it s a hurricane. right now marks millennium sustained winds at 70 miles per hour. the wind is not going to be the big story with isaac. the big story is that it s going to slow down. it s a very large storm system. because it will be moving so slowly as we head into late tonight and into tomorrow morning during landfall, we re expecting a prolonged event with a lot of heavy
brian: right. steve: we want to know about day two, but first we have to talk about the weather. 7:00 o clock in tomba. we start with a fox news alert. tropical storm isaac picking up steam. national weather service says the storm could become at any moment a category 1 hurricane. right now it is heading for the gulf coast. jonathan is there live in new orleans with the very latest. the people there are worried because they say the storm surge could be 12 feet there. that s right. could be anywhere from six to 12 feet, depending what the storm system does. right now we re not experiencing any rain, but as you can see, the gusts are really picking up. we re experiencing strong winds here. residents aren t taking any chances. everywhere you look in new orleans, you see people boarding up homes and businesses. the airport is closed today. airport officials making it clear that that airport is not going to be a shelter during this storm. winds aren t the only threat. one concern, of