Forecasters are warning this will be a Catastrophiclevel Storm when it makes landfall overnight along floridas West Coast. Welcome to a new hour of americas newsroom, im Dana Perino and hi to you, bill. Bill good morning to you. Bill hemmer live in orlando 100 miles due east of tampa, florida. The entire part of this state will get whacked starting later tonight. As we track this storm, right now 155 mileperhour winds, category 4 storm. A track were watching between clear water near tampa and down to fort myers. At some Point Somebody will feel the effects of this monster out there that is milton. Look at the size of this. Remember we were in Studio Yesterday and janice was with us and j. D. Was talking about the eye of the storm and how perfectly formed it was. Almost like a pin right there. Overnight it tended to change its shape a little bit. So the storm is shifting somewhat. Still moving east northeast but we wont know who is going to Take That wallop until milton makes up its mind. Naples at the southern end of the cone is Kendall Smith watching things from there. Kendall, good morning. What do you see . Good morning, bill. Conditions are beginning to deteriorate in naples. Were in the golden Gate Area just off i75 and Pine Ridge Road and things are very busy. Temperatures are in the low 80s, overcast, gloomy and muggy, tropical downpours all morning long. Were dealing with a break in the rain. As the bands of rain do so they produce intense downpours. One to three inches of rain in the heavy downpours and the potential for thunderstorms to produce tornadoes or water spouts. In fact, as of right now, we have two active Tornado Warnings in effect just to the east of us here in naples. One warning that was to the east did include portions of Collier And Broward county. That was confirmed moving over a nature preserve. It has been allowed to be dropped back down by the national Weather Service to a radarindicated tornado warning. What that means is were watching areas of rotation as milton is swinging its way on shore, the Outer Rain Bands and the big concern now through the next few hours. So as were concerned here in naples, we have the Potential Or Rotation but we see here. We have flooding thats already occurring. This is all ahead of miltons arrive all later tonight. The biggest issue is Storm Surge perhaps up to eight feet high by the time milton roars ashore. Bill thank you in naples, florida. Thank you very much. Were watching the storm here. You can follow this on The Fox weather app, too, live there 24 seven. You think about the storm for a moment, how big it is. It is moving east northeast at 16 milesperhour. That may not sound like a lot to you if you are driving a car, but if you think about a storm of this size with that amount of forward motion, she is a doozy. 12 hours ago that speed had been cut in half and you can ask different meteorologists about what is better, last night when we went to bed it was moving at only eight milesanhour. You dont want a storm to stall right over lands. It creates massive problems. At 16 milesanhour it will bring the Storm Surge that will crush some town sometime in the next 12 to 16 hours. Bruce is the mayor of clear water across the bay from tampa and sir, good morning to you. Thank you for your time. Listen, you are one of those towns that could take this hit. What are you thinking and seeing now, sir . Bill, were as prepared as we can possibly be. We had a significant event two weeks ago. Our Barrier Islands, that gave people a sense of seriousness about this storm. So we believe we have evacuated almost everyone from our Barrier Islands here in clear water and our emergency Operations Team is set up at our center and ready to respond. Bill everybody evacuated. I dont know a, if you have ever seen that before and b, how many people would that be . Thousands and thousands. Were one of the top Vacation Tourist destinations in the entire country. Because of helene we had a lower population due to tourism. Helping our floridians in danger. Florida weathers this storm and emerges stronger on the other side. We are prepared and we will respond. I have spoken to the president. We remain in regular contact with fema and we are marshalling all available resources to prepare and respond to Hurricane Milton. I also want to thank the 20 other states who are assisting florida ahead of the storm. This is just what we as americans do. We have had opportunities to help other states in the past, including Western North Carolina and i think it shows the spirit that these states are stepping up and providing really valued support. We still have a State Of Emergency for 51 florida counties. Hurricane milton is still a major, very strong hurricane. Currently a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 155 milesperhour. Thats just a whisker shy of a category 5. While there is the hope that it will weaken more before landfall there is high confidence this hurricane will pack a major punch and do an awful lot of damage. As you can see behind me, the Florida Division of Emergency Management is fully deployed and active. This has been for over two weeks given both of these storms. The state is actively fulfilling over 1500 missions. Weve delivered massive amounts of supplies, meals, water bottles, sandbags, generators to help our local communities respond to this storm. Weve also deployed more than 11,000 feet of Flood Protection systems and erected around critical infrastructures like hospitals and Waste Water Treatment facilities and electric infrastruck tours. Generators have been deployed at shelters to support sheltering operations. Starlink internet has been deployed across the entire state of florida. We have surged an additional 600 ambulances currently in Operation Helping in the effort. The state of florida has considerable Fuel Reserves ahead of milton and it is staged and utilized as needed following the storm. Weve already dispatched a lot of fuel in the leadup to this but still have on hand 1. 6 million gallons of diesel and 1. 