record-breaking storm surge of 12 to 16 feet in the landfill zone. florida officials warning the surge could impact areas up to 200 miles south into the tampa area and may leave areas uninhabitable for an extended period of time. several areas expected to be higher even than hurricane ian's last year which devastated the fort myers area and killed 149 people. in addition, hurricane-force winds will extend 25 miles outward from wherever the storm makes landfill. the tallahassee national weather service says wind likely will cause significant damage there too. as idalia tracks inland, officials are warning of major coastal flooding between savannah, georgia, up into charleston, south carolina, due to a tide already expected to be higher than normal due to the occurrence of a rare blue supermoon. let's go right to bill karins for the latest on what is shaping up, bill, to be a very, very serious storm. >> yeah, good morning, willy. idalia has intensified for the last 24 hours. this is tampa. tampa has not gotten the brunt of the storm. high tide at 4:00, the water is high, waves are splashing. you can see the causeway, that's the kind of things we're getting in tampa, more of the overwash, not hearing about destruction or anything like that. that's the good news for tampa. for you it's a glancing blow. for other areas it will be much worse. here's the latest from the hurricane center, 130-mile-per-hour maximum sustained winds. small eye. it is not widespread. it's about a 30-mile-wide eye where we'll have concentration of extreme winds, everywhere else like tallahassee, more tropical storm force winds and moving quickly, 17 miles per hour so moving onshore within the next two to three hours. the forecast, we have the landfill coming up and then we still think it's going to be a category 2 into southern georgia, even well after landfill, it's still going to have a lot of wind damage into southern georgia. by the final we get to late tonight, savannah and charleston, midnight or so, maybe possibly still a category 1 or strong tropical storm. we have concerns up here not just for wind and trees but also the high tide this evening at about 8:30 so the winds right now, we're not seeing a ton of power outages, seeing winds up to 50 miles per hour. 30s inland but now the core of the storm is beginning to move onshore. this is when we start the destruction portion of the storm. this eye, you can see how small it is, the lightning in the center of it, this is where the extreme winds are, almost like a tornado moving onshore about 30 miles wide. a zoomed in view of it. i did a little thing about 27 miles from the west side to the east side of it and this area here is not beaches, this is not cities or like ian and fort myers, this is swamp land like a wildlife management area. you have to go inland 20 miles or so to get to parry, florida, population, 7,000, they have the best chance of going through this eye and whoever goes through it, even 20 to 30 miles inland is where the wind destruction will be. to the right of this, the whole area from cedar key to horseshoe beach, water is coming up dramatically where the storm surge will be. not a lot of population centers in here. not a lot of town, swampland, fishing village, cedar key as 800 residents, the biggest of any coastal region and that's why there was a lot of concern there is in the last couple of days. a look at the potential storm surge flooding and this area in red is the area i just showed you, this horseshoe beach, the cedar key and this high tide we experienced as we go during the day, 1:45 so almost at low tide right now so it's actually helping us a little bit. the tides are not extreme in the gulf coast, only a difference of like maybe two or three feet. on the east coast the difference is like eight feet so not quite as extreme. anywhere with this red is where it will happen. that's where the nine feet plus and see how far inland it will go. hard to picture a storm surge that could go up to 16 feet. that's atwo stories. you look at your house and where the second story is up towards the roof, that's how high the water could get in some areas. later on this evening we now have hurricane warnings issued for savannah because it's that intense moving that quickly and will maintain that intensity, people waking up from brunswick to savannah to charleston are now looking at this storm more seriously as far as winds are going. willie, all these storms are different. this is not an ian but this has its challenges for those little, small -- instead of hundreds of thousands in extreme risk we got thousands of people but for those people watching this forecast and knowing what's going to happen to their town, it is still heartbreaking. >> bill, you mentioned parry, florida. it's about 50 miles southeast of tallahassee. it's where we find nbc news national correspondent gabe gutierrez. gabe, what are you seeing there? >> hi there, willie. we're starting to see the wind and rain pick up and we're expecting it to really intensify over the next hour or so. as you mentioned, this is near where the storm is expected to make landfill. now, we still have power here, willie but we're expecting these conditions to deteriorate over the next hour or so and throughout the morning. taylor county where we're at actually closed its emergency shelter yesterday because there was a mandatory evacuation order in effect. a curfew was imposed overnight, residents in the shelter were bused to a nearby county and the police here in perry are saying once the wind speeds reach 45 miles an hour they won't be able to help you. they're urging everybody, they urged everybody to get out. right now it could be soon where it's not a smart idea to be out on the roads. as you said this is in the big bend region. local officials say this storm is unprecedented and perry is 20 miles inland but still expecting some of the worst wind damage from this storm as it comes ashore. so, again, we still have power at the hotel where we're staying but as you can see we're starting to get hit with rain and really we're expecting winds to pick up in just a short while, willie. >> so, tell us a little about perry, gabe, if you would. we know as bill said that big bend area is a natural wildlife area as a matter of fact, swampland, the nature coast as they call it. where exactly is perry situated and what have they been doing to brace for what's coming here? >> yeah, willie, so this is actually just southeast of tallahassee, and as you said, this is not a very populated area of florida. it's wetlands as the storms come ashore so different from other major hurricanes that have come to florida. perry is a population of 7,000 the entire county, about 20,000 for so. i can tell you it was in cedar key yesterday and they're getting hit really hard with that storm surge. they're expecting 10 to 15 feet of storm surge and early reports out of there is that they're already starting to see some of that storm surge in the cedar key area. residents there, there was about 100 or so, the mayor said, that did not -- that were trying to decide whether to leave or not and had decided to stay. the mayor in cedar key was warning them to get out because it's possible that those series of islands could be completely underwater. here in perry again the concern is not storm surge since it's inland, however, the concern is wind. and that is what could cause a lot of damage especially as we saw this hurricane intensify overnight to a category 4 storm. we should see, again, those winds pick up really here throughout the morning but this is near tallahassee and the big bend region where florida's panhandle meets the peninsula and this area has not seen a storm this strong ever, willie. >> this is bill karins here. i know a lot of people watching this and see you guys and for the most part about three hours from now, four hours from now it will be like you and your crew going through a tornado. what is your plan once you get to that point where the eye wall is approaching, what are you going to do to get safe? >> yeah, that's a good point, bill. we always try to be very transparent with viewers. this is a concrete structure, a hotel here in perry. we still have power and you can't see this but off camera there is a concrete wall really here to my left that's kind of blocking some of the winds. we can easily go inside, three floors in the hotel and there's other media here, there's other people that are here as well and so the conditions get too bad, we do plan to head inside. my crew is under a covering right now. i'm out here in the elements trying to show viewers what's happening here but as you can see back here it may not pick up on camera but the winds are starting to pick up here and the rain is starting to blow sideways here. you know, this parking lot is full. you see trees in the background kind of swaying. over the next couple of hours the wind is going to be intensifying, i can see in your forecast the concern here, wind speed could cause significant damage to some of the structures here. really incredible because normally we're covering the story from the beach. you can't really do that where the eye wall is going to cross because it's not populated. the wetland areas and here we go as we get one of these gusts right here. the wind speed again picking up, police say once this reaches 45 miles per hour they're not going to be able to help anyone that stays behind. so this, again, conditions expected to deteriorate here in the coming hours, bill. >> we've watched them, gabe, deteriorate even in the five minutes weaver's been talking to you. please be safe with you and your crew and appreciate your reporting from perry, florida, expected to take a big hit when this thing makes landfill shortly, gabe. thanks so much. gabe, i was interested to hear governor desantis say yesterday and we will hear from the governor again in a few minutes here live, bill, that this is a storm unlike we've seen before and by that he meant that the big bend area actually for all the historic hurricanes that florida has seen over the decades doesn't get hit like this, the big bend that turn that we see between the peninsula and the panhandle doesn't get hurricanes usually. >> historically going back to the mid-1800s we've never had a major hurricane go this this area. there was one, dora, much weaker but nothing that looked like this. to give you an idea we'll try to keep gabe's shot and going back to him as much as we can through the morning but at one point it will get too dangerous, a lot of the storm chasers, their goal is to try to get in the center of this thing and a lot of them are in perry. that's going to be the closest to getting in the eye. to give you perspective, gabe is in that location where people are trying to get to to see the worst of the storm possible because there is no location right down here on the coast that you can really go to get in the center of the storm. the storm chasers do this, by the way, they want to give us the historical context and measure the pressure in the middle of the storm and a lot do it professionally so typically they know how to do it safely too. as the storm does move onshore, though, we'll probably get what they call an extreme wind warning issue and they only issue that for intense hurricanes and it's the equivalent of a large tornado warning when they give extreme wind warnings and we're likely to have that for the location where gabe is now and it's important to point out, the big population centers, tallahassee has roughly about a quarter of a million people in that area and also gainesville, it's kind of splitting the middle of these two areas. the highest winds we were concerned could sneak up towards tallahassee. anyone who's been to this portion of florida, it's forest. it's surrounded by trees and in the middle of trees so we are concerned with how much tree damage and power outages we'll have and how long that power outage could last for. the national weather service in tallahassee, the forecast for this area were saying if you're near that eye, you know, prepare not to be without power for possibly up to a month, maybe two months in some areas. this is's how serious the winds could be and how extreme the damage would be and areas of the storm surge, i mean, they were saying it could be uninhabitable for weeks to come, willie, so that's the potential we're dealing with. a category 4, category 3s, they leave behind extreme destruction. this one is a little different because of where the landfill is, not hitting a beach, not hitting a populated area, but it'll probably take a day or two to show you the pictures of where the worst is on this one. >> let's go to crystal river, florida, 80 miles north of tampa, likely also to be hit by hurricane idalia as it makes landfill here shortly. that's where we find jose diaz-balart. good to see you. what are you seeing on the ground there, and what are the people expecting over the next several hours? >> reporter: good morning, willie. just about five minutes ago we were getting pelted with one of the feeder bands of this rapidly moving hurricane and now it just kind of died down. now, the water is up. these are one of the canals here in crystal river area. this is an area that, again, and bill was just talking about this, you know, they're used to storms, but what is coming down is something that they hadn't really ever seen and so just to give you an idea of where we are, just south of here and north of here is yankee town and i've been talking to people all morning. some of the people who are at the place where we're staying at, at this area have gone to their homes, i was speaking last night to a lady who lives in a mobile park home, and they're just saying this is the only place we have. now, there's been a lot of information out. people have been told they have to leave this area. this is an evacuation zone and many have but many have decided to stay. what i can tell you, willie, is that in a matter of seconds we're going from pretty peaceful as far as rain is concerned with some wind to all of a sudden these feeder bands coming in and it is just horizontal rain and horizontal wind. so far we took a power hit 30 minutes ago. there's about 60,000 people here in the state of florida, mostly obviously on the west coast that have lost power. the governor is expected to hold a news conference shortly. about 23,000 have been put on alert and are all over this place coming in yesterday we crisscrossed this area. we saw maybe 10, 12, sheriff's patrol cars, these electric vehicles, linesmen crisscrossing much of the state. a situation where everybody is on pins and needles to see what comes next and what they do around here, at least, is these feeder bands come in and then they just blow everything through. >> jose, what is your sense of the way the people are preparing for this as you get blown around there? obviously they've been through a lot on the gulf coast. they've seen hurricanes in the tampa area and north. how seriously is everyone taking this, the people you've talked to there? >> reporter: people are taking it seriously. a lot of the folks i was speaking to here last night say that they have determined -- for example, extraordinary woman that i had the pleasure of meeting yesterday was telling me that her sons that are grown are actually a little south of tampa. she's staying in her mobile home because she says she has a lot of animals and, you know, people here, everywhere consider, you know, their pets part of their family so there's a lot of concern for pets and there are shelters that have been opening up throughout this area that accept pets, but in her case, she said, listen, i want to ride it out. i hope i'm doing the right thing. i have cats, dogs, ducks, and she just doesn't want to leave them behind. so people are taking it seriously. there's been a constant flow of information here by state authorities, and i think it's been really helpful to see how much information people have, the decision on whether to leave or not is a tough one for a lot of folks. >> the governor has been pretty clear, it's time to leave yesterday at least, jose diaz-balart, thank you so much, sir. we'll back to you throughout the morning. joining us is the director of the national hurricane center in miami, dr. michael brennan. dr. brennan, thanks for being with us today. what's the latest information you have on what's becoming and now is a category 4 storm, winds 130 miles an hour. >> yeah, idalia's worst effects are moving into the big bend. you can see the eye moving steadily toward the north-northeast quickly