good wednesday morning and the breaking news we are following this morning, a significant storm, now a category 4 storm, hurricane idalia now in the extremely dangerous category, that category 4 storm designation is intensified over the hours from a category 3 now to a category 4, it is expected to make landfall onto florida's gulf coast in just hours. forecasters are calling the storm dangerous, life threatening, a once in a lifetime storm that could bring catastrophic storm surge of up to 16 feet in florida's big bend region. at 6:30, just about a half hour from now, florida governor ron desantis will be giving an update from tallahassee. we will bring you that live. desantis says if you wanted to see a press can he not. analog for a storm hitting this place at this scale, go back more than a century. sarah sanders has been there live, part of team coverage, bill weir, in florida, derek van dam in tampa. and brian todd. and we'll be speaking with local officials and the director of the national hurricane center. sarah, we've been together the last several hours, boy have things picked up in the last 15, 20 minutes. >> reporter: yes, i'm back, i am so sorry, you know, technology happens, right? the reason why i look like a drowned rat is because we just got caught in one of those major bands coming off of the hurricane. i am not near the eye. i am not at the eye. i am about 50 miles away from the where the eye is at the moment and 50 miles away from the area where the hurricane is supposed to make landfall, the eye of the storm is supposed to cross over and you are seeing the result of these outer bands. we are in crystal river. this is a wonderful town where a lot of people come to visit because they want to see the manatees. right now they should be gone. people should have evacuated. this entire town of about 3,400 people is in a flood zone. i want to let you see. this gives you an idea of how strong these winds are, and how much rain is coming up. you are seeing it hit the -- it's coming out of the roof there, and coming down, but you are seeing these just bands of rain being whipped about by the winds. i'm going to have adoll foe turn towards where the water is, the water is starting to be pushed up. this is the fear, the water is a couple hundred yards from us, it's starting to be pushed onshore, it's not just about the rain, it's about the storm surge, having all that water being pushed on shore, we are talking about six to nine feet of storm surge here, which means that this entire town is going to see some semblance of water. the most they've ever seen is four feet of storm surge. that is going to be doubled at this point in time. i'm not sure where we are going next, because i can barely hear myself talk and think. can you give me some sense of where we are going next? i think we're going to be going to derek van dam, derek van dam and bill weir, one of the two, i'm going to let you take it back, because at this point i can hear nothing but wind and rain. >> toss it over to derek van dam. derek, we've been talking the you throughout the course of the morning, we've seen the intensification of the flooding, of the rain and of the wind and in the last two hours, the scale of the flooding in terms of where it is on your legs is undeniable. tell people what you're seeing, and why that's happening so far away from the center of the storm. >> reporter: yeah, you put it so well there, phil, we are 125 miles southeast of the most powerful part of the storm. so, my point being that you don't have to be so close to the center of the storm with the strongest winds to get the greatest impacts. let this scene speak for itself, right, we've got flashing lights behind us. tampa is behind me. this is bay shore boulevard, and we are getting these intermittent powerful feeder bands from the hurricane. again, we're 125 miles away. that is an angry tampa bay, and this storm surge, three things working in conjunction with each other to have this rising water that we've seen all morning that's forced us to move our crew vehicles. we have not only a hurricane pushing up the water from the shallow overheated gulf of mexico, but it's working in unison with a super moon which has a greater impact, a greater tug, per se, on the tidal swings exaggerating high tide, which we are just coming from this morning and inland flooding from these rain bands that come -- that have come through intermittently this morning. both of those, all three of those working together, they meet and rise the water and unfortunately we have seen this threaten homes already. looking at the bay shore boulevard. look at the surge washing up over this normally busy major thoroughfare, an artery for tampa, and then i want to show you this. this is an intersection, very popular intersection for residents and tourists, completely inundated with the water, that's not only threatening bay shore boulevard, it's also lapping up against people's yards, and their first steps of their homes. so, this is a major concern. this is what four to six feet of storm surge looks like. and, phil and sarah, whoever we're tossing to, we checked soft tidal gauges, old port tampa, which is about 15 minutes southwest of where i'm located, is preliminarily setting a record for storm surge as we speak at four feet, and it continues to rise. all of these things, these factors i just explained working in conjunction. phil, look at this. look at the waves crashing over the shoreline here. that is a sea wall meant to protect tampa, and bay shore boulevard, well, the water has come up and over that sea wall and we're getting sprayed every minute or so with these massive, massive angry swells coming off of the ocean, and literally you can taste the saltwater from tampa bay. phil. >> yeah, and just to reiterate something you said, derek, two points, one, that is a major artery. if you're not familiar with tampa, where derek is standing right now is usually packed with cars, commuters, people traveling through the tampa area in a normal time. right now the water is up to his thighs. as he's talking about the water pushing in, that's a major residential area, retail there as well. you can't even tell because