1 Million gallons of gasoline. There is no right now fuel shortage. Demand has been very high and some Gas Stations are run out to be able to help. The Florida Highway Patrol has facilitated 106 long Distance Fuel tankers courts with sirens getting through traffic totaling almost A Million gallons of Gas Aileen with ports around the state. They are continuing with the Fuels Courts as we speak. Im in contact with the ports on the West Coast of florida. Well see how this storm impacts those. Clearly there is a chance that you could have a major impact on Port Manatee as well as port tampa bay. That could interrupt their ability to receive fuel shipments. Were working on contingencies to keep fuel flowing throughout the state of florida. As we saw the new storm develop it was clear a lot of the hardesthit areas on the West Coast of hurricane from Hurricane Helene had not had major robust collectors in place. You had a major hazard on Barrier Islands and Manatee And Sarasota county. So this weekend i authorized mandated 24 seven debris removal. We took all the Florida Department of transportation and other agency vehicles, brought them from across the state engaged in other missions as their normal court of business and dedicated it to debris removal. They were working All Through The Night in the wee hours of the morning. They were able to remove 55,000 Cubic Yards of debris. So thats over 3,000 Truck Loads of debris and it is our estimation that on those Barrier Islands, they were able to make a dent in the debris and reduce it by about 50 just from what the other agencies were able to get done. I want to thank everybody involved in that. It did not stop since this weekend and now in a sings where its likely the conditions will deteriorate and so well have to wind that down but they did make a difference and there will be less stage from this storm as a result of getting the debris out than there otherwise would have been. The Department Of Transportation is staging 150 bridge inspectors. 350 Cut And Toss personnel and pieces of heavy equipment. Florida national Guard And Fish and wildlife and Highway Patrol have activated additional personnel in advance of the storm. We have hundreds of States Search and rescue people on hand. 26 total teams embedded in the potential impact site along the West Coast to begin immediate Rescue Operations as soon as the storm passes. The national guard is deploying 6,000 Florida National Guardsmen and 3,000 from other states. We thank you for the support on that. We have Search And Rescue helicopters brought in from other states. 500 tactical vehicles including 180 high water vehicles. Aerial, Water And Ground national guard Search And Rescue teams. This is the largest Florida National GuardSearch And Rescue mobilization in the history of the state of florida. The Florida State Guard is deploying almost 200 soldier, three high water utvs, two blackhawk helicopters, four drone teams. 15 Cut And Toss crews. Two amphibious rescue crews. We want to thank them. It was a dream a couple years ago they would have involved and a lot of unfair criticism when they stood it up. They have made a huge difference in this Hurricane Season and continue to do it here. We have also worked with the utilities to have the largest staging of Utility Workers in advance of the storm. Any time in american history. Wealth owe have in florida by the time the storm arises over 50,000 linemen and those linemen are being brought in from places as far away as california. As soon as the storm passes, you will see the assessments and Power Restoration efforts commence immediately. The state of florida is assisted with the evacuation of Healthcare Facilities in the potential path of the storm. 16 hospitals have been evacuated. State Veteran Nursing homes that are in the cone are all accepting families of their residents to shelter with them. All of those are hurricane proof. All of them are outside of Flood Zone so if you have a Family Member in a State Nursing homes. Go and shelter with them. Thats a safe option and veterans would appreciate it. Florida department of Law Enforcement has 500 out of state Law Enforcement officers. They will help respond after the storm to maintain Law And Order and there will be a lot of damage from this storm. There will be opportunities for people to try to take advantage of that. My message is dont even think about it. Well come down hard on you. You will regret you tried to do that. I appreciate all the other folks from out of state coming in to supplement this effort, we need to maintain Law And Order. The mutual Aid Team is managing 70 active Law Enforcement missions identifying Post Storm Response squads and important mission and were happy for that. Were preparing for milton but also still recover from Hurricane Helene. When that hit we reactivated the Florida Disaster Fund and we are accepting donations for both Storms Helene and milton. A private fund affiliated with the state in terms of disaster but it is Tax Deductible donations. We distributed 63 Million after Hurricane Ian to help people in Southwest Florida. This is something that is really, really important so i have directed Val Untier Florida to keep the fund activated more milton. Millions raised for helene. I want to thank corporations for making significant donations and a lot more will want to contribute to the disaster fund. Text disaster 2022 or visit Florida Disaster Fund. Org. Were bearing down where the storm will arrive within the next 24 hours. You still have time to evacuate if you are in an evacuation zone, particularly if you are in man torics sarasota, charlotte, those areas, the track can bounce around. Not guaranteed it will hit there. You have time to do that. Now conditions arent going to be great today. I would say the roads and interstates are flowing. Weve waived tolls. The best option would be to just evacuate within your own county to one of the shelters. All those counties have multiple shelters open. It would be safe to do a very short evacuation, Tens Of Miles rather than get on the interstate and go. The roads are still open. People can do that but i want to warn people conditions will likely to continue to deteriorate the course of the day. On monday when the initials evacuations. Dot did the emergency shoulder plan. That helped but it was slow. Those roads can be very slow anyway. By the time we got to The End of the night through the wee hours of morning it was going quickly. Yesterday wasnt as bad as monday. We saw Alligator Alley down in Southern Florida was 150 of its normal capacity. I think as people saw the storm potentially bending further south. A lot of people in Southwest Florida decided to evacuate across the state. Thats that. The roads now are good but i caution conditions are not great now and likely going to get worse as the day goes on. Of course we do have a lot of mandatory evacuations in place. If you want to get a hotel, you can go to visit florida. Com price line, expedia. Com florida. Thats the Emergency Combination Module there. I dont know what availability there will be in a lot of these places at this point. If that is something you are interested in, try it. Weve worked with the Florida Lodging and restaurants and waiving pet fees. A lot of hotels in the state of florida have responded positively for that. I want to thank them for doing that and partnered with uber for Hurricane Milton to provide free rides two and from shelters with counties with evacuation orders. When you do the promo code, milton relief, one word. Onstar has activated crisis mode. For chevy, buick, Gmc And Cadillac owners. Most of the School Districts in the state are closed today. If you get out of the path and the panhandle not as much. In the peninsula all School Districts are county. They are assisting the state with Storm Response and thank all those for their great work. We have 149 general population shelters that are open throughout the state. The current total