at 17 miles an hour, maximum sustained winds around 130 miles an hour and now starting to see the catastrophic storm surge start to take place across portions of dixie, taylor counties like cedar key, water levels will come up here very, very quickly in the next hour or two as the eye wall of idalia moves onshore and brings those catastrophic winds that you see in the core of a category 4 hurricane to the coast in the next couple of hours. >> landfill is expected about what time, dr. brennan? >> be sometime in the next few hours. it's hard to tell. you can tell it wiggles here but i would expect by early to midmorning hours we'll have the center moving onshore somewhere in the big bend region. >> as you look at the map, just the staying power of this storm, the projected staying power, it moves up through florida and continues to be a hurricane, maybe even a category 2 up into georgia and south carolina. this is going to be a long haul with this storm, isn't it? >> well, yeah, because it's moving so quick and it's so strong it's not going to have time to weaken. we're forecasting it to be a hurricane later today and into the evening and hurricane warnings in effect well inland across southeastern georgia and extending into savannah and hilton head, south carolina, so it will be a substantial wind event, significant power outages, tree damage. a lot of dangerous conditions that are going to unfold across north florida and into the coastal southeast as we go through the day today. >> dr. brennan, our meteorologist bill karins is here with a question for you. >> thanks for joining us. you know, hat's off to your team and a fantastic forecast up to this point. it's been amazing. talk a little about the concerns for savannah and charleston later on this evening with the high tide around 8:30. >> yeah, you know, we have a storm surge warning in effect from portions of savannah, hilton head up to charleston expecting inundation of three to five feet above ground level so that has the high tide coming in later today and the circulation moves over there. we can see that life-threatening storm surge develop so folks, if they've been asked to evacuate, please rush those to completion this morning. >> one thing i'm already getting questions on this too and everyone is like, is it possible this storm is really going to go off the coast and do a loop de loop and come back? what are your thoughts? >> there's a lot of uncertainty as we get into the longer time ranges expecting a slow southward to southeastward motion. storms typically move that much over land will weaken. we're still expecting a tropical storm but see what unfolds. we have time to watch that play out over the next few days. our focus is on what's going to transpire in the next 48 hours. >> director of the national hurricane center in miami, dr. michael brennan, we know how busy you are today. we appreciate you stopping to take time with us. thank you. >> thanks so much. still ahead on a busy morning we will continue our live reporting from across the state of florida as it braces for hurricane idalia set to make landfill within the next couple of hours. we'll be joined by fema administer deanne criswell and awaiting an update from florida governor ron desantis just within the next few minutes and will take that live to get you the latest and speak with the mayors of tallahassee, tampa and st. petersburg about the expected impacts from this massive storm. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i've never been healthier. shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. being middle class right now, it's tough making ends meet for sure. republicans in congress say if we just cut taxes even more for the biggest corporations the money will eventually someday trickle trickle down to you. right. joe biden would rather just stop those corporations from charging so damn much. capping the cost of drugs like insulin. cracking down on surprise medical bills and all those crazy junk fees. there's more work to do. tell the president to keep lowering costs for middle class families. 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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 and ready to go. 33 plans strike teams, 5500 national guardsmen and the coast guard on standby 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 electric co-ops, please accept mutual aid. these are folks that can come supplement your efforts and, again, the goal is to get everybody back online as quickly as possible. there will be a lot of debris from the storm and there will be a need to have all hands on deck. 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 will be a need for this and we have 1100 generators staged for traffic signal restoration, we anticipate that that's going to be a problem in a number of communities, as well. fuel, we have 1.2 million gallons staged. we're also arranging more fuel to come in by truck to make up for whatever may not be coming in through the normal course of business can 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. in terms of communications, 500 plus starlink internets ready tore 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 will work to provide that and have 3,000 generators staged and ready to surge for areas that need power. now, if you're using a generator in your personal home, please do not run that generator inside your home. do not run it inside your garage. it must be run outside your house. it 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 landfill. it is a major hurricane as we have been saying it was likely to be for the last couple of days and we just hope everybody stays safe. don't put your life at risk by doing anything dumb at this point. this thing is 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 haass. adam scofield and one of our county commissioners will be here so, kevin. >> right on time, five-second delay and kick those generators in so 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 keaton beach is going to be the location in which we have landfill. stay off the roads, if you're sheltering in place at home stay inside your home. if you're at a shelter or hotel, please do not leave at this time. conditions are deteriorating outside in the impacted areas. shelter, again, as we 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 all the way up through apalachicola bay, storm surge will dramatically increase over the next couple of hours. we are seeing a lot of tornado warnings. so far there have been 11 as the governor has said. of the four or five that happened since 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 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. we could see gusts over 100 miles an hour. we could see sustained winds well over 130 miles an hour as we have this cat 4 landfill. all of these are life-threatening conditions, so please 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, first responders will get to you as fast as we 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 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 they've been doing even here in tallahassee as i was coming back here in the early wee 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've said we've already started responding to issues in southwest florida. i talked to representative adam botana and 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 very reminiscent of what they experienced in hurricane irma. happy to hear that and appreciate him giving me a call. we are here. we are ready. we will deploy our response and recovery teams just 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 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. we have general haass here. i cannot tell you how much i appreciate you and your team, admiral scofield, the same way. i appreciate everything you're doing. they have helicopters ready to go as soon as they're going to be able to get back into the area, they are going to be flying. they'll be in the area so, 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, those being affected already. as i mentioned yesterday the florida national guard is fully mobilized with over 5500 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 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 area. 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 pre-positioned 15 aircraft and more than 25 cutters and 20 flood response teams, prepared to respond 0 in the wake of the storm as soon as conditions safely allow. we have pre-positioned 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 overflights of the western florida area up to the big bend area and made callouts to mariners to seek shelter as well as to familiarize ourselves with the landscape prestorm arrival. so we're ready to go. we're also assembling our 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 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 resources can make it to the communities in need. we expect to begin overnight, 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 assist with impacts on the east coast of florida. our buoy tenders will conduct reconstitution efforts with our navigation teams and 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 mitigation and clean a potential pollutant and damaged infrastructure will be a long, committed effort. we're entering the response phase of this operation. this is one of the most critical and certainly the most dangerous of our operations in response to the hurricane. because these are dangerous conditions, we need to ensure our aircraft and rescue crews can operate safely, especially as they may encounter downed power lines, surging and receding floodwaters 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 and safe shelter and 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 caban, leon county commissioner here today to assist in the briefing of our community on the impacts of hurricane idalia. 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 storm 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 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 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. water is dangerous to drive on. 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 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 landfill impacts very, very shortly within the next couple of hours most likely, probably by 0800 it will make landfill 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. as soon as it's safe to do so you'll see all these different assets deployed. so stay safe. any questions? >> do you feel like the residents here are prepared for this strength of a storm, you know, potentially a category 5, i know we're in category 4. >> i think they're -- i think if you look at the counties, i think they mobilized very quickly. i think that they've been very clear about the storm surge threat in all these zone as across the gulf coast and probably more so than any storm i can remember in recent years, so people understand, you know, we've said from the beginning it was probably going to 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 everybody gets back up on their feet. >> is the message to shelter in place for all 49 counties that are under the state of emergency? >> there's counties where the storm passed so there may be 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 got to hunker down so those big bend counties, 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 those who decided to stay on cedar key? >> sure, i think 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 -- now, most people did heed the warning but there were some that just -- that's what they wanted to do and so once this passes, there will be rescue efforts done if need be and hopefully it's not necessarily hopefully they knew what they were doing and have a spot, but it's potentially very, very has order always when you're talking about anything approaching ten feet but when you talk about potentially 16 feet, that is a huge, huge deal. >> yesterday the expectation was there would be 40,000 electric think cal linemen in state to respond to the restoration effort. did we -- >> we said up to. we said probably between 30 and 40 and that's where we're at. >> between 30 and 40. we haven't talked to the crews this morning. they're actually out in the field doing what they're doing. so we're not so much worried about the numbers but getting the power restored. >> yep. >> do you think that florida caught a break here in the fact that this is the big bend area and not tampa? >> it's not a break for the people that are in the pathway so i think it's any time 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 like ian that went into 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 take. ian was one that was a really bad path just 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 volusia county, the beaches and things like that. you had structures falling down because of that. so it had massive, massive impacts and so any time 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 in florida and hasn't commented on idalia at all. >> not my concern. meyer concern is protecting the people of florida, being ready to go and we've done that and, look, 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 times where you have to activate it. we had a major one last year, one of the most expensive on record. we were hoping not to have any this year. maybe we would get off lucky but that wasn't in the cards so you deal with it but that's been our focus getting all this stuff ramped up. i think 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 the next few days that will require a lot of support and want to be there to support folks. we'll be back with doing more briefings then as soon as the storm passes i think 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. >> all right, that is florida governor ron desantis leading a briefing in tallahassee, florida, a briefing that illustrated the power of this storm when the power dipped out briefly while the governor was speaking before the generators kicked in just a few seconds later. that's a live picture at 6:54 of perry, florida, just since we came on the air a little under an hour ago. that picture has changed pretty dramatically. that's gabe gutierrez, our reporter. the winds have picked up. the rains have picked up. what we learned is keaton beach, florida, according to fema, will be the place of landfill there on the big bend. that's about 180, 200 miles north of tampa. 75 miles southeast of tallahassee, keaton beach, florida. making landfill just over an hour from now. governor desantis saying:00 eastern time is when they're looking for this storm to hit land. at this point they say if you decided to ride out the storm, you got to stay inside, hunker down and hope you survive it. they gave warnings for days to evacuate some of these areas. at this point you got to stay inside and hope for the best. we will be right back with our continuing coverage of a powerful category 4 hurricane idalia when "morning joe" comes right back. back when migraine strikes, you're faced with a choice. accept the trade offs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose quickly stops migraine in its tracks. treat it anytime, anywhere without worrying where you are or if it's too late. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. allergic reactions to ubrelvy can happen. most common side effects 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breathing should be beautiful. i need it cool at night. you trying to ice me out of the bed? ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for asthma - baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i? ya! the queen sleep number c2 smart bed is now only $999. plus free home delivery when you add a base shop now only at sleep number. we have already had 11 tornado warnings and there are more tornadoes possible, even and especially in the very outer bands of this storm so there are places way outside the cone that you see on the tv screen, so please keep in mind those are very, very dangerous situations. this thing is hitting really within the next hour and a half most likely, it will make landfill, it is a major hurricane as we have been saying it was likely to be for the last couple of days and we just hope everybody stays safe. don't put your life at risk by doing anything dumb at this point. this thing is 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. >> that's florida governor ron desantis just a few moments ago giving his briefing and update on the storm. the power going out during his briefing there in tallahassee. generators doing their job as hurricane idalia forecast to make landfill now within the hour along florida's big bend where the peninsula merges with the panhandle and the national hurricane center says it's likely to be catastrophic. one major concern that record-breaking storm surge of 12 to 16 feet in the landfill zone. florida officials warn that surge could impact parts of the state up to 200 miles south into the tampa area. several areas of idalia storm surge expected to be higher than hurricane ian's last year which devastated the fort myers area killing 149 people. hurricane-force winds will extend 25 miles outward from wherever the storm makes landfill. the weather service says those powerful winds likely will cause significant damage, could leave the areas hit uninhabitable for an extended period as idalia tracks inland and officials warn of major coastal flooding between savannah, georgia, and up into charleston, south carolina, due to high tide, already expected to be higher than normal due to the occurrence of a rare blue supermoon. this is a view of hurricane idalia from the international space station as it passed over the massive storm yesterday. let's get to meteorologist bill karins for the latest. bill, i understand it's been downgraded to a category 3, but we're talking about a matter of a couple of miles an hour here. >> mostly just for the history books, it doesn't look like we'll get a category 4 at landfill but looks like we'll have landfill of a strong category 3 major hurricane. again just for the history book, doesn't really matter, this is perry, florida, where our crews are located. the northern eye wall, the strongest winds are now approaching this area, and this is where some of the first extreme wind damage will be occurring so we'll keep an eye on it. the trees blowing like this, that's like 40, 50-mile-per-hour gusts. they're not in the eye quite yet. updates every hour and moving at 18 miles per hour so moving onshore pretty quickly. you can see the center. it was a little narrow little pin eye, that's where the strongest winds were. notice how it's fallen apart a little bit. it looks like we're going -- an eye replacement cycle is taking place and that tiny eye is dissipating and a larger circumference eye is trying to take over. it's too late because it's moving onshore so for the first time in a while actually have a storm instead of intensifying at landfill slightly weakening, not a lot. other concern, all of these spiraling bands through tampa and sarasota could have numerous tornado warnings and tornadoes for the tampa area, orlando, all the way back up towards jacksonville so that will be a concern later on this afternoon and evening and the georgia coastline. forecast, they take it onshore in the next hour. slow weakening process and moving fast at 17 to 20 miles per hour so even by early this afternoon we think it will be a category 1 or 2 hurricane in southern georgia. it'll be as close to you in savannah at about 6:00 p.m. this evening, that's when you could see some of your strongest winds, high tide at 8:30 and 8:00 in charleston and savannah, the coastline of georgia and south carolina, that's when we expect the worst storm surge. whoever has the strongest winds at that time, that's where we could see the major coastal flooding maybe even top ten all time. water issues far into the north here up the south carolina coastline then tomorrow morning this thing exits just south of cape fear in the wilmington area. a zoomed in view of the eye. notice it's falling apart. the northern eye wall is moving onshore and the hurricane center will declare landfill when the center of the eye, so if we do the circle like this, it would be right here so we're about ten miles from shore. and it's going to come onshore south of perry here and this is what you don't want to go through. this bright thunderstorm, this is where the strongest winds will be. that's what it's inching its way toward perry, maybe half hour to 45 minutes from perry, florida, with that possibility of extreme wind damage. let's take a little wider view here. this is the tornado watch, it goes from savannah all the way down towards tampa. a huge section of florida in this tornado watch. we do have one tornado warning just to the northeast, to the northwest of leesburg, florida, so we'll keep an eye on that. current wind gusts, during the press conference the power went out in tallahassee and starting to get gusts into the 35 to 40-mile-per-hour range and with a lot of trees, that's where we'll start getting power outage, tampa, winds at 40 to 50-mile-per-hour range so you have to be in the heart of the storm to see the worst of it keeping an eye on the storm surge right now. the storm surge at cedar key is five feet. they said the peak possibly could be as high as 10 to 15 feet. right now it's at 5 feet. also in tampa your storm surge is at four foot right now so we'll continue to watch that and as we take a look at some of the pictures here, now as we're getting daylight, the tampa area, that four-foot storm surge and wave action coming up here to the bridge and causeway. the low-lying areas with some water heading over there and definitely some overwash problems and this is coming off high tide at 4:00 so the tide is actually going down, but the storm surge is coming in at the same time so we'll keep an eye on that. this is tampa, 200 miles away from the center of the storm moving onshore so, willie, a lot of concerns, this is when the worst of that storm surge is happening. it looks like cedar key is in the four to six-not range but it's occurring as we speak. >> 16 feet you're getting up into a two-story building and started to answer my question with that image from tampa as we've got daylight there which is the reporters said in the briefing did we dodge a bullet from some major population centers not being directly in the path, but, boy, it doesn't look like if you ask people at tampa general hospital installing the aqua fence, a ten-foot-high barrier to keep the storm surge away from their hospital to stay up and running. what are the likely impacts in tampa? >> tampa is a huge population center within all about ten feet of the gulf. and they have dodged so many storms. irma, ian last year. charlie. tampa has never been directly hit by a major hurricane in the modern era when the population has just boomed in that area and looks for the most part when it's said and done as far as damage is considered, tampa will say, wow, we dodged another one. it looked like for awhile this could be headed straight there. this is as bad as it will get in the tampa area. the overwash that you'll see. i'd say anywhere that's about elevation six feet or under, probably has dealing with water issues in tampa. all the elevations above six feet should be just fine which includes a lot of the downtown area but it's amazing. you talk to anyone in tampa. they know they're due and eventually they'll get their storm but looks like with this one, they finally lucked out. other concerns, i did want to show this map. this is a peak wind gust map we're expecting and this is just updated. the possibility of the forecast for perry in the next hour or two is wind gusts up to 127 miles per hour. that's what is coming to our crews and hopefully hunkering down because that northern eye wall is soon approaching our friends in the perry, florida, area. >> this has been downgraded to a category 3 storm but as i said, the threshold is 130 miles an hour. you're at 125. not much solace for anyone. this is still a very dangerous storm. stay with us. want to go to crystal river, florida, where we find jose diaz-balart. crystal river is 80 miles north of tampa. jose, have the conditions changed there since we talked to you last? >> reporter: they haven't. the feeder bands are coming through and sun emerging and fascinating to hear how bill was talking about the different surges that we're going to see and we are already experiencing. this is the seawall here in one of the canals that feeds into this lake area. and it's breached and this is up, you know, normally you have six, eight feet of wall. you know, that's up and that's coming in. we've seen in the last maybe half hour or so some transformers explode but little things that are fascinating to me. the birds are out. and they're out and there's actually a family of manatees that live right here, a mom and calf is right here. we haven't seen that yet. but these feeder bands that come through right now, a lull, but in a matter of seconds we're pelted with rain and some heavier winds but it seems for this area at least people are feeling a little bit hopeful that they're not going to be experiencing that 125-mile-an-hour wind that is about to hit that area, you know, a little north of here. but interesting the news conference that the governor had a little while ago talking about 11 tornado warnings already here in this area. 54,000 people without power. another interesting number that the governor gave, 100,000 households have seen their power re-established in the last eight hours. 5500 national guardsmen are active. the coast guard on standby. 30,000 plus linesmen on standby throughout the area. i can tell you, willie, just we were talking in the last hour about getting here. what one saw is the overwhelming presence of police and first responders. they're blanketed throughout the area, and, willie, you know, we're just waiting to see how things change in the next couple of hours. we'll be here to report it. >> yeah, and florida knows how to handle this as dangerous as this storm is they've seen a lot over the years, big job being governor is managing it and that's where governor desantis is. jose, thanks so much. back to you throughout the morning. so, bill, we got some live pictures of perry. you mentioned 127 miles an hour on some of these wind gusts. this does look in terms of a place where a bunch of people live, this does appear to be one of the areas likely to be hit hardest. >> i think the first thing you're noticing watching the coverage compared to other hurricanes we've had in the last decade is that if you're not right in the heart of this hurricane, which is where perry unfortunately will go through in the next hour or two it's like a tropical storm. this is not a large powerful storm. this is a small powerful storm and unless you're in that real center, only about 30 miles wide, unless you're in this core which is now coming onshore you're not going to really experience the crazy winds, right now in perry the current wind gust, these are live readings at 48 miles per hour. where jose was located only in 30 to 40-mile-per-hour gusts. a squall just went through but this is where you get isolated power outages. nothing widespread. this isn't like what we saw with ian, a large powerful storm bringing in strong winds throughout a huge area, willie. you know, so we'll watch this perry. eventually this wind gauge will fail as the eye wall comes onshore but we'll have the direct receiptings here shortly. >> let's go to perry, florida, where we find gabe gutierrez, a town of about 7,000 people. gabe, looks like things have picked up since we saw you an hour ago? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, willie. as you can see the wind has picked up here. the rain, we've been constantly getting pounded by the rain and actually just lost power at our hotel. just came back on but it's been flickering for the last 20 minutes or so. that's to be expected as we see these winds really pick up as bill has been mentioning over the coming hours. here in perry about 20 miles inland, so much of the talk surrounding the storm has been the catastrophic storm surge. obviously perry, we're not going to get storm surge here however that doesn't mean it won't be dangerous and as we get this wind hitting me right now, the concern here in perry will be the wind speed, and, again, it's expected to really deteriorate here, the conditions over the coming hours or so. willie, yesterday the authorities here as they have in other parts of florida have said if people did not evacuate once the winds reach 45 miles an hour here, they're just not going to be able to help them. they had to close an emergency shelter here. they made that decision actually bused residents to a nearby county because they had to impose a curfew here worried about these conditions, so, again, the latest here in perry is that we're starting to see the power flicker on and off in parts of this area. the wind is really starting in the last 20 minutes or so to pick up here. we're getting pelted with rain and we expect potentially we see the power lines swaying over there. we're a safe distance away. me and my crew, there's a concrete wall here to our left and we're trying to really get the brunt of this storm expected to make landfill not far from here, local authorities again say for people to hunker down at this point. if they haven't evacuated they're not going to be able to but we've been seeing the conditions deteriorate in the last 20 minutes or so especially, willie. >> gabe, governor desantis a few minutes ago echoed what you're saying which is we issued the evacuation warnings and told you to get out of the way. at this point the best you can do is hunker down, stay inside, ride it out an hope for the best and the governor said we'll get you just as soon as we can, as soon as conditions allow. is it your sense that some people have stayed behind to ride this out in perry? >> reporter: yeah, you know, look, there have been people that decided not to heed the evacuation order. local authorities say they're disappointed to hear that. but, you know, this is something that some people decide to stay with their property. you know, willie, we were actually in cedar key late yesterday, we decided to leave there and move up to here since the forecast was tracking this way in terms of landfill. but in cedar key, for example, the mayor there had said that, you know, it's a small series of aisles but 700 residents. about 100 had decided to stay behind and ride out the storm as of yesterday afternoon. the hope is that more of them have decided to leave there in cedar key, the concern and we've been seeing reports from there will be storm surge but here in perry, not storm surge but the wind is going to be the biggest concern here and, again, starting to see wind gusts really pound this area and we expect power to be more widespread power outages here in this particular area within the next hour or so, willie. >> we want to get you in to safety in just a moment, gabe. you mentioned cedar key, some riding it out, exposed in the big bend. there is a man who runs a hotel an inn who said i'll stay with my inn. it's been here for 150, 200 years, we hope for the best for those who decided to stay. gabe, bill karins, our meteorologist is here with a question. >> gabe, just to update you and your crew looking at the radar where you're located in perry, the northern eye wall is ten miles to your south, so this is traveling at 18 miles per hour. you guys have about 15 to 20 minutes until this northern eye and the winds will be about three times as strong as they are right now will be over the top of you so to give you guys timing from when you need to get yourself in to safety. that eye is about to move onshore only five miles off the coast where you'll officially get landfill. i just have to repeat for people that are just joining us, you're were to go through what will be the equivalent of a 30-mile-wide tornado, how are you guys planning on -- what are you doing over the next hour or two? >> yeah, bill, you know, we're really taking this minute by minute as we often do. when we're out here covering the storms we try to find a structure that is secure. we do have, you know, have the ability to go inside this hotel that is open. you know, there's several other reporters here, several other local residents here decided to leave their homes but stay here in this hotel. so we have access to a secure structure if things get too dangerous hoot here, we will move inside. right now, we're just seeing these conditions and, you know, this heavy rain, not the worst that we expected obviously but, again, we're keeping an eye on that eye as it moves through here and we do expect as you said, bill, that the winds will pick up here in the next hour or so and really throughout the morning we expect here to, you know, power outages will be the situation and also potential wind damage, so much of this storm will be storm surge to the parts of the big bend region but this is one of those few areas likely to see, you know, a high level of wind damage here. >> all right, gabe, with that warning from bill and mine we'll let you go duck inside. the eye wall headed your way, bill says, in the next 15 or 20 minutes with some incredibly powerful winds and let you and the crew take cover. we appreciate your reporting this morning. thanks so much. again, hurricane idalia, a category 3 now, but just by a few miles per hour of wind is it not a category 4. incredibly dangerous storm set to make landfill at keaton beach, florida, according to governor desantis and his team there within this hour. before 8:00 eastern time. officials warning residents to leave immediately as 54,000 people remain without power. actually they say it's too late to leave, hunker down. we'll tell you where idalia is headed next and speak with the mayors of tallahassee, tampa and st. petersburg, updates on what they're seeing on the ground as the sun now rises and the hurricane prepares to make landfill. 