of what it looks like right now where derek is. he has been doing great reporting from the scene throughout the course of the morning. i do want to switch over to bill weir right now, live in steenhatchie, florida, where derek is 130 miles away from landfall is expected, we're much closer to where the center is. bill, what are you seeing on the ground right now? >> reporter: phil, it's really starting to kick up. this will be our last water line check here. we're down on the actual river here, the steenhatchie river flows threw this really beautiful charming town of about a thousand people at height of season. this is supposed to be the height of scallop season, so we'd have boats and anglers out here. there's a couple of pontoons that were left but most of the boats pulled out of the harbors here, out of the marinas, put up as high as possible. we're staying at about sort of 28 # feet above sea level, which is considered alpine altitudes in this region, but the worry is, is that storm as it comes in here from the west is going to shove that wall of water up into these lowlands here, and a lot of this construction is not built for a storm surge over ten feet. they had a six foot storm surge here back in 2016, and we talked to folks who rode that out and they were shocked by the speed at which that wall of water just came up and rearranged everything. so violently. the idea that it could be 12 feet around here, really frankly scares them. we met a couple folks who refused to evacuate, they do the calculation at so many floridians do, if i get out will i be able to get home? it's -- there's always a percentage of the population who will ignore those mandatory evacuations, and you hope for the best for them. but that includes, phil, an old salt sailor who's riding this out on a sailboat right here in steenhatchie, the locals tried to talk him out of it, but they say what can you do? you hope for the best for folks like that. if ian was any indication last year, the storm surge that went into lee county there caught so many folks by surprise, that fingers, toes, everything crossed we don't see that catastrophic loss of life here this morning. >> yeah, no question about that. obviously there have been some people, as you note, we've spoken to some of them who have decided to stay, because they don't believe it can be as bad as people are saying, or they believe they can ride it out out. you hope for the best for them. you hope everybody has heeded the request of state and local officials who have asked for evacuations, bill, it's picking up where you are. we're going to continue to check back in with you. and to brian todd, in tallahassee, the state capital, up from the big bend region where landfall is expected right now. brian, looks calmer where you are, but -- this is a key caveat, as we've been speaking to reporters throughout the course of the morning, "a," it comes in waves, and "b," it is certainly picking up as landfall becomes a closer reality for this storm. >> reporter: the timing of you tossing to us and the show starting right now, at least for the intensification of the storm here in tallahassee, the timing was pretty much perfect. just a couple of minutes before the show started we started getting some really intense bands of wind and rain, mostly right now it is a rain event. when the rain starts to blow sideways you know it's pretty much game on for the intensity of the storm and we know it's coming here to tallahassee. this city is known for its trees, lots of palm trees here, these palm fronds, maybe not so much the issue, it's the oak trees this town is known for, the old oak trees with the spanish moss hanging from them, pine trees behind me, this city is known for its trees, makes the city beautiful but on the other hand it just leads to more, you know, vulnerability for trees coming down. i covered a hurricane here in tallahassee a few years ago and the aftermath of it, what struck our team was as we rode around there were so many downed trees and power lines that it became hard to navigate around this city. we expect that to be the case again now because a lot of these, of course the ground underneath the trees getting saturated, that means these trees are going to be vulnerable. when the wind starts to kick up, we know it's coming here in tallahassee soon, when that kicks up everybody here has to be very careful. nobody should be out trying to navigate these roads. we did hear, our team about an hour and 15 minutes ago, we heard first responders and sirens, that's not the case in the next couple of hours. as we've been told up and down this region, once the winds get to roughly a little over 50 miles an hour, the first responders, as much as they want to and they may try to are not going to be able to move around to try to rescue you. but they do have rescue teams at the ready here in tallahassee and elsewhere. we pulled in late last night from the sount of st. marks, about 20 miles south of here, right here the apppalache bay. we're going to try to get back there later today if we can. we could be cut off because it is so vulnerable to storm surge and flooding. it lies between two rivers, it's right at the appalache bay as we've heard our forecasters and our reporters throughout the region are saying that, you know, the bay has never had a recorded storm of this kind of intensity in its history, in recorded history. how that town is going to be able to absorb that, that remains to be seen. they did have mandatory evacuation orders, some people have elected to ride it out down in st. marks, we're a little worried about them at this hour, phil. >> brian todd for us in tallahassee. we obviously had bill weir in steenhatchie, crystal river, we had sara sidner, derek van dam in tampa. we have reporters and correspondents up and down the gulf coast of florida as we wait for landfall of what is now a category 4 storm, the major hurricane that people like the governor ron desantis have been warns about over the course of the last 24 hours, it is here, it is looming, it is approaching florida's gulf coast, it's big ben region, where the peninsula and the panhandle come together. to brian todd's point there is