Cnn breaking news good evening. I'm abby phillip in new york. Our special coverage continues tonight of hurricane helene, a monster category four storm that is now moments away from making landfall in florida. At this moment, it was too late now for folks along the coast too evacuate. Officials warned that the winds and the storm surge will be be catastrophic in some areas, the word that they are using is unsurvivable helene could be the strongest storm on record for the big bend region. And we are already starting to see a major surge in these cities. So we have our anchors and our correspondents. They're fanned out as the storm is now hitting and we have chad myers as well with the latest forecast in the cnn weather center. Let's go first to john berman. He's out in tallahassee in the socalled dead on a hit zone, john, what's happening where you are right now? yeah the winds have really started to pick up abby over the last half an hour. The rain really coming down here, you can see it pulling up all over the water here. And i think he can get a sense of these trees been a to really lean over and blow. And that's the real concern here in tallahassee. It is the wins. Tallahassee has steamed storms pass over but never really was sustained. Hurricane force winds. The likes of which they are expecting here in just a few hours, thousands and thousands of trees could come down. Officials say with hundreds and hundreds of road closures. Again, these will be hurricane force winds may be be 100 miles per hour in this relatively urban area to 200,000 people live here. All these live oaks line all the avenues in near their houses. That is what they're most concerned about. We're about 20 miles inland. So when this storm makes landfall 20 miles south of here as a category four storm, it will really only be the beginning for places like tallahassee, they have move people into shelters for mobile homes in lower lying areas here evacuated some students from florida state university housing into shelters, public transportation has been closed for a long, long time in this city closed down and a waiting this long, long night, the wind speeds here, i think are approaching tropical storm force at this point, they've had gusts of 35 miles an hour or more, 45 would be tropical storm that's certainly going to happen here. I think over the next few hours as this rain just continues to pour down, they've had more than six inches over the last day expecting, i think another six inches. It will make for a very, very dangerous situation here overnight, abby. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the evacuation since that are ongoing or do you get the sense that the town the city, has actually heeded the warnings that this could be a kind of storm that most people there have not seen in a long time yeah. Look, i don't think anyone in tallahassee has seen a storm like this period full stop because of what's happening, it's moving so quickly. It will pass over tallahassee is a pretty powerful hurricane in leon county, where tallahassee is the event vacua orders were really just for an bull home and was in manufactured housing, not the widespread evacuations. You see further closer to the coast, but the difference is the number of people who live here, right? taylor county where this storm could make landfall, the whole county has 20,000 people. Tallahassee alone, which is in leon county county, has some 200,000. So a lot more people here could be directly affected, even if down along the coast they may see the areas of greatest danger, but abby i do think people are paying attention to the sense that maybe they didn't leave the city, but certainly at this point they're at home and they're going to have to wait this out throughout the night. Yeah. I hope every everyone does listen because this is not one of those things that you want to just go with your gut. I listened to the officials that are telling you what to do here, john, we're going to get back to you soon. As you continue to wait for this landfall, which we are expecting to happen, sometime in the next hour, coming up next for us, cnn meteorologist derek van dam. He's in illogical florida, where potentially there are extremely damaging storm surges expected. Derek, what are you seeing where you are? well, i'll be i'm going to be quite frank with you you know the fact that we're about 40 miles, 50 miles roughly west of where the most powerful part of hurricane helene is. And we're feeling these types of winds i'm i'm worried about what it's going to look like in the morning at first light across the big bend area, we know how powerful this storm is. And the most extreme part of the storm about to make landfall. I think it's important to put it into perspective for our viewers just from a meter the logical standpoint, hurricane ian in 2020 came ashore with a central pressure of 941 millibars. Remember, a lower pressure means a stronger hurricane hurricane hunters now flying through the eye i'll have recorded reading submit 940 millibars. So the storm could be coming on onshore. More powerful than ian did when it came ashore. Just south of fort myers there's so there's this extreme wind warning and i want to walk you through that because this is the national weather service reserves that wording and those warnings for only the most extreme events. And this is one of them. They ask people to treat it as if tornado was approaching their household or their business if they did not evacuated with an extreme wind warning this is about i hate to use that adjective over, but it is about as considerable extreme. And most dangerous part of the storm with these winds that will easily peel back the roofs of houses obviously build up the storm surge and the very shallow hello, waters of the gulf of mexico that we've seen already setting