Everybody follow the local government recommendations and please stay off the water until the storm passes. there is no reason to unnecessarily risk your life. i can t emphasize that enough, and this is obviously something that the coast guard is incredibly skilled at assisting in, but no one wants to be stranded out there during a storm like this. we have been talking all afternoon about the storm surge that could bring record water levels to a lot of these places along the coast, including to tampa bay where you are. what are you worried the most about when it comes to that storm surge? we are worried about the storm surge as well. we have a teams, they are crew members who are have shallow water vessels and can get into those low-lying areas. they are staged around parts of georgia and alabama, waiting to respond as soon as possible to emergencies that are up in that northern area. station yankee town, who is in yankee town, they are prepared and they have their shadow
Tonight and then bangs into the big bend area of florida. we are talking about cedar key, stein haji, yankee town. that area could see a storm surge like no one has ever seen and that region. we are talking 12 or 16-foot storm surge as it rolls in overnight tonight through tomorrow morning. the storm is so strong with 30 miles per hour winds when it makes landfall. it will hold together with all that momentum and blast through lower georgia as a hurricane into the carolinas by wednesday evening and thursday. still holding onto the tropical storm strength. we are talking about a major storm that has turned into a monster. it will not slow down until it reaches land. that is not until tomorrow morning. bob, thank you very much. we should know for the people in cedar key, this might be the time to think about getting out. yeah. meantime we are back with the nightcap. it s a quick one. kevin kohr, jeff paul, marianne rafferty. the push of a button if you had
Curr currently. i don t know the latest numbers when i left the emergency operations center to do the interview, i think we were probably a little over 200. we ve got a special needs shelter open at bronson elementary school, and we have general population shelter open at bronson middle high. we have opened the shell tore at williston middle high school. we have room. unfortunately the numbers are still low from those who really should be getting out of harm s way. we re about past that point of no return now. we ve had deputies and detectives in the yankee town, cedar key area going door to door trying to get an idea of who is staying and who s not, encouraging people to please get out. we ve been doing that all afternoon.
Showers are starting as i look out my window in my office. that s beginning to start. we ve been trying to encourage all of our residents on the coast to come into our shelters. it s getting now to the point where it s too late. you re going to be in for whatever you re in for. unfortunately, it does not sound good. this is a huge geographic county, leavy county, over 1400 square miles. cedar key, yankee town, our coastal cities and towns. we re extremely worried about this one. again, we re going to get the hurricane force winds no matter how this wobbles. it s really too late in the game at this point. no matter how it wobbles, we ll get the hurricane force winds. it s been said. what comes after that, we expect around noon tomorrow we ll have