not precedent for a storm of this size hitting the region. we're getting more details on the preparation and what to expect from florida governor ron desantis in about 15 minutes f from tallahassee, we're talking to federal officials, local officials, res dens in the coming minutes and hours. we will keep you updated on the very latest as this storm continues to intensify from a category 3 to a category 4, now over 130 mile an hour winds as it heads and continuing to strengthen as 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with us. but derek, first to you. i cannot stress how different and how rapid the intensification has been where you are in just the three hours we've been on television this morning. >> reporter: it has been absolutely incredible to see how this has unfolded in tampa bay, the four to six feet of storm surge, definitely being realized. that is an angry tampa bay. what we're getting here is storm surge, but this is a combination of several factors, remember, we've got inland flooding, we have a full moon which is actually exacerbated by -- wow, incredible. made worse by the super moon. that gives a greater tug on these tie dal swings that we ha. greater highs and greater lows in terms of the tidal strength. in combination with the amount of water that's just being pushed up by a major hurricane in a very shallow, shallow eastern gulf of mexico, which is record temperatures, by the way, that's how it's fueling itself to rapidly intensify. but i just want to set the scene here, because what we've seen is a brick wall on bay shore boulevard, a major artery for tampa, over my right shoulder being completely inundated by waves. any local will tell you this place floods given any rainy day. this is different. this is storm surge inundation, made worse by the fact that the inland flooding is helping make the problem even more challenging. ellison, i did a calculation earlier, googling and fact checking, and we're setting record surge levels in old port tampa, which is very close to us, right about four feet right now, and there's about 1,700 pounds per cubic yard of water. that's a lot of force, and we're setting record surge levels, you can imagine what this means for the six to nine feet of surge up to big ben, perhaps even higher than that, up to 15 in some places, maybe you can explain that. >> great point, derek. where you are located you're on the lower end of where some of this surge is expected. there are going to be other communities that could see significantly more surge than your location. let's take a standard look where the storm is. hurricane idalia, sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. the big change that we noted from the last couple of hours is that as the storm crosses into other states, such as georgia, for example, it's going to remain hurricane strength. it's not expected to weaken into a tropical storm instantaneously, so likely to be a category 2 as it pushes into georgia this afternoon and then gradually becoming a tropical storm as it heads into the carolinas. we have a brand new tornado watch in effect, this now also includes portions of georgia, including the cities of s savannah, but jacksonville, orlando, tampa. this goes until 3:00 this afternoon. we've seen these hurricanes produce showers and thunderstorms and tornadoes. we've had several in georgia this morning, and they're going to continue. because of that that's why they have that tornado watch in effect. you can see those outer bands where you tend to get tornado warnings is outer bands as they continue to push into the area. a concern for that, too, when you talk about flooding and tornadoes, keep in mind your safe place is the opposite. when we talk about tornadoes you are always taught go to the lowest level of your home. but if you're taking in flooding, you don't want to go to the lowest level of your home, you want to go to the highest level of your home. so this is where, again, it becomes a very tricky situation when you've got tornado warnings for your area but you're having inundation of flood waters where that safe space actually is. a look at when we start seeing the rain showers continuing to spread you're going to start to see those impacts in states like georgia and the carolinas going through the rest of the day. >> reporter: all right. i am here in crystal river. we have been seeing these bands come through, they are tropical storm force winds, getting those outer bands of the wind and rain at this hour. i want to give you a little bit of a look of what's happening. you can see the water has come up just a bit there, and coming with adolfo to the edge of the water, where you normally would have poets going into the water so the tourists can go and residents can go and see the beautiful manatees that exist here. we're seeing quite a bit of lightning, lots of wind, the rain bands have stopped but we will see them again. here we go, this is picking up again and the fear here is what you're seeing there, that's starting to really come up, this is a very low-lying community, this is a community that is in a flood area, every part of this community is prone to flooding, the whole place of about 3,400 people here in crystal river, which is why people, there's a mandatory evacuation here, we have seen some folks leaving this morning to get out. a lot of people did leave yesterday. all right, i want to get to our sheriff of citrus county, the county that i am in, sheriff, thank you so much for joining us this morning, can you give me some sense of where you are, and what you are seeing right now? >> caller: well, i can tell you i was outside ready to do this live shot with you outside, but a major band of weather came through, with some lightning, and very heavy downpours, and because we couldn't hear you all we came inside. i'm standing right now inside of the sheriff's substation in crystal river, and as part of our partnership with the city of crystal river where we provide the law enforcement services to the city and all its residents, now, this building that i'm in, i abandoned on monday because of the anticipated storm surge that could be at that time seven to 11 feet. where i'm standing