records from tampa bay northward. This surge is going to come in with a vengeance because of the policy or of the wind that's pushing upon the puppet the tops of the ocean here. So people need to be prepared to ride out several days without power. If not longer. And abby, we know too that it's not just a coastal storm. We've been covering this for several days now, but we are very concerned about the copious amounts of rain that this will dump across the southern appalachians into central georgia. And there are a lot of trees in this area and it's not going to take much to topple them in this very, very saturated environment. And it won't take much more rain to flood much of the southeast based on what you're seeing in these conditions, i mean, it is your concern, your biggest concern right now that the strength of this wind and we heard john berman saying where he was in tallahassee, that mostly the evacuation warnings war if we're for manufactured homes, maybe mobile homes, other people were asked just shelter in place. Do you think that the infrastructure where you are can withstand the kinds of winds that you're expecting franklin county where i'm located in apalachicola it's a mandatory evacuation for all residents vincent, all visitors of course, not everybody decides to leave. And a lot of the infrastructure here does involve mobile homes that cannot hold up to 100 mile per hour plus winds. You've got to understand when we talk about category four hurricanes than the safra simpson the scale where we measure the destruction potential of a hurricane. They use the word catastrophic for a reason because that's the type of damage that you get with these extreme winds on the northeastern quadrant of those i walz, the ones that are making landfall right now, the ones that the national weather service has reserved for this extreme wing end warning were 50 miles or so west of those most extreme winds. And thank goodness we are because we can continue to report for you with electricity city that's a miracle, but i am sure of it that the power number is the amount of number of people without power this evening is going to double quadruple as the storm moves inland, it knocks out the trees and creates the hazards far away from the coastline derek, we will continue to check in with you. Thank you very much for that. Chad myers is in the cnn weather center with more on the latest forecast here. So chad, tell us what you're seeing there. What is the storm preparing to do? the eastern edge of the eyewall itself, which is where all of these winds that we're talking about, that's where the winds are in the eyewall about to come on shore right now, very close to steen hatchie, florida and then that has just slightly shifted to the east over the past couple of hours as on the right side of the cone, not the left side of the cone. Now you cannot take a sigh of relief tallahassee, but it does not appear that you will get both sides you're not going to get the north side and south side of the eye itself. But perry, you will valdosta, you likely will winds here are already approaching 6070 miles per hour, even in down the south is still blowing sarasota at 55, the highest surge ever and clearwater beach is happening right now that includes the superstorm that happened back in the 90s, never got that high, even when that storm rolled up the east coast. So here's the radar, there's the center of the eye officially landfall is not going to happen when the eyewall touches the center of the eye, the middle of this i write here, has to cross over land. That's when they will call landfall. Itself. That's what landfall means. He put that by that time, abby, half the damage has already been done. Be it says he cannot half the storm will already have been onshore in this area right through there where that high wind warning is? that's the area that is coming on shore at this hour. Now for 95% of that area, it is a nature area. It is. There are towns in the way, but there aren't there aren't cities in the way like tampa or sarasota? so yes, this is the second storm that they've seen this year. And it seems like the third one in two years, look at how much rainfall is still to come. High wind, high rain, pushing up the mountains and still all the way to macon, georgia is in a hurricane warning because they are going to get hurricane conditions. And their hundreds of miles away from where this thing is going to make landfall because it is moving so quickly now, the wind is not going to die off. It's not going to have time to die off and it's going to keep right on going. And mowing all well, those trees that derek was talking about. All those trees are going to be coming down one after the other, even if pitches big branches. Abby, we're talking about millions of customers without power by the time this is done seriously, it's a huge swath of geography here that could be affected by these the winds and the rain as you pointed out, chad continues standby for us. We want to go now to franklin county, florida, where they've been under a mandatory evacuation since wednesday at noon, but some locals have chosen to stay put and ride out the storm. One of them is nancy plymouth companion. She is currently in st. George, ireland. Nancy. Thank you for joining us. First of all we just want to know, are you safe? and what is it like right now outside of those windows? we we fail say we we have a place in greenville, florida that has been thrown two hurricane passed here and here before. So we feel a lot safer being on the island, them being at the farm that would call it because of all the trees and all the way and it just cannot withstand boundaries. And when just do not go together. But, but here on the island, we feel safe. We're in a home that strapped down with hurricane straps and we're on pile monday