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winds even after it's made landfill for all of that time. what are you expecting? >> well, you're absolutely correct. this is going to be the largest storm to hit the city of tallahassee in the history of the city and the largest storm in the big bend area so we are bracing for impact. i think we're about 30 minutes away from landfill but really proud of the city. residents have come together, everybody sheltering in place, want to continue to remind everybody to shelter in place and as soon as it's safe to go out we'll have our first responders out there checking on everybody making sure everybody is okay doing our assessments knowing where pressure points are and we'll be able to respond. >> you won't get storm surge up that far but wind obviously is a major concern. how are you preparing for that in terms of power lines down, trees down and everything else? >> you're absolutely correct. we're inland so we don't have to worry so much about storm surge but are concerned with flooding. it's the wind and the trees and power lines so taken extraordinary precautions for the past week. we've worked very hard to check our infrastructure, make sure that we don't have any major blockages. we have tripled our workforce, bringing in mutual aid as far away as nebraska, oklahoma, mississippi, ohio, louisiana, so once the storm comes through and passes and we do our assessment we know what damage we have sustained and we'll work hard to restore power. >> if a citizen of tallahassee is watching at 7:25 in the morning, what do you recommend they do at this point? there isn't storm surge. they may have time to prepare. what are you telling your residents? >> time to stay home. shelter in place. we're about 30 minutes away from landfill. we are already starting to feel the effects. folks, just stay home and stay in place. i got to tell you i'm so proud of the men and women, first responders, our utility work earls, everybody here at the emergency operation center. we're working hard to keach the city of tallahassee in the big bend area safe and we'll continue to do so. >> how soon do you expect your people to get out after the storm in terms of assessing potential damage to structures, power lines and everything else that may go down. you confident you have enough people to surge that out once the storm passes through? >> yes, sir. the way how it works there is a certain wind speed that is safe to operate the vehicles. we'll be able to start sending light crews out as soon as it's safe to do so and then will send the full crews out. we have them stationed all over the community so we can respond to different areas of the community much quicker. like i said earlier we have tripled our workforce specifically and the electric utility department bringing in mutual aid and we have private crews that are also available on contract. we will be ready to respond but you are correct, the first assessment is what exactly is the damage? where are pressure points and, again, we have crews stationed all over the community ready to respond. >> we saw just about an hour ago governor desantis giving his briefing and the power dipped out for a second. the generators did kick in. have you lost power already in tallahassee? >> oh, we have experienced some power outages and fortunately it was before the wind speeds picked up. we were actually able to respond and help restore power but from this point forward it will be a continuing issue. i fully expect and we all expect here for us to have impact, lose power and, again, as soon as it's safe we will be out and respond. you're correct, the governor and the eoc is located down the road and had a great working relationship and appreciate the governor staying in constant contact with us and the state folks have been great to work with as well. we're all in this together. >> and speaks to the power of the storm to clear up into tallahassee well inland you may still see hurricane-force wind, tallahassee mayor john dailey, we're thinking about you all. hope things go well for you today. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> bill karins, that is extraordinary, is it not that that far up after the storm has made landfill, you still might see category 1 force winds from this storm. >> yeah, the tallahassee area, you know, they were so nervous yesterday. they're watching the storm. it was headed due north and they were like, please, turn, just turn, don't hit our city. and it's going to brush by the city. so, you know, tallahassee itself, beautiful, lots of big mature trees, they're going to have wind damage and power outages as the mayor was mentioning and have a lot of heavy rain coming down, torrential rain so will have issues with flooding in the short term that will improve later on tonight as the storm moves away. just to give you an update, here is the eye. looks more defined. a little more obvious to see it. the northern eye wall is onshore. that's not considered landfill. landfill is officially considered when the center of the storm, center of the circle is right there now only three miles offshore so the hurricane center in the next 15 minutes will give us the official word we have landfill. here is perry. you know, that northern eye is where we're going to see the potential for the strongest winds. the eye itself, this is where it's calm so the destructive winds, the possibility of 120 to 130-mile-per-hour sustained winds is where my hand is here and that is roughly about 15 minutes away from perry. so i'm sure the winds are dramatically picking up but the real extreme damage, the worst of the damage will be happening. also with the storm surge, if we're going to see any of that 10 to 15 foot it's just to the right of this landfill. that's in this little area in here. so steinhatchee is located right there. if there will be one location that will see the highest levels it will be in that little fishing village, this inlet that sticks in here. two of the things i'm watching. you were mentioning some of the wind gusts there and focusing on tallahassee. still about 38-mile-per-hour winds so isolated power outages. i don't think it's going to look like matchsticks that fell down all over the place in the tallahassee area. we haven't seen a wind gust update in perry so this gauge wind sensor may have failed on us and stopped working. a couple tornado warnings near st. simon island near jacksonville and south of brunswick, georgia and also just to the northeast of waycross. that will be the other issue. after we get the landfill and max winds start to wind down we'll still have the problem of watching numerous tornadoes during the day today throughout this region and just to kind of recap with the storm surge, right now about five feet, one of our weather producers sent me a message the hurricane center looks like they've dropped some of the peak storm surge. that's fantastic. we're happy. when we tell you 10 to 16 feet. that's the maximum possible that could happen and they're saying values are lower than that. we'll take it. if we can get less storm surge damage all the better, so this was the forecast that was out, the 7 to 16 feet but haven't heard any reports of that yet. likely if it's happening there's that steinhatchee i was mentioning, it's probably going to be the highest storm surge when all is said and done. this evening, you're now under hurricane warnings savannah, georgia, to brunswick and heading up to hilton head island. probably didn't expect that when you woke up. now your wind gust forecast is higher. this is the extreme winds that are heading for perry right now, possibility up to 120, 130 miles per hour, later on this evening and this is increased we could see wind gusts as high as 76. anyone that's been to beautiful savannah and charleston, a lot of mature huge trees in this area. once we get to the 70-mile-per-hour category we talk about more problems with trees and power outages and if this happens to be at 8:30 tonight when we get the max winds that's when high tide is and our supermoon and that's a horrible timing and why we'll have storm surge concerns in charleston and savannah later on this evening, willie. a lot of dynamics. the main concern now, we're having landfill. perry, florida, our thoughts and prayers are with you because you're about to get hit by a category 3 major hurricane and then during the day today switches to worried about tornadoes and then tonight into areas of coastal south carolina and georgia. >> yeah, landfill expected within the next several minutes qualify the top of the hour at 8:00 eastern time. we'll keep a close eye on that. obviously home to major university, florida state, famu, community college, classes canceled through the week there and down in gainesville, as well, no classes today at the university of florida. coming up next the mayor of tampa, jane castor, will be our guest and find out how her city is dealing in the early hours with the hurricane and how it is leading up. much more ahead as we look at category 3 hurricane idalia set to make landfill in a matter of minutes on the gulf coast of florida. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ how can you sleep on such a firm setting? only gab, mine is almosted. the same as yours. almost is just another word for not as good as mine. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. shop now only at sleep number. 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>> reporter: willie, good morning. so, we are currently in what's called zone a, the mandatory evacuation area in tampa and you'll see why in just a moment because if you look over there, this is what happens when a car tries to drive through the evacuated zone. you can see tampa bay has completely washed over onto the road. this is a main road that we saw cars driving through even last night with ease. there were many cars that were driving through here, but obviously this is now the water is taking over a lot of the roads and this is something we have seen throughout the morning as we ourselves have been trying to assess the situation. if you look further down over there, that sort of yellow building, that is tampa general hospital. that is the only level one trauma center in the tampa bay area. so what we have here is -- it's on an island. the only way to get there is by a bridge. there are a couple of bridges and what we have found is the water level is rising on that island and so we were over there ourselves. we had to leave because the water levels were rising to a level where we were thinking we might get stranded. they have what's called an aqua fence and have been doing it for some time and did it for ian last year. they install these barriers that are supposed to protect them from upwards of 15 feet of storm surge. that's important because this hospital is supposed to remain operational throughout the storm here and that's critical because trauma one, that means that the most serious injuries are supposed to be taken here. there's hospital employees that we saw walking around inside looking at us from the inside as we were outside so the biggest threat to tampa and this has been the messaging from the very start, we've known for some time now, tampa was not going to take a direct hit from idalia, but the storm surge was the biggest threat. and this whole area if you look over -- if you were to look west there is a peninsula, you have clearwater, st. petersburg, there's been some serious flooding over there. we've seen rescues. we know there is at least, at least one known rescue that i know of from a mobile home park in that general area. bridges are closing down. part of that because of the winds, we know that the skyway bridge which connects st. petersburg down to lower tampa has been closed because they're seeing wind gusts over 50 miles per hour so, willie, in terms of the situation here, it has always been, the threat has always been the storm surge. the day is still young. there's still more bands that will be coming through dumping more rain here and this is what we're seeing even though the day is not over and, willie, i'll just add this. the other threat taste not just localized to our area but half of the state is under tornado risk right now. those outer bands are prime for creating tornadoes so that's something that the area right now is keeping a close eye on. willie. >> boy, if catching a break is what that looks like, it doesn't look like much of a break with the storm surge behind you. that's pretty serious. are officials at tampa general, which you say is a critical center for treating injury, are they confident they'll hold up through the storm as they have for so many others? >> i think we lost touch with marisa. so, bill, this is obviously showing us that video of the causeway in tampa. every time we come to it, there was traffic moving at one direction. at one time i don't believe they're still traveling. we can take a look at that. what are the risks to tampa as you looked at her standing in a whole bunch of surge. >> the official surge in tampa is five feet so there's five feet of water. it hasn't happened at high tide but that is no joke. just saw a report in cedar key, this is the tampa pictures we're looking at. five foot of storm surge. the next high tide isn't till this afternoon so this is almost at low tide. you can imagine if this was three feet higher at high tide so a lot of storm surge and damage depends on if it happens at low tide or high tide. we've been very blessed from the tampa area all the way to keyed dhar key at low tide now when the storm surge is moving in at its peak for this area. now, don't expect you may be as lucky in the south carolina and georgia coastal areas because we think yours may come at high tide later on this evening. the landfill, we still are waiting for the official word from the hurricane center but you can see here's the land area. the blue is the water. this is the area of florida, the swampland and bonita beach located right in the center of the eye right now so this is -- once it's halfway through it's landfill so any minute now we'll have the official word from the national hurricane center and the latest radar image it's now onshore and see this northern eye, we now have what we call an extreme wind warning for perry, florida, and all of this area in here. anyone that's going through the eye has a chance of experiencing extreme life-threatening wind gusts and the power flashes being reported, the transformers are arcing. what's happening in perry. a lot are going into the dark. thankfully the sun is up and a little less scary. for anyone in towns nearby, this is it. this is the absolute worst of the storm and the strongest winds that have moved onshore so we have a lot of moving pieces with the extreme storm surge right now from tampa northwards up the coast, water levels are quickly rising and now the storm is moving inland. other concerns, we have numerous tornado warnings that have been issued here. we have three of them at least in areas coming into southern georgia from just north of waycross and near st. simmons island and as far as the storm surge goes, cedar key, we'll update it up to eight feet and looks like we're getting close to extreme numbers here. if we have any one location where i think we could see the highest water levels near that eye and the strongest winds would be around steinhatchee so we'll wait to see and we'll wait a day or two to see what it does. usually a 24-hour lull or trying to assess what happened. tonight that two to five-foot storm surge is supposed to come in in savannah or charlotte ston. if we get that five-foot max height at high tide that will be problematic. beautiful charleston, you get a thunderstorm and the downtown floods. if we'll be in torrential rain plus at the same time getting that high tide and storm surge could be a big issue later on this evening and we do have hurricane warnings for the georgia coastline so landfill as we speak and then we'll track this thing all the way through the southeast coast over the next 24 hours. >> charleston, savannah, some of the most beautiful cities in the country. we hope they hold up through this and the people have listened to some of those warnings, landfill, any moment now for this now category 3 powerful hurricane idalia. we will speak to the head of fema next, deanne criswell joins us with the latest on the storm response. the time to prepare has long since passed. now what are we going to do after. calls for congress to step up with more disaster funding. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." mmm, popcorn. 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(alternate voice) poligrip power hold + seal gives our strongest hold and 5x food seal. if your mouth could talk, it would ask for... poligrip. wealth-changing question -- are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible? high taxes can erode returns quickly, so you need a tax-optimized portfolio. at creative planning, our money managers and specialists work together to make sure your portfolio and wealth are managed in a tax-efficient manner. it's what you keep that really matters. why not give your wealth a second look? book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com. creative planning -- a richer way to wealth. it's hard to run a business on your own. with shopify, you have everything you need to bring your dream business to life. because when we work together, the future is bright. start your journey with a free trial today. we are seeing a lot of tornado warnings, so far 11 as the governor said. of the four or five that happened since 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. >> that's kevin guthrie a short time ago at a briefing led by florida governor ron desantis. he's the leader of the fema, florida division of fema. we have breaking news, bill karins, hurricane idalia has now made landfill. >> yeah, idalia can no longer get stronger. that's the one piece of good news. keaton beach, florida, not like get stronger, so that's the good news. that was the official landfall location. you can see the entire center of the eye is now onshore. this bright red is the northern eyewall, and that's where the strongest winds are and the briefly calm would be in the center of that. perry, florida, you are under the extreme warning at the time, and you may go through the northern eyewall and then the western eyewall and then southern eyewall, so you could get quite a ride in perry, and even lightning strikes in the northern eye, and a lot of people are familiar in north florida, and this is interstate 10. this is madison. it made landfall in a very unpopulated area, and there's a lot more towns and neighbors in the way and the possibility of getting into the extreme wind damage as it moves northward up to interstate 10, and it's moving up at about 18 miles per hour so will not take long to make its way into southern georgia. it will weaken but it will take a while to do so. we just had a gusts at 60 miles per hour, and that's good. we just heard from the hurricane center that ride now the little barrier island, that is about six feet above what should be normal water levels. if you look at it since we are add low tide, the storm surge is 6 to 8 feet in the cedar key area, and we are still getting pictures coming in from perry, and the northern eye is approaching that. our crews have moved to safety and they shoot outside and give us a view. when you see the trees blowing around outside you get a good idea. the wind gusts are in the 50 to 60-mile-per-hour range. when you get that northern eye, the bright red band i was showing you ten miles south of perry, that's the worst of it. here's perry, and here's the bright red coloring, and five minutes from now is when i would expect the highest winds expected in the perry area with the storm. five minutes from now, if you are going to get that 100-mile-per-hour gusts, you would see it in this shot. our crews are smart and they have done this for a long time, and they will put themselves in a good shot and it may not look like 100 to 120-mile-per-hour winds, but if you are going to see it this is where it will be happening here. when you get the high gusts coming in, that's when you notice the winds are starting to whip. you can see it as we are watching this, just the visibility of looking at the sides across the parking lot, it's deteriorating. thankful our crews can show us the 7,000 people that live in perry are going through, and they should not evacuate and they are not in the risk of the storm surge, so they are hunkering down like it's a horrible thunderstorm and this will take about four hours and then they will be in the all clear. >> the national hurricane center headline, extremely dangerous category 3 hurricane idalia makes landfall in the big bend. keaton beach, not a lot of people and we are hoping the people that were there have heeded the warnings. let's go to the mayor of welch. thank you for joining us. we spoke to you months ago when hurricane ian passed through. what are you expecting so far in st. petersburg? >> thanks, willie. our thoughts and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters in florida, and what we are dealing with right now is the storm surge issue. as you reported we already had four feet of storm surge, and with the high tide we are expecting to see that go higher. we already had high-water rescues and all of the bridges into our county and city, which is a peninsula, all of the bridges are shutdown at this moment. we are just asking folks to hunker in place and stay safe. hopefully folks have evacuated from the low-lying areas already. for us it's mainly a water event at this point. >> so paw tphelice county did order evacuations, and did a lot of people get out in time? >> well, as you said, with storm ian, they are unpredictable and storm surge is something they will move away from, and we are hoping they did evacuate away from the zone a areas. >> what lesson did you learn as a mayor 11 months ago that you can apply to today and the days and weeks that will follow? >> like joe, i am a long-time floridaen, and when they tell you to move when a hurricane is moving, you need to move. but there are new folks that moved to the area, and they say i am outside the cone so i am safe, so a lot of lessons were learned from the general public in looking at the videos and hearing the 911 calls from folks that stayed and then couldn't get help because at a certain point you don't send out first responders into a rescue. i think folks are understanding it's a new ball game in terms of weather and we need to be smart in how we plan and react to it. >> as you speak, we are looking at the extraordinary live pictures from tampa, not far from where you are. the surge, and the height of the stop sign, and the surge will continue there. the mayor of st. petersburg, florida, ken welch, we are thinking about you and the people of your great city, and we will get back to you as the storm developers. >> thank you. hurricane idalia has now made landfall as a category 3 storm. we will speak with one congressmen of florida. 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inside hunker down until it gets past you, and you don't want to be messing around with the winds and there will be things flying around all over the place, and if you are close to the coast and you see the surge, it will be a big deal and very dangerous. and there we go with our power here. we're back. >> that was about 90 minutes ago as florida governor, ron desantis, was giving an update, the power in tallahassee dipped out and came back on. hurricane idalia officially has made landfall as a category 3 storm. governor desantis telling residents in the storm's path to hunker down as idalia threatens the area, and over 15 feet of storm surge, and it could affect 200 miles south, and the outer bands of the hurricane, 11 tornado warnings have been issued and it has already knocked out power to more than 100,000 residents, and there corps outages for days. idalia will be the biggest storm to hit the capital. hurricane idalia is expected to make its way through florida today and then moving on to georgia and south carolina tomorrow with serious surge there as well. let's get straight at the top of the hour with meteorologist, bill karins, with the latest on the storm. what are you seeing out there? >> the entire eye is now onshore, so it will begin to slowly weaken, and the worst of the winds and extreme weather associated with the eye is over the top of perry, florida. the eye made landfall 15 minutes ago and is moving to the north. this storm will not linger but it will haul through areas of southern georgia late this morning into south carolina and even north carolina about 24 hours from now. it will affect millions of people as it slowly begins to weaken. this is what we call an extreme wind warning. this area that is highlighted, it goes until 10:15 this morning, and that includes perry florida. we will have to see if it gets extended up here to cover that interstate 10. it's like the equivalent of being in a tornado when you are in the eye of the hurricane. the winds in tallahassee and communities nearby, this is as strong as your winds will get with the storm. if you can hold on to power and cross your fingers for the next two or three hours, you will likely survive and have power throughout the rest of the storm. this is the peak of it. also as far as rainfall is flash flooding goes, this is the heaviest rain you are going to get in the tallahassee area. as far as gainesville goes and the tampa area, you are more in the squally weather and you will see bands of rain and gusting winds and then it will be calm. the tornado watch goes until 3:00 p.m. we have one active tornado warning along the georgia border along jacksonville and florida, and tampa and leesburg, you are more in the 35 to 40-mile-per-hour range. perry, the highest gusts we had was 71, and we will see if that sensor broke after that because we have not had reports after that. tampa, we know we have made it up to a five-foot storm surge, and we are showing you pictures of what that looks like. this was the peak possible. this is at high tide. we hit the peak surge at low tide, and that's why some of the numbers are not reaching that 16 feet. that's good. it's a blessing to hit landfall when we are at low tide instead of high tide. the two to five feet could be at high tide, and it could put you at coastal flooding inundation, and we are under a tornado warning, too. this path is where we can see the highest wind gusts with the eye. right now it's over the top of perry. this is a predicted wind gust of 127. we will see when it's all said and done of what they get. tonight we could see gusts in the 70-mile-per-hour range along the south carolina coast, so a lot of moving parts and the most destruction is currently in the big bend, florida, as the eye is onshore. joining us now from tallahassee, florida, maggi vespa. we don't normally cover hurricanes from the state capitol, but this is a historic storm there as well, perhaps a category 1 hurricane-winds through the capitol. >> reporter: yeah, and you can see them in full force, and as we were talking about lights flickered on and off as you saw in the press conference this morning, and the generator just kicked on across the street from me. i will walk around here so you can see what the winds look like and rain looks like as it comes down the street here. thousands without power in this area, and as we said, tallahassee not bearing the brunt of the storm like tampa and areas east are, and there are government buildings that are closed, and government officials, including governor desantis urging people to take this storm seriously. and people in tallahassee did not think they were in the path of the storm, and now the storm is making landfall and now they suddenly realize they have to prepare, and businesses are not boarded up and they were filling sand bags yesterday, and the storm is peaking as we speak and people hope it doesn't get much worse than this. >> stay with us, maggie. gabe, we come to a once an hour here and it gets worse every time. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: we are starting see the worst of it in perry. this is the power of hurricane idalia. just a few minutes ago, willie, there used to be a billboard right behind me. it's no longer there. it collapsed as the winds began to pick up. you can see the heavy rain pelting us at this point. we lost power last time i spoke with you at this hotel, and the winds are roaring. the local authorities said once the winds reached 145 miles per hour, first responders would not respond. as we pause here, we are getting another wind gust, and we are a little far away from the power lines but i want to make sure that nothing is too dangerous here. we can easily go inside if anything gets out of hand, but was can see, we are getting pelted at this point, willie. this is near where the hurricane made landfall, a part of florida that has never seen a storm this powerful. the storm is making landfall in largely wetlands not heavily populated, but here in perry, about 7,000 people live here. there will likely be significant property damage here as we keep hearing the story around florida will be a catastrophic storm surge. we are 20 miles inland, willie, so the story is the wind, and i will refer to bill karins about the wind gusts we are seeing now, but i will tell you it feels powerful and we expect it to get worse over the next hour or so. no reports yet of any damage, but if there is any indication, the billboard was right behind us and we watched it rip apart and collapse. everything seems to be safe at this point, but i can tell you there will likely be heavy property damage in this part of florida right near where the eye is making landfall right now, willie. >> we were recording from your camera position when that billboard fell, and we have been playing it as you were talking, and bill karins said there was gusts about 100 miles per hour, so it's powerful stuff. you have been out, but in terms of property damage, they expect it to be bad there once this passes through. >> reporter: yeah, that's exactly right. i am looking around at my surroundings, and incredibly, i can't believe it, but there's one car driving around in 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts, and only law enforcement officials should be out at this point. and we are getting another wind squall right here, and i am still looking around to see if the power lines are coming down. we have not had a chance to walk around at this point, willie, but this whole area is getting pounded right now. especially mobile homes, structures that, you know, have been built in the last few years, this is going to be devastating for them. for those of you just joining us, we are 20 miles inland. this is the winds we are seeing 20 miles inland. you can only imagine how it's 20 miles closer to the coast, and keaton beach is getting hit extremely hard. and it will be several hours and later today when we get a full assessment of any damage, but i can tell you right now, this is probably where the highest wind speeds in the populated area, 7,000 people live in perry, and this is the highest in terms of wind speed we have seen so far. it's only getting worse. >> it's compelling and as outstanding as your reporting is, i have to send you inside, gabe. please, get to safety, you and your crew. bill karins, describe what we are looking at? >> that's the eyewall. it's considered being in the eyewall of a major hurricane. if you have ever been in it before, and i have done one and that was enough for me, just the power -- you can't fathom what 120 -- if you are driving in the car and you are going 50 to 60 miles per hour and you feel the force, and times that by two in a storm like this. the power is incredible. the trees behind them seem to be holding up all right, and some of the gusts we were just watching with gabe were in the 80 to 100-mile-per-hour range. you can see the trees, and they have been through other storms, but since this was the strongest