at right now with my boots on, i'm approximately 6'0", and we could anticipate water over my head where i'm standing later on today and into the evening hours later tonight as the storm surge continues to come in. we've not seen any real surge, all we've seen is a lot of ponding and puddles right now because of the rain bands. but later on when the storm surge really starts to roll in we're going to see a lot of flooded areas in flood zone "a" which we recommended and strongly encouraged through a mandatory evacuation order on monday, that everybody evacuate flood zone "a." a lot of folks did, but there's still quite a few left behind out here that are going to try and weather this storm out, and, you know, the wind is one thing. but running away interest that water is something entirely different. and people sometimes get trapped when they least expect it. as a frame of reference there was water in this building where i was standing during hurricane hermeen, the national weather service is predicting six feet more of water in crystal river once the storm rolls through and we get the dirty side of the storm that brings the additional winds at the point where we've got an extremely high tide with a full moon and the king tide that's unfolding right here before us this morning here in crystal river. >> reporter: we really have sort of the perfect trifecta, all of the things that you just mentioned there, the king tide, the moon, and this massive storm that is now a category 4. and we're not even in the midst of it. thank you so much, sheriff mike pendergrass, i appreciate your time, thank you for being safe and getting out of the way of the storm. as you know well people are supposed to have evacuated, you are here to try and make sure people are safe. you are staying because that is your job but the rest of the community needs to understand how dangerous this is going to get in the coming hours, i'm going to toss it back to phil, thank you to that sheriff. >> absolutely, be safe out there. >> thank you, sara sidner. i want to get to the director of the national hurricane center, michael brennan, we've been talking to state officials, local officials, residents on the ground. to start, as we've been watching the storm intensify throughout the course of the morning what's the latest trajectory of idalia? ? it's moving north, northeast at 17 miles an hour. you can see the eye, expecting the eye to make landfall in the dixie-taylor county region in the big bend of florida here next few hours. folks are starting to see storm surge rise and catastrophic storm surge play out next few hours as well as the destructive winds in the core of this major hurricane as it moves on shore. >> to the time in question, everybody is cautious about putting specific times on anything, but when you're talking about catastrophic storm surge, destructive winds, which you've been repeatedly, when should people in those regions that you're talking about there in those counties be expecting the worst at this point? >> well, you know, in terms of the storm surge, you know, folks in those storm surge evacuation zones hopefully they're gone because waters are starting to rise in places like cedar key, seeing inundation of more than four feet aboveground level now and those water levels are rising now. in this purple area we've issued an extreme wind warning, eye wall winds of a major hurricane are imminent in these areas, dixie and taylor counties. take cover and treat it like a tornado, take cover in a safe place, get under a mattress, in a safe, you know, sheltered room in your home. >> you know, i consumed hourly updates, seems like the federal reserve, any change in any wording i try and pick up on. the idea in the latest update that there's a possibility it could strengthen, even more than it already has, walk people through what you're seeing there. >> well, we've actually seen the central pressure come up a millibar or two in the last hour, that suggests the intensification has leveled off for the time being but it doesn't really matter. we're at a category 4 hurricane that's going to prous catastrophic conditions whether the intensity goes up or down five or ten miles an hour. those impacts are baked in here for the big bend of florida. we're going to see significant wind impacts travel far inland across portions of north florida and portions of georgia with such a powerful hurricane moving so quickly we have hurricane warnings in effect all the way over to savannah and places like hilton head as well. >> follow up on a good point you just made, the intensity of this, strength of this, five, ten miles an hour you're overlooking the scale of what we're seeing right now, give people some context here, compared to previous hurricanes what does this look like? >> well, compared to previous hurricanes that have affected this part of the florida peninsula, it's unprecedented, at least in modern times. if you live in this area and you've lived there your whole life you've never experienced a hurricane like this. this is on the order of some of the category 4 hurricane landfalls, going back to ian last year, other storms like laura and ida, we've got a spate of these along the gulf coast and in florida in particular. this is another one of these storms that's going to bring catastrophic conditions. >> mike brennan, we'll get back to you in our 8:00 hour. thanks for your time. coming up, we are expecting a press conference from florida governor ron desantis, the latest updates on resources, on where things stand as hurricane idalia, now a category 4 storm that's been rapidly intensifying over the course of the last several hours, approaches imminently landfall on florida's gulf coast. >> and the surge is coming, it's coming over the wawall right n . experience the sanctuaryry of handsfree highway driving with lincoln bluecruise. it's the final days of the lincoln summer invitation event. right now, get 3.9% apr and $1000 trade assist cash on a new 2023 lincoln. u got this. let's go. gobble gble. i've seen bigger legs on a turkey! rude. who are you? i'm an investor in a fund that helps advance innovative sports tech like this smart fitness mirror. i'm also