and so we feel a lot safer here than we do downing in greenville. Are you starting to see the effects of the storm where you are and what does it what does it look and sound like right now there's a lot of rain and the wind is starting to pick up, but it has not been as bad. We had about two weeks of solid rainfall, so the grounds are already saturated. And then now the hurt kindness just made it even worse. We are living at some the storm surge and that's one of the things that i'm concerned about, especially on the bag yeah. Seems like the bay has a lot of we have a lot of damage on the bay yeah. I mean, i wonder i know you say compared to your other property that is in a more kind of wooded area or there's more tree life around you what are your concerns at this point? i mean, is it flooding? storm surge and what are your contingency plans if those things come to pass well, we have that you know, when hurricane michael was here the next day, the water had had receded than we were able to get in and start the 20 and so that's what i expect for tomorrow. When the sun comes up. Well, just start with that process and during hurricane michael, we had 5. 5 foot of water in our home on the bay. So i'm probably expecting that much or less and then we'll just we'll start cleaning up and nancy, do you have an idea of what you'll do if you do need help at some point coming down once they make a down, my brothers come and he's got to stand stare that that held found him and and help clean up and pull the sand down and pulled up the murder and the dirt out and then just start picking up all the trash. All the leads, and everything else that that gets thrown around alright, nancy, well, we certainly hope that you and your entire family remains safe in the middle of this extraordinary storm. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank, you. Were going to go now back to john berman in tallahassee, florida, which is as we told you earlier in that dead hit zone. Plus we're getting word about a boat rescue in fort myers beach. This is cnn special live coverage didn't ship back like this and watch all. Shot like that this show was the highest rated oprah winfrey show of all time. 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I want to go back now to tallahassee, florida where john berman is starting to feel those bands all so with us is emergency management director for leon county, kevin peters leon county is also the home of tallahassee and john, i know you have some questions for kevin as well, but kevin, i just want to start with you. What we do. Expect this landfall to happen shortly in the next 11:00 our can you tell us about what conditions are like where you are and what are the things that you are expecting to see in the coming minutes and hours as we expect landfall to happen yeah. Thanks we've been seeing rainfall with this storm well in advance, we've had rain all day and tell glassy, even starting last night up on to the west end of our county, we've had it up to eight inches of rain. But over the last hour or so, we've seen are gusts, wind gusts get up to a tropical storm force strength. We just heard from the national weather service their peak gust in tallahassee has been 43 so far. So it is starting to get stronger here and tell him and in one county emergency managers are advising people who had decided not to evacuate just write their name and date of birth on their legs so that their body can be identified. That's a pretty stark warning. I wonder how dangerous will the storm be? the people who stayed behind and certainly there are some people who are not on emergency or mandatory evacuation notices do you think that those people really are safe to stay in place what are the most dangerous aspects of a tropical system is the storm surge and the county that issued that that warning and all the counties south of us here in the big bend, they're expecting up to 20 feet of storm surge. That's 20 feet above ground level the national weather service has put it very well. It is not survivable. Storm surge, so you had not evacuated you let yourself in a very dangerous situation john berman is with us mr. Peters. I'm going to let john ask you some questions. John, go ahead kevin. Nice to speak with you. I think your accommodations here in tallahassee might be a little better than mine are right now. We're still danny out here and i am feeling those gusts which do feel like their approaching tropical storm force, you said 43 miles an hour, 45 would be tropical storm force that clearly does seem to be about to happen here specifically in tallahassee. What are you most concerned about and what are you prepared to? do the minute the storm passes and it's safe to get out yeah obviously, the high winds are going to affect the trees in our community. We will have trees that fall down. They'll bring down power lines, they'll block the roadways throughout the day. Our crews have been staging their emergency equipment and we have personnel throughout the community. So as soon as this storm clears are area and the winds are at a level that are safe enough. We're going to immediately get out on the roadways begin cutting the debris, making the path saw responders can respond to emergency calls. They can begin to assess and begin to make repairs to the infrastructure network. So we have everybody staged and ready. We just need the storm to pass by yeah, it hasn't done it yet. I can tell you that we're getting our strongest gun so far. These are almost definitely tropical storm force coming in, right now, when you talk about the staging, staging, the power crews, we saw them driving in overnight last night, really all around northern florida. It's also interesting in the hotels and the various places this is in tallahassee, where we're staying. We've got fire crews from