to hit that area in over 100 years, and a lot of these have not been through anything like that. a lot of our crews are trying to stay safe themselves and they are in the eye. the thing i worry about for the crews like this, you can see some of the debris in the trees, so when the winds get this strong and you get debris starting to fly all over the place. they know what they are doing and i am sure they have a building blocking this shot. obviously the camera backs up to a building and they shoot out, and they would not be standing by the trees. you can see where gabe is going back out to give some other people some information and do a little reporting for somebody else, but pretty amazing stuff to be in this small of an eye, this powerful of an eye and to show you firsthand what that looks like. they just did extend the extreme wind warning that includes interstate 10. as the storm continues to push inland, we are seeing madison, florida, just went under an extreme wind warning, and the extreme wind warn something unusual, and it's the equivalent of a tornado warning and telling you a tornado is heading for your house. the horns in this area are going off, and what the residents should do is go for the same place for a tornado warning, an interior room and blankets and pillows. >> it's worth underlying something you said, as accustomed we are in hurricanes hitting florida, this is highly unusual where this is hitting between the big bend and the peninsula, and they call it the nature coast. it's undeveloped and beautiful, swampland and things like that, and governor desantis said it himself, this is historic and that part of florida has not been hit since the 1800s by a storm this big. >> after ian, everybody just had their mouths open, and cedar key, you go about 30 and 40 miles without seeing anything but trees and bushes, and the swampland. there's not going to be this extreme damage like we have had with other storms, thankfully. but for these small towns we have been mentioning and talking about, they are worried if their lives will change forever because of the path of the storm. the monetary damage, we talk about how much of a billion-dollar weather disaster they are, and this one, you know, as crazy as it sounds may do more damage in the south carolina and georgia coast with the high tide tonight and the 70-mile-per-hour winds than where the category 3 landfall is happening right now just because of the number of people that are in the way of the storm. it's the whole thing if a tree falls on your property, it's a problem. if it falls in the woods, nobody bothers, nobody cares, and it's not an issue, you know. but for the thousands of people that live in the area, the perry florida and the cross city, cedar key, and hundred of thousands of residents call this area home. a lot did evacuate and they are watching the coverage and they wonder what they are going to go back to, and we won't have those answers until tomorrow. >> stay with us. we want to go back to tallahassee where maggie vespa is. tallahassee usually is not in the middle of these but could get hurricane-force winds today, and the governor giving that briefing a short time ago where he talked about the power outages and the fuel that is ready to go, and the electrical trucks that are ready to go, and florida knows how to do this. >> reporter: seems like his press conference, and the moment when the power went out was foreshadowing this, and we had two power outages, and when you were doing your intro to me, the lights were flicking on and off. as you point out the crews are out, and gabe mentioned earlier that emergency crews elsewhere in the state are not going out when sustain winds reach around 45 miles per hour. in this more populated area, 200,000 plus people, and as you pointed out, they are not used to storms of this strength and the local sheriff said they will not be going out when sustained winds reached 35 miles per hour, not 45. so we are talking a lower threshold and are upping the safety in this point. hopefully this is the worst it gets in the tampa area, and people just got a heads up that the storm was headed their way. here comes another gusts. we shifted our crews as idalia shifted its path, and -- that's a big one -- and tallahassee did not seem to be in the path, and the state capitol and multiple universities here did not seem to be in the storm's path until yesterday and suddenly you had a bunch of people getting alerts and filling sandbags and going to areas to ride out the storm, and a lot of people are keeping their fingers tightly crossed as this rolls in. >> yeah, a major college town in tallahassee, and we hope everybody stays safe there. let's head to gainesville florida, and jay gray is there. what does it looks like where you are? >> reporter: we continue to see some of the outside bands moving through, willie, and we just had one move through with strong rain. you can see it's spinning and the wind picked up and we expect that to grow as the storm made landfall, and we are on the dirty side of the storm and we can see some of the hurricane-force winds and that driving rain that could continue for hours. the university of florida is here, and 50,000 students and a huge faculty, and that campus is obviously locked down. they are continuing to watch what goes on here. we think about florida, willie, and we think about the beaches. the way the storm is moving, we are coming through an area that is densely populated with trees. trees are a big concern, and the national hurricane center say they expect in this area to lose a lot of the trees and the power lines to be pulled down as well. we know and we have seen through the last day or so these power crews establishing just outside of the strike zone and ready to move in and help out. a lot of the people here in gainesville looked at this and said, i think i am just going to grab supplies and maybe ride this thing out. if they done that, hopefully, willie, they prepared enough that they have supplies to last not for days, but weeks. some of the hardest hit areas, we are told, it will take that long to clear things out and restore the power. right now, a bit of a break. we know the worst of the storm is still to come in this area. >> just getting started there. we hope everybody continues to stay safe. nbc's jay gray, live from gainesville, florida, this morning. hurricane idalia made landfall as a category 3 storm and made landfall 36 minutes ago in a small town of keaton beach, florida. and it's moving up into georgia, and south carolina and north carolina over the next day or so. you are watching "morning joe" on a very busy morning. we'll be right back. ♪♪ rsv is in for a surprise. meet arexvy. 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>> thank you, willie. what is going on, obviously, is what hurricane management does. they do have action reviews and they make sure they are ready for the next event. this, obviously, is a different challenge. this is far stronger. we have seen record storm surge in these areas from tampa along the entire west coast of florida. so the national guard is activated and all of the private venders are activated and the power companies will tens of thousands of line crews and ice, and they will have shelters open and people working those shelters. medical staff will be ready to go. search and rescue teams will be ready to go to help people that did not evacuate and are in areas affected by the significant storm surge. the eyewall is moving across the area where it's less populated, and 160,000 people are without power already, and i expect significant changes to the way of life to the rural and small towns that live on the gulf coast. >> congressman, you are right and you served in the role that florida is good at this, and they know how to do this, and that doesn't mean there won't be death and devastation, but florida knows how to prepare. as somebody who has done this, how do you begin to manage a storm of this scope and this strong? >> i have been in that room and at that podium before for hurricane mike, and hurricane sally and hurricane dorian, and hurricane emergency management, even before they went to a level 1, they were preparing for this on friday. you preposition crews in place, and keeping them out of harm's way, of course, but keeping them close as possible, so you can get in the assets, the food, water, the ice, and the rescue teams so as soon as the winds die down the teams can come in. they have gone through this and trained through this, so this is something whereas soon as they knew it was going to be a storm headed our way, while they did not know the exact location, everything started in motion days ago. >> governor desantis pointed out, 1.2 million gals of fuel was on its way, and satellites and generators and everything else are in place. are you confident, congressman, the relationship between the federal government and the state government is working well through the process? we know president biden and governor desantis has been speaking, and what does that coordination look like from your standpoint? >> well, governor desantis and president biden have a lot of experience, not just hurricane ian, but florida and fema have a good working relationship. fema is on the ground and they are going to be responding as well. again, this is what they are trained for and what they do. unfortunately, florida has had a tremendous amount of experience. politics aside, and everybody puts that aside when events like this happen. i expect to see both the white house and fema and florida emergency management agency and the governor's office working hand and governor in response to this as they have done times before. that's what is supposed to happen, it's supposed to be bipartisan. that's the one area of government that is working how it should be. >> by all accounts, yes. we appreciate you bringing your expertise this morning. thank you. much more ahead on hurricane idalia which made landfall as a powerful category 3 storm just a short time ago. these are live pictures out of tampa. residents there bracing for winds up to 125 miles per hour. authorities telling people to hunker down as heavy flooding is expected to be extremely dangerous. stay with us. you're watching "morning joe." ♪♪ o-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley at the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's, this is why we walk. ♪ they're why we walk. ♪ we walk in the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's because we're getting closer to beating this disease. join us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ get it with gurus. cargurus. ♪ with wet amd, sometimes i worry my world is getting smaller because of my sight. but now, i can open up my world with vabysmo. vabysmo is the first fda-approved treatment for people with wet amd that improves vision and delivers a chance for up to 4 months between treatments. which means doing more of what i love. ♪ vabysmo is the only treatment designed to block 2 causes of wet amd. vabysmo is an eye injection. don't take it if you have an infection or active swelling in or around your eye, or are allergic to it or any of its ingredients. treatments like vabysmo can cause eye infection or retinal detachment. vabysmo may cause a temporary increase in eye pressure after receiving the injection. although uncommon, there is a potential risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. open up your world! a chance for up to 4 months between treatments with vabysmo. ask your doctor. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ i may be known for my legendary football career, only pay for what you need. but truth is, i love a bunch of sports. the only trouble is knowing where to find them. that's why i got xfinity. so, i can easily find and watch whatever sport i'm into all in one place without missing a thing. even if it's football, australian football, or football football. in a word—it's fitz-credible. i got to trademark that one. this season, eligible xfinity rewards members can get up to $100 off nfl sunday ticket from youtube. sign up for xfinity rewards now. nice footwork. man, you're lucky, watching live sports never used to be this easy. now you can stream all your games like it's nothing. yes! [ cheers ] yeah! woho! running up and down that field looks tough. it's a pitch. get way more into what you're into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. we're back and covering hurricane idalia, a powerful category 3 storm, a dangerous category 3 storm, that officially within the last hour made landfall on the gulf coast. joining us from tampa, nbc news correspondent, marissa parra. good morning. what are you seeing? >> reporter: what you are seeing is exactly the concern the tampa bay area had. this is a storm surge. this part you can see a small part of it above the water, and what might be shocking for you to see is this is a major thoroughfare in downtown bay shore boulevard. this is all tampa bay water over here. what you will see if you turn the camera over there, is what happens when you try to drive through an evacuated zone. from what we understand, the people inside the car did have to be rescued. that's something we are seeing in other parts of the area as well, so it's not just tampa bay and tampa specifically that is seeing flooding, but there's clearwater and st. petersburg, and there's a peninsula to the west of us and it's surrounded by water, the gulf of mexico on one side and tampa bay on the other side, and there's flooding all across it. several streets have been closed and treasure island, part of it, they had to close access to. and then the bridge, that's closed because we are seeing wind gusts upwards of 50 miles per hour. that's not entirely uncommon. they have seen that before and it's a high bridge, high off of the ocean, but when we are talking about the risks here, we had somebody rescuing from a mobile home, they tweeted that, and we are still trying to get a final number here. right now we are getting a break, as you can tell. no rain is coming down and the wind is mild, but what we noticed, it picks up. we have seen the rain and gusts coming in, and the water level is rising. that truck we just showed you, and i watched the water level creep up, and this is something on and off throughout the day. we know tampa was not supposed to take a direct hit with idalia, but for those that don't know, tampa general hospital, level one trauma center, and it's the only one in tampa bay, and they are supposed to remain operational, and you can only get to it by bridges because it's on an island. tampa is not expected to see more than 4 to 7 feet of storm surge, and when we talk about people evacuating, i will say we have seen a number of people still driving on the roads and walking through them, and authorities are asking to please not do that as the wind and rain come in, because you put them at risk when they have to come and rescue you. and it's not just the storm surge, but we have the tornado risk, and we are not taking a direct hit but the conditions create tornadoes, and there's a lot to be seen and determined throughout the hours, and we are expecting peak storm surge around 2:00. >> relatively quiet at the moment, but it comes and goes. marissa, thank you very much. let's move across the bay about 20 miles west of tampa. the city manager of clearwater, florida, jennifer porter joins us now. thank you for being with us. tell us what you are seeing. you are across the bay and closer to the gulf than tau tampa. >> we are experiencing flooding and anticipate that will get worse as the high tide comes in this afternoon. our bridges are closed to the beach, and for residents, we have multiple street closures as well. >> were there evacuations in clearwater, or were there leading up to the storm? >> well, there were for level a, and that's pretty much for the beach. >> and that the airport was closed, and do you anticipate that would reopen? >> yeah, i would expect that to open later this afternoon and that's not coordinated through clearwater. >> flooding means problems. how soon will you be able to get your people out in the streets and assess the damage? >> as i stated earlier, we have the high tide expected later this afternoon, and we are encouraging residents to stay inside. i know the winds died down but we have outer bands that will come through with significant wind gusts and that high tide is what we are anticipating that will cause additional flooding. we have several streets closed already because of flooding and it will get worse. >> police