mr. leg day...1989! anyone can become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq, a fund that gives you access to nasdaq-100 innovations. i go through a lot of pants. before investing carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com. you are now watching breaking news coverage, i want to take you now to governor ron desantis with a press conference in tallahassee. >> big bend region of florida, the national hurricane center expects storm surge to reach up to 16 feet in some areas of the big bend region, that level of storm surge is life-threatening. do not go outside in the midst of this storm. if it's calm where you are it may be because you are in the eye of the storm, and those conditions will change very, very quickly. so wherever you are hunker down, and don't take anything for granted here, this is a very, very powerful storm. there will be impacts far beyond the eye wall, and those will extend to places like tallahassee as well as places like northeast florida. we have already had 11 tornado warnings, and there are more tornadoes possible, even and especially in the very outer bands of the storm. so these are places that are way outside the cone that you see on the tv screen. so please keep in mind, those are very, very dangerous situations. when the storm passes do not drive in flooded streets and assume that all downed power lines are still hot and live. there's going to be people working to remedy that, and we've got a lot of people staged. but that is very hazardous in the immediate aftermath of the storm. we currently have 54,000 households that are out of power throughout the state of florida, but there have been over 100,000 households that have already been restored through hard work all through the night, and those restoration efforts are ongoing any place it's safe to do, people are there working to get that done. as soon as it's safe to do so when the winds die down to a sufficient level search and rescue efforts will begin. we have eight urban search and rescue teams staged ready to go, 33 ambulance strike teams, 5,500 national guardsmen. we also have the coast guard on stand by should that be necessary. there will be an immediate effort to restore power to people who lose power. there's 30,000 plus linemen stationed and ready to go to commence restoration efforts for local municipalities and el electric co-ops. accept mutual aid. the goal is to get everybody back on line as quickly as possible. there will be a lot of debris from this storm. there's going to be a need to have all hands on deck to be able to do, and accordingly our florida department of transportation we have 650 pieces of heavy equipment and trucks staged for cut and toss operations post storm. we anticipate there to be a lot of debris, a lot of downed trees, a lot of downed power lines and there's going to be a need for this. we also have 1,100 generators staged for traffic signal restoration. we anticipate that that's going to be a problem in a number of of communities as well. fuel. we have 1.2 million gallons staged. we're also arranging more fuel to come in by truck, just to make up for whatever may not be coming in through the normal course of business with things like the port of tampa being closed. and so there's a lot of fuel that has been arranged to be here and our goal is to not have any major fuel interruptions. terms of communications, there's 500 plus star link internets ready for deployment to places that need to be. there's already been almost 250 that have been deployed so as affected areas need that connectivity, florida division of emergency management is going to work to provide that. >> we just lost the feed of governor ron desantis, he's giving updates on what is now a category 4 storm from tallahassee. we'll take you bake to him as soon as we know -- we're going to take you back to him right now. we have the feed back. >> please do not run that generator inside your home or inside your garage, it must be run outside your house, needs to be at least 20 feet away from doors and windows, and you have to point the exhaust away from your home. we do not want to see any fatalities as a result of misuse of generators. so there's a lot of people that are on deck right now, there's going to be a lot of efforts as this storm passes, but this thing is hitting really within the next hour and a half most likely. it's going to make landfall, it is a major hurricane as we've been saying it was likely to be for the last couple days. we just hope everybody stays safe, don't put your life at risk by doing anything dumb at this point. this thing's powerful. if you're inside, just hunker down until it gets past you. you don't want to be messing around with these winds. there's going to be things flying all over the place. obviously, if you're in a place that's close to the coast and you see that surge, that's going to be legitimate surge. it's going to be a big, big deal, and it's going to be very, very dangerous. and there we go with our power here. we're back. so i'm going to have kevin guthrie come up, we'll hear from major general haas, admiral schofield, and christian kaban will be here. so kevin? >> right on time, five-second delay, and kick those generators in, thank god that's working. as the governor said the storm is here, it is here now, it is just off the coast of the big bend looking like keyton beach is going to be the location in which we have landfall. stay out of the roads. if you're shelting in place. stay inside your home. in you're at a shelter or inside a hotel, please do not leave at this time. conditions are deteriorating outside in the impacted areas. shelter, again, as we've said, shelter in place as safely as you can, where you can. we are seeing two to three foot of storm surge in the tampa bay area, we're seeing about four foot of storm surge right now at cedar key. because of this high tide, because of the high tide which is coming, the tide is starting to come back in throughout the -- all the way from tampa bay through apalachee cola bay, storm surge will dramatically increase over the next couple hours. we're seeing a lot of tornado warnings. so far 11 as the governor has said of the four or five that have happened since about 3:00 a.m. this morning, at least three of those by our meteorologists have indicated radar indicated tornadoes, in other words they have seen debris in those rotations, but that will all be confirmed by the national weather service local forecasting offices throughout the day. we will obviously see more tornadic activity as the day goes along. if you are in a tornado warning in your area, get to an interior room, free from windows, consider putting mattresses and of things over your head, even to include helmets. we can replace a lot of limbs but we cannot replace your head, obviously. so please protect your head, cover your head at all costs. there will be also life-threatening winds in the big bend today as we could see gusts over 100 miles an hour, see sustained winds well over 130 miles an hour as we have this cat 4 landfall. all of these are life-threatening conditions, do everything you can to stay safe where you are because first responders may not be able to reach you during the storm. you need to be prepared to take care of yourself and your family while you're sheltering in place. ambulances, search and rescue teams, other first responders will get to you as fast as we possibly can once the winds die down to a point where we can respond to you. we do not want you putting first responders at risk unnecessarily. in southwest florida as the governor has already mentioned we've already restored over 100,000 accounts with power. i want to thank the men and women of our utilities, both -- or all three independent owned utilities, municipal electric associations and cooperatives, really appreciate the hard work that they've been doing here in tallahassee, coming back to usc early wee morning hours, tallahassee electric was out restoring power here in the capital region. so, again, very much appreciate what they're doing. we will continue to respond as we can, as, again, as i said, we've already started responding to issues in southwest florida. i talked to representative adam botana from fort myers beach this morning about 3:00 a.m., he said it's very irma like conditions, not a lot of storm surge, not a lot of damage, but certainly not ian. but he says it's reminiscent of what they experienced in hurricane irma. happy to hear that and appreciate him giving me a call to give me ground truth. we are here, we are ready. we will deploy our response and recovery teams as quickly as we possibly can. you know we like to move very quickly here at the division. we are ready to provide the needed support to our big bend communities as well as communities with standing impacts from the other bands of the storm, under the governor's leadership. we have certainly amassed a great team here at the division, and with state agency heads that have moved bureaucracy and red tape to get things done where we're restoring 100,000 accounts in less than eight hours. so, please rest assured we will do whatever it takes to help our communities recover from idalia. i've got general -- we have general haas here this morning, again, john,ky not tell you how much i appreciate you and your team, admiral schofield, the same way, i appreciate everything you guys are doing. they have helicopters ready to go as soon as they're going to be able to get back into this area, they are going to be flying and be in the area. again, thank you for both of you being here. governor. >> good morning, and governor, thank you again for your leadership, and your continued support of your florida national guard. director guthrie, thank you again for your tremendous work and the work of your team to protect our florida citizens. our thoughts and prayers go out to those in the affected areas of the storm that are being -- those being affected already. as i mentioned yesterday the florida national guard is fully mobilized with over 5,500 soldiers and airmen ready to support hurricane response efforts. we expect that throughout the day we will be actively engaged in a multitude of missions, including search and rescue, damage assessment and route clearance. in addition, we continue to man the state logistics response center and many other logistic and staging areas throughout the state of florida. as well as support the 26 county emergency management operation centers with liaison specialists. the florida national guard currently has on hand 2,400 vehicles available, including high mobility and high-water vehicles. 14 rotary wing aircraft with additional aviation assets coordinated with our neighboring states through a mutual aid agreement and 23 small water craft to support search and rescue operations and delivery of supplies to flooded areas. your florida national guard is prepared to accomplish any missions required by the department of emergency management, and we stand ready to support our neighbors and fellow citizens in need. thank you. >> all right, good morning. governor, director guthrie and fellow floridians, the coast guard is standing the watch to support our state and federal partners. our highest priority is always saving lives. we prepositioned 15 aircraft and more than 25 cutters in 20 flood response teams prepared to respond in the wake of the storm. as soon as conditions safely allow. we have prepositioned aircraft in miami and west palm beach and they'll be the first ones to respond in the wake of the storm. yesterday these flight crews conducted over flights of the western florida area up to the big bend area, and made call outs to mariners to seek shelter as well as to really familiarize ourselves with the landscape pre-storm arrival. so we're ready to go. we are also assembling a flood response teams from both inside and outside the state so we can assist both the florida team and fema with the urban search and rescue. we're also ready to launch aircraft for urgent maritime search and rescue in the vicinity of tampa and the big bend area as the storm passes. our second priority is the reconstitution of ports and waterways, really critical to our marine transportation system, so urgently needed so that resources can make it to the communities in need. we expect to begin overflight damage assessment of the west