there in clearwater saying stay home and stay off the streets and let us go out and take a look. thank you for being here. still ahead on "morning joe," the head of fema will be our guest straight ahead discussing the response to this category 3 storm that just in the last hour has made landfall in a place called keaton beach, florida. storm surge expected far across the state, and then up into south carolina, georgia, and even into north carolina over the next couple of days. this is a big and dangerous storm. we have it covered for you when we come right back. it well. ♪ ♪ jardiance ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story 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be over that. that's through sarasota. it's right near perry. we will call it. that winds at 120 miles per hour, and that's the max estimated wind. doesn't mean everybody will see that. likely when you have a max 120-mile, it's moving fast. 18 miles per hour. it made landfall at 7:45 a.m. this morning and it's about to cross interstate 10. that will be the next stop and will be into georgia by late morning and early afternoon, and still a hurricane as it moves through georgia, and closest to savannah, around 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. we could see strong winds, including in the hilton head area with possible tree damage. the high tide, especially in the charleston area. right now the forecast has it being the 11th highest water level in the history of charleston since they have been doing measurements there, and that could be significant. if it's worst than expected, we are in the top ten category. tonight and tomorrow we will watch the storm race through coastal areas, wilmington and also myrtle beach. back to the eye, as it made landfall. perry is located about here, and finally getting out of the worst of it. the extreme wind warnings up here in madison, this bright opinion sbg probably where the strongest winds are. if you are going to get the 100 miles per hour gust, it would be with this, and an extreme warning, they are very rare and only happen when we have strong and major hurricanes making landfall, and they issue it for the eye, and it's not a tornado but it's literally a wide and extreme area of wind similar to a tornado. that's what we are watching and with that you would expect power outages. they will tell people to stay in their homes and you miles per hour winds. that was the highest i saw there at the airport. that's when we had gabe on 45 minutes ago live. 78 miles per hour is the current gust. in tallahassee where we know we have power outages, you have been seeing gusts around 40 to 50 miles per hour, and those winds are heading into georgia, valdosta at 45. the rule of thumb is when you get over 40, you start getting tree damage and isolated branches coming down. that's when the power outages begin. that's what's happening now. on the georgia coast, that on shore fetch coming off the water is going to keep it really windy and the water is going to be building up. we just hit high tide. we're going to head to the afternoon low tide in areas of southeast coast. the high tide begins at 8:00 p.m. this evening. hurricane warnings are up from about the brunswick, georgia, area, past hilton head. tropical storm force winds, warnings for the areas around charleston, and as far as the high wind gusts, this has occurred. we can kind of take this off. we think you can gust up to 57 in valdosta. these are forecast wind gusts, how high it could get. this happened, these to the south have happened. we could see gusts 50 to 57 in brunswick, and later on this afternoon into this evening, this is when the highest winds will be in savannah, hilton head and charleston. that's up to hurricane strength. there's a lot of trees in the area. you have been hit by numerous storms in past years. i don't think it's going to be widespread damage but we will see scattered tree damage, power outages, lighter in wilmington. and then the rainfall forecast, if you follow past storms throughout south carolina, you kind of have a history of bad flooding from storms. this one's moving fast enough, we're hoping to avoid that. we're still thinking you're going to get 7 inches of rain between now and tomorrow. especially just inland areas here. from columbia southwards almost towards the coast, that's the greatest concern, and as we head towards cape fear and the wilmington area of north carolina, too, willie. many aspects of the storm, we're seeing the damaging portion of the storm, the extreme of it now, and then as we go throughout the day, we'll continue to watch it as it heads into the southeast. >> we'll come back at the top of the hour for an update on the storm. we'll get back to our reporters on the ground, across florida. also speak with the director of the national hurricane center in miami. the mayor of tampa, and the head of fema, all just ahead on "morning joe." of fema, all just ahead on "morning joe." at the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's, this is why we walk. ♪ they're why we walk. ♪ we walk in the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's because we're getting closer to beating this disease. join us. as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why i'm hoping you'll join me today in 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( ♪♪ ) the first fda-approved rsv vaccine. arexvy is used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. ( ♪♪ ) arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. rsv can be serious. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about arexvy today. rsv? make it arexvy. a live picture of perry, florida, just before the top of the hour. you can see the wind and rain whipping through as hurricane idalia has made landfall. did so just over an hour ago, as a strong, dangerous category 3 storm in keaton beach, florida. down along the gulf coast. that area was hit with, quote, the storm of the century, in 1993, when winds at that time reached 93 miles an hour. in comparison, this morning's winds already have reached more than 100 miles an hour. in perry, gusts also hit at least 100 miles per hour as idalia made its way through the area. the storm even took a billboard down as it circulated through there. in cedar key, florida, one resident describing the scene as quote, near apocalyptic. florida governor ron desantis is telling residents to please hunker down and not mess with this storm in his words, as hurricane force winds and storm surge ravage the west side of the state. idalia has knocked out power to 200,000 floridians, the ”the new york times” reports residents in tallahassee are expecting their power to be out for days. the hurricane also is creating major concerns for tornados. nbc affiliate, wesh, in orlando is reporting all of central florida is in under a tornado watch. hurricane idalia expected to move up the southeastern sea board and hit areas of georgia and south carolina through tomorrow. joining us now is the mayor of tampa, florida, jane castor. thank you for your time this morning. we have been looking at pictures. our reporters are on the ground in tampa. we have seen some of the storm surge. we have seen the aqua fence holding up around tampa general hospital. what more can you tell us about what's happening in your city this morning? >> well, we are looking at right now the storm surge. this is dessa, the office dog, here in the eoc with us. but anyway, the storm surge is the issue for us right now. we have our drone teams out, and they're getting footage of any of the downed trees, power lines, those types of things, but really, our focus right now is that incoming high tide, king tide that is higher than normal based on the full moon, and we expect several more feet of storm surge, so things aren't going to get better here in tampa until about 4:00 or 5:00 this afternoon. >> you mentioned the term king tide. i'm not sure most of our viewers are familiar with that, mayor castor, but around noontime, people might look at the pictures and say, okay, maybe tampa was spared, but what are you expecting between noon and 4:00, 5:00 today? >> that's the word we have been communicating throughout the tampa bay area. we have 126 miles of water front property in our city, and so there's no place for the current water that is flooding those low-lying areas. there's no place for that to go to dissipate to, as this king tide comes in. so the water is going to continue to rise. you know, it's not that bad outside right now. weather-wise. so we don't want our community to think it's all clear and go outside. we have already had to rescue people out of flooded cars in particular areas. so we just don't want any injuries or deaths in our community. >> we're looking at pretty extraordinary pictures from a short time ago, this morning, as the sun came up in pasco county, right up to the stop sign there. what kind of preparations, mayor castor, did you make for this storm as opposed to others that unfortunately you have had to deal with during your time in office and previous mayors as well? >> we're very fortunate in the tampa bay area. we haven't had a direct hit in 100 years. you can hear everybody knocking on wood behind me. we send our resources out to those who are impacted and we bring those lessons back, you know, positive and negative, and we incorporate those into our response plans every year. but we are as prepared as a municipality could be to respond to these events. so all hands on deck right now. we have our push crews that are located geographically. they're out right now clearing any debris from the roadways, and, again, making sure that we are communicating with our residents. this isn't over for the tampa bay area. >> i mentioned tampa general hospital, the only level one trauma center in west central florida. such an important facility. >> i talked to the ceo of tampa general this morning, first thing this morning. john chorus, and they were switching shifts. they don't have the ability to get their team off of the island right now. davis island. you're not able to exit that at this time, and so right now, that aqua fence is holding up. this is the first test for it. very interesting, we're hoping that will keep the waters out of tampa general. even if the waters do make it through, they have plans. they're already moving everything up to the higher floors. >> that's good to hear so far. such a critical facility. the mayor of tampa, florida, jane castro, we wish the best to you and the residents of your city. thank you so much for your time this morning. >> thank you, we appreciate it. the director of the national hurricane center in miami, dr. mike brennan. the last time we spoke earlier this morning, the storm had not yet made landfall. it did so just over an hour ago as a strong, dangerous, category 3 storm. what is it looking like now as it begins to move inland? >> well, we're seeing those strong winds, you know, as expected move inland across portions of north florida. wind gusts over 80 miles per hour in perry in the last couple of hours now. very concerned about madison and madison county in particular where you see bright oranges and reds. that's where it's sort of what's left of the northwest eye wall, a lot of lightning in there, very convectively active, very turbulent there, and that's mixing the strong winds down to the surface. wind gusts, 80, 90, 100 miles per hour in the region. northward, southern georgia, places like valdosta, keep an eye over the next couple of hours. >> anything new, dr. brennan as the storm changed course from its projection. new place that should have a heads up here? >> well, everybody in the path of idalia's center, and that goes all the way into north florida, southeast georgia, savannah, hilton head, that's under a hurricane warning, and so we're going to see those winds as idalia is moving northeastward at 20 miles per hour, going to spread inland quickly. we're concerned about storm surge potential along the georgia and south carolina coast. heavy rainfall and rainfall flooding are going to be a big problem in areas from cape hatteras to wilmington to columbia, south carolina. augusta, all the way down to tallahassee, 4 to 8 inches of rain here. we're going to have multiple hazards today, and into thursday. >> so is florida, that's where the storm s this is a long way from fish, savannah, the coast of georgia, south carolina, even north carolina. what should people there be preparing for? >> well, along the georgia coast from, you know, st. catharine's sound to savannah to charleston, 3 to 5 feet of storm surge inundation. again, that's pretty disruptive, life threatening in some situations, we might have folks, if you were asked to evacuate out of these areas by your local officials, we encourage you to do so today. those waters are going to rise as we come into the high tide cycle. >> dangerous storm, director of the national hurricane center in miami, dr. mike brennan. thank you so much for being with us this morning. let's go back to meteorologist bill karins. until the last few minutes, hurricane idalia downgraded to a category 2. still a dangerous storm. >> you get the friction with the land and it reduces the overall wind speeds. we're at category 2, 110 miles per hour maximum estimated winds, and as the director was telling us, the madison county area of florida, if we're going to get winds close to that, that's where they would be occurring, and you notice quickly, backside of the storm is going to approach thecoast. the tallahassee area, three or four more hours of rainfall and then you're probably done. these spiraling bands are going to continue and the on shore flow is going to continue. the peak of the storm surge is with us. we're not going to have the wind kick the water out. we continue the on shore flow as the high tide approaches. i don't know if water levels will rise much, but they're not going to drop much either. that won't happen until later this evening. here's the pictures coming from the tampa area. this little poll here has the feet measured here, and you can see a 9 foot, 10 foot, 11 foot. one thing about storm surge, it's not just that it's coming in at 5 or 6 feet. you also have the wave action on top of it. even though the water level is 90 feet. the wave action on top of it, we're getting splashes and water to 11 feet on the poll. that stop sign we have been monitoring, most stop signs are standing somewhere around 6 to 8 feet tall, and you can see that most of the stop sign is almost completely under the water. so that's happening now with the storm surge problems. and so i don't think it's going to go up much more, but where the water is now isn't going to exactly leave anytime soon. the center of the storm as we were mentioning with the hurricane center, this band right here through madison, florida, this is madison county, this area is under the extreme wind warning. if we got extreme damage taking place because of that, it's in this region, and that includes interstate 10. hopefully not too many cars out there. florida state patrol blocks this. high profile vehicles and winds like this, like the 18 wheelers, those would be the ones that would be in jeopardy of tipping over. gusts of 85. that's the highest we have seen at the airport location in perry. 