coast of florida at first light as soon as this storm passes and safe flight conditions allow. we will follow in the wake of the storm to also assist with impacts on the east coast of florida. we also -- our buoy tenders and units are conduct port assessments and reconstitution efforts with navigation teams and the army corps of engineers. depending on sea conditions and port conditions we hope to have those cutters near shore in the next several days. our third priority is environmental response to address pollution, or contamination concerns as a result of the hurricane and the storm surge flooding. the marine environmental response to mitigate and clean up potential pollutants and damaged infrastructure will be a long, committed effort. we're adding the response phase of this operation, this is one of the most critical and certainly the most dangerous of our operations and response to the hurricane. because these are dangerous conditions we need to ensure that our aircraft and rescue crews can operate safely, especially as they may encounter downed power lines, surging and receding flood waters and other visible and subsurface hazards. our crews are really highly trained and fully equipped to meet this challenge. once again, our highest priority is to save lives here for fellow floridians. if you need assistance but are in a safe location we ask you to communicate your distress for first responders by dialing 911 or calling on vhf radio channel 16, and definitely stay where you are. we will come to you. if you don't need assistance we ask you to stay put in safe shelter. please allow the emergency responders to do their job safely without interference. thank you to our local, state and federal partners working together in this hurricane effort. we really appreciate the partnership, thank you. >> good morning. my name is christian kaban, a leon county commissioner, here to assist in the briefing of our community on the impacts of hurricane idalia. the county residents, hurricane idalia has moved slightly east of leon county, this storm will have a lasting impact on surrounding communities. this is a historic category 4, predicted to have life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and heavy rain. leon county residents, you should expect downed trees, blocked roads, power outages, flooding and overall dangerous conditions. now more than ever you must stay informed and follow all emergency orders. everyone must shelter in place until the storm has passed. please continue to follow leon county on social media, our website, and local radio station wfsu. i encourage everyone to try and hunker down and stay safe until the storm has passed. once the storm passes we may have many people without power and there may be lots of debris in the roads. public works along with its partners will be working 24/7 on the recovery effort of restoring power and clearing roads. many roads will be blocked by trees or flooding. waters dangerous to drive on. please do not use roadways unless it is safe or in emergency. stay home if you can. please give first responders time to clear the way, and restore power. folks, leon county staff is the best of the best. i'm thankful and confident that our team will be working around the clock to restore normalcy to our community. i'd also like to thank the governor and state staff for their ability to respond quickly in assisting not only leon county but our neighbors on the gulf coast as well as we prepare for impact this morning. thank you and god bless. >> so we are going to have the full landfall impacts very, very shortly, within the next couple hours, most likely probably by 0800. it's going to make landfall on florida's big bend. so, please hunker down wherever you are, don't mess with this storm. don't do anything that's going to put yourself in jeopardy, and there will be a lot of help coming on the back end of this storm, and we're ready to go. we -- as soon as it's safe to do so you're going to see all these different assets deployed. so stay safe. any questions? >> do you feel like the state and residents here are prepared for this strength of a storm? you know, potentially category 5, i know we're in category 4. >> i think they're -- i think if you look at the counties i think that they mobilized very quickly. i think that they've been very clear about the storm surge threat and all these zone a's across the gulf coast and probably more so than any storm that i can remember in recent years. so people understand, you know, we've said from the beginning it was going to probably be a major hurricane, and that's what it is. and so we're here, and we're ready, and we're going to work hard on the back end to make sure everyone gets back up on their feet. >> is the message to shelter in place for all 49 counties that are under the state of emergency? >> so, it's -- if you're in a part, there's counties where the storm's passed, so there may be some outer bands. that's not necessarily saying shelter. if you're in the path of where the eye wall is going at this point you've got to hunker down. so those big bend counties, as we get into north central florida, you know, you're in jeopardy at that point, and so it's really those places where it's going to hit the eye wall, or the eye wall is coming in to be able to not mess with it. it's going to be a significant, significant impact. >> any concerns about the hundred that decided to stay on cedar key? >> well, sure. i think that it's a hazardous situation. if you end up with storm surge that even approaches that 16 feet, the chance of surviving that is not great. you would need to be maybe even like on a three-story building because it is going to rise very, very highly. so -- but there were some -- now, most people did heed the warning, but there were some that just -- that's just -- that's what they wanted to do. and so once this passes there will be rescue efforts done, and done if need be, and hopefully it's not necessarily, hopefully they knew what they were doing and they have a spot. but it's potentially very, very hazardous when you're talking about really anything even approaching ten feet. when you start talking about potentially 16 feet