215,000 people without power in florida, 8,000 in georgia. the number of people without power in georgia is going to grow, especially anyone close to the border. i don't expect additional power outages in central florida, with the exception of tornadoes. i'm noticing a new tornado warning to the northeast of tampa, along i-4, north of it there, heading almost towards the brooksville area. other concerns, as we mentioned with the hurricane center, we're going to spread up the coast. the on shore winds, the heavy rainfall, in combination with the storm surge is going to cause the problems. i mentioned a lot of peak wind gusts are occurring or have occurred. later on this afternoon, the peak wind gusts will be moving into coastal areas, new brunswick to savannah, hilton head, charleston, myrtle beach, georgetown area, once we get past myrtle beach, winds are lower for my friends in the wilmington area. morehead city, but from myrtle beach southward, i would be prepared, just in case. when you get these storms and you know the power is going to go out, you have a checklist of things people know to do. you worry about the freezer, you know, you put fresh water out. charge all of your devices, especially if you have kids, you want everything powered up to last as long as possible. >> if you're lucky enough to have a generator, that will help right about now too. let's turn to the fema administrator, deanne criswell. thank you for your time this morning. the storm has handed, it is on shore. it's made landfall. it came in as a category 3 downgraded now to a category 2. as you watch the movement of the storm of the hurricane, what are your concerns just after 9:00 local time? >> good morning, everybody, and i think my biggest concern right now is just because it made landfall doesn't mean that the risks from this storm are over. and we need to make sure that we are continuing to stay focused on those areas inland in florida, but also the extreme wind and the rain that is still going to impact georgia and south carolina. we have teams prepared and postured across the southeast to be able to respond into any of our southeastern states to support immediate life saving needs, and then the initial recovery needs as the storm passes. >> our meteorologists have been pointing out to us, this is a unique storm in that it hit a part of florida that doesn't usually get hit with major storms, in fact, hasn't had one this big, maybe since the late 1800s as governor desantis pointed out. what were the unique challenges to you as fema administrator addressing this. it's going to continue to have strength aultd -- all the way inland, with low hurricane winds. >> the fact that this part of the florida has not seen this level of a storm ever really means that we have a lot of people that were unfamiliar and perhaps did not evacuate, and so our focus over the next 12 to 24 hours is going to be making sure that those people that are in harm's way and need assistance that our search and rescue teams can get in and assist. anybody in the path of the storm needs to be listening to local officials so they can seek shelter and stay in place so they can protect themselves and their families until this storm passes. >> president biden issued an emergency declaration for the state of florida already this week. all reports in clear and constant communication with governor desantis. how is that coordination from where you sit at fema. what does it look like? obviously you have a lot of experience working with fema in florida. >> i spoke with governor desantis before the storm hit to get a better understanding of what his concerns were going to be and that's how we were able to posture through the emergency declaration, our resources to make sure we could come in and support. we have rapid assessment teams that are ready to go out and begin assessing the overall impact so we can make a determination if further assistance is needed. we'll rely on technology and satellite imagery, right, we have so many tools available to us now that help us make those determinations faster than we have been able to do in years previously. >> the planning and preparation for a storm like this is extraordinary. for people who don't know, we heard some of the details from earlier this morning from governor desantis, but from federal, fema, your office, what did it look like for this storm specifically? >> yeah, we have over a thousand federal personnel that are staged either in florida, georgia, or south carolina ready to go in and help. and we have our national response coordination center activated right here behind me. it's been activated 24/7 since yesterday, coordinating with folks in the field so we can help move those resources quickly and make sure we're not missing any of the needs any of our governors may have as they experience and understand the impacts from this storm are going to be. massive effort from the entire federal family here as well as our nonprofit partners like the red cross and salvation army, and an all of government approach. >> this comes just a couple of weeks after those terrible, devastating fires in maui. you have that on your plate as well. you have called for more funding for fema. how important it is, critical it is, to pushing congress to increase funding. what would you like to see from congress when they get back in session here shortly? >> because of the amount of disaster that we have been responding to throughout the year and the response efforts we have put in place for maui and hurricane idalia, i have directed my teams here to implement what we call immediate needs funding, which means we are prioritizing all of the remaining funds within the disaster relief fund to support those life-saving activities, and we need to continue to work with congress to be able to push the supplemental through, which had $12 billion additional funding in there for fema, so we can continue to meet the needs of the ongoing recoveries and not delay those operations until next fiscal year. >> with that in mind, what does this hurricane season look like to you? obviously this is the first big storm o. season. we're still in late august. is it looking like a bad one relative to previous years? >> you know, i think time will tell in how bad it is. it really just takes one as we're seeing right now. we could have more, right, we are in the peak of hurricane season, and so we are fully postured and monitoring what the atlantic is doing as well as in the pacific because it's been a very active season in the pacific with storms that hit guam, and, you know, the storm that was south of hawaii that helped fuel the fires, right. this has been a very active hurricane season in both the atlantic and the pacific, and we are just continuing to stay abreast of everything that's going on so we can be prepared to support and respond as needed. >> finally, as we have been discussing this morning, this is not just a florida story, you just mentioned it, it's going to move up into georgia, coastal south carolina, everybody into north carolina. what is your message to the residents of coastal cities there this morning? >> yeah, not just coastal cities but also our inland cities. and the message is listen to your local officials. this storm is still significant. it's going to stay a category 2 as it goes into georgia, which means significant winds, and it's also bringing a lot of rain, and there could be some very localized flooding, urban flooding that could pose additional danger. listen to your local officials. heed their advice and what they're telling you to do until the storm passes. >> good advice. a ton of work ahead of you in the days and weeks to come. we appreciate your time. fema administrator, deanne criswell, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back on "morning joe" with our reporters stationed up and down the coast and inland in florida looking at what is now a category 2 hurricane idalia. still dangerous, still very powerful. we'll be right back on "morning joe." powerful we'll be right back on "morning joe. ♪ ♪ wake up, gotta go! c'mon, c'mon. -gracie, c'mon. let's go! guys, c'mon! mom, c'mon! mia! 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[ engine revving ] ♪ ♪ made it! mom! leave running behind, behind. the new turbocharged volkswagen atlas. does life beautifully. at the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's, this is why we walk. ♪ they're why we walk. ♪ we walk in the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's because we're getting closer to beating this disease. join us. i'm your football-obsessed-best-man. and i think you having your big day, during the big game, is the worst. what are you kidding me? physically i'm right here, but mentally, i'm here. yeah, “i do” c'mon speed it up. so, when all eyes are on you, my eyes are glued to the game. touchdown! yeah! and if you didn't bundle your home and auto insurance... all of this...this could be tough to tackle. so, get allstate and be better protected from mayhem... like me. welcome back to "morning joe," 9:19 in new york city. 6:19 as you wake up out west, and we are following hurricane idalia. now, a category 2 storm after making landfall just over an hour ago as a powerful category 3. joining us again from perry, florida, one of the areas hardest hit by this storm, nbc news national correspondent gabe gutierrez. gabe, things have calmed just a touch since we saw you last. >> reporter: hey there, again, willie, what a difference a half hour makes, right, but a half hour, 45 minutes ago, we were being pounded with some of the worst winds that we had seen from hurricane idalia. things have calmed down again. we're still getting rain but very minor winds at this point, as that eye wall brushed past us. there has still been some swirling winds and they pick up every few moments or so. what's starting to happen, i see cars going around starting to assess the damage here. you may have seen in the last hour, hour and a half, this billboard, it's not there anymore. it was ripped apart, collapsed. we're seeing some downed trees in the distance as well. no downed power lines immediately. i'm looking over there, and there does seem to be a power pole that's kind of off to the side. we're next to this building here, a concrete structure and rode out the storm safely, along with other relates and members of the media as well. but local authorities here said once winds reached 45 miles an hour here, they wouldn't be able to help anyone because it was just too dangerous for their deputies. we are well past that. some wind gusts of more than 100 miles per hour here in perry. and, willie, we're 20 miles inland. as that made landfall in keaton beach, with the additional hardship of having to deal with a massive storm surge. that's what we're hearing throughout parts of florida, along the coast, they had to prepare and deal with this potentially catastrophic storm surge. here in perry, though, we saw some of the worst winds of the storm, one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the big bend region in recorded history. >> we're getting early pictures into us, just informally from keaton beach. i know you haven't been out and about, nor should you be, but any assessment from officials there of damage? >> reporter: at this point, we haven't heard significant reports of damage yet. it is very early. we are speaking with another resident who stayed at this hotel. he lives in keaton beach. he actually lost contact with his family members a couple of hours ago, and that's to be expected because we actually have noticed in the last hour, hour and a half, some of the most significant winds came by here, at least some cell service has diminished in this area. it's to be expected in this type of major storm. emergency management officials made it a point at this morning's briefing to say hundreds of star link internet services, portable wi-fi routers that were able to bring connectivity to hard hit areas, that's incredible, and frankly, willie, the fact that we're able to stay on the air with a powerful hurricane with wind gusts, using what's called live view equipment, which uses cell phone service, we were able to stay on the air during the worst of the storm, even though the winds were packing such a powerful punch here. again, back to your question in terms of damage, that is just starting to be assessed now. >> a credit to you and our technical teams that you can continue to broadcast out of there. let's go southeast from perry to gainesville, florida, where we have nbc news correspondent guad venegas stand big. what are you seeing there this morning? >> reporter: we're about 75 miles east of where the storm made landfall, and it's been windy. we had rain all through the night. it's coming on today. it's not raining at the moment. it just started raining as i'm speaking and authorities here are worried because of the wind, of course, and we are under that area in florida that is under the tornado watch. about an hour ago, we had a tornado warning that went into effect south of us in marion county. authorities want people to remain at home and wait for the rest of the storm to make its way through gainesville. a lot of the residents here college students from the university of florida, which is right behind us. what we have seen this morning are branches outside, some debris that was blown around by the wind. authorities do report some trees that have fallen around the county. and also power outages. i just checked and the last report indicates that almost 245,000 customers in florida have lost power. that number is, of course, growing by the hour as the storm makes its way through the state. thousands of those customers are here near gainesville. they have lost their power, and we are still waiting for some of this wind to make its way through the area, and of course with that tornado watch in effect, at least for another few hours, they are asking people to remain at home and not go out yet. now, a lot of residents have come outside to talk to us and ask us what we know about the storm, they want to know if the worst has passed. the message is to remain at home for more rain and wind to make its way through the area, willie. >> nbc's guad venegas in gainesville, florida, home to the university of florida, where classes are cancelled today. we'll see if they can get up and running for the rest of the week. >> let's go to bill karins, our meteorologist. what else can you tell us about where the storm is right now, where it's headed? . >> what's unusual about this storm, we had pretty much a sunrise landfall. we're getting instantaneous pictures from a lot of areas, even the hardest hit areas. a, that's where we have roofs torn off, that's where we have a lot of trees going down, power outages, but the water is just as big of an issue as we thought. you look at the tampa area, we show you pictures all day of the bridge on northbound 275, you know, if this is tampa, 200 miles south of where the landfall was. you can kind of picture what it looks like towards the landfall where the estimated storm surge is anywhere up to about 10 feet. we know that we broke the high water mark in cedar key. they did heed them about 6 feet of water, but the storm surge was 8. it hit at low tide, which really probably saved a lot of property in the cedar key area. still a lot of lower levels of buildings have damage in homes, but the upper levels looked like they survived and they should be okay. some of the smaller areas, earlier when i was looking at the landfall map, i have been sent pictures showing water covering all the buildings about 3/4 up. that's going to be one of the areas, and i have heard reports from storm chasers that horseshoe pass beach, all the structures there are under water. that's where we expected the worst of the storm surge to be, north of the tampa area. these areas i was just mentioning, all in year. this is where cedar key s areas north of brooksville, all the small communities in here is where we have the significant damage from the storm surge. that's even still happening, even though it made landfall because the wind is coming on shore. this happened at low tide. at high tide it would have been 2 to 3 feet worse. power outages in georgia, 10,000, valdosta, gusts of 50 to 60 miles per hour. you're about to go through the eye of the storm. if we are to get 80 to 100 miles per hour wind gust, it would be in this area here. let me show a closer view of the eye, to see what towns are going through the worst of it, we have isolated tornado warnings, and we'll continue to watch those as we go throughout the rest of the afternoon. we haven't talked about the path in a while for a lot of friends. this is the bridge by the way, we're showing you in tampa with all the approximate. as we go through the rest of the afternoon, don't be surprised if it goes to a category 1, by the time it gets to central georgia, and south georgia this afternoon, by the time we get to savannah, that's about when it should be going from a hurricane to a tropical storm. timing it out from brunswick to savannah, the worst is the mid afternoon to early evening. for charleston, it's more going to be late afternoon, right through the evening, and in charleston, the high tide is expected about 8:30 this evening. we do think that will be close to a top ten all time tide level. significant damage is possible. especially if the tide ends up worse than expected. this map i was showing you before, until 3:00 p.m., this is going to be extended northwards, the storm prediction center came out with a new outlook telling us that all coastal areas in south carolina and even north carolina do have the possibility of dealing with tornadoes as we go throughout the rest of this afternoon and evening. wind hazards with the landfall and the high winds, the storm surge that's ongoing, and now we're going to watch for the