that is a huge, huge deal. >> yesterday the expectation was that there would be 40,000 electrical linemen in state to respond to the restoration effort. did we -- >> we said up to. we said probably between 30 and 40, that's where we're at? >> we're between 30 and 40. we haven't talked to the crews this morning. they're in the field doing what they're doing. not worried so much about the numbers right now as we are about getting the power restored. >> do you think that florida caught a break here in the fact that we're -- this is in the big bend and not areas like the tampa bay area? >> well, it's not a break for the people in the pathway. so i think it's anytime you have it, it's difficult. you know, if you just look at the way florida is cut, to have something go in this big bend, and it's going to be to georgia relatively soon, whereas we've had some hurricanes, i mean like ian, it rams in the southwest florida and cut across the entire state and really impacted many, many millions of people. so, you don't want to get hit at all. you want it to be as modest an impact as is humanly possible. and i think that there's different paths that some of these storms have taken. ian is one that was a really bad path because it impacted so many people. people saw the images of fort myers beach, and obviously that was a catastrophic -- those were catastrophic images but you would go hundreds of miles away and you had major, major flooding, you had erosion on the east coast of florida in places like volucia county, the beaches, structures falling down because of that. it had massive, massive impacts. anytime you do this, you know, you would want it to impact as small amount of places as possible. >> what do you think about trump, you know, he's a resident here in florida and he hasn't commented on idalia at all yet. >> it's not my concern. my concern is protecting the people of florida being ready to go, and we've done that. and look, we -- in florida you just have to do this. i mean, this is something we put a lot of time and effort into throughout the course of each year knowing that there's going to be time where you're going to have to activate it. now, we had a major one last year, one of the most expensive on record, we were hoping not to have any this year, that maybe we would get off lucky but that wasn't in the cards. you deal with it, but that's been our focus, getting all this stuff ramped up. i think of the counties by and large, i think, have done a really good job with this, and, you know, there's going to be things that are going to happen over these next few days that will require a lot of support. we want to be able to be there to support folks. we'll be back doing some more briefings. as soon as the storm passes we'll probably end up trying to get on the road and figure out where the damage, the worst damage is, and get down there, and see what we can do to be able to help those folks. thanks. you've been listening to governor ron desantis, florida, state and local officials giving the latest on preparations and the latest on what is now a category 4 hurricane, a major storm, that according to desantis could make landfall or will make landfall by around 8:00 a.m., about an hour five minutes from now. he warned those in its path, particularly in the big bend region, to hunker down, to, quote, not do anything dumb at this point, this is very real, the storm surge is a big, big problem. the winds are very dangerous. there is preparation, there are certainly a number of state, federal and local assets prepared for the aftermath as was laid out by all of his top officials. but it is very clear that in this moment, just an hour before landfall at what his emergency management division director said would be about keyton beach, florida in that big bend region, it's time to be safe, hunker down and get to a safe place. we are going to have much more on this coming up, including president biden who his federal resources have been deployed in the area as well, my colleague betsy klein at the white house says he will be speaking about this publicly this afternoon when he convenes his cabinet. obviously fema playing an enormous role on the federal level as well. you've got federal, state, local, and obviously residents as well, we'll be talking to all of them over the course of the next several hours. again, this has been a rapid intensification of a major storm with no precedent in hitting this region where it is headed, the big bend region of florida. we are going to keep you updated throughout the course of the next several hours. you just heard from governor ron desantis as he said, significant, significant impact, that impact coming within the next hour or so. we'll be back with more. stay with us. - [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. breaking news we're following this morning, you're looking at it, or at least parts of it in tampa, florida, it is hurricane idalia, now an extremely dangerous category 4 storm, expected to make landfall along florida's west coast very soon, governor ron desantis just moments ago saying around roughly 8:00 a.m. one hour from now, forecasters calling idalia, quote, dangerous, life-threatening, a once in a lifetime storm that could bring catastrophic storm surge of up to 16 feet in some places. sara sidner is standing by live in crystal river, florida, part of team coverage, bill weir in steinhatchee, derek van dam, brian todd and john berman are in hall tallahassee where we just saw desantis and the power go out as the outer bands of the storm hit that city. and starting with sara sidner in crystal river, it's been intensifying all morning. what are you seeing right now? >> reporter: we are seeing a lot of wind and we're seeing that wind push the water onto shore. it has now come up. it was way back, see where that -- let's walk over with adolfo here, let's walk over to this little sign here, so that area right there that has those pipes sticking out of it, that was completely dry about two hours ago, the house that is next to it, and, yes, that is an occupied building is built so that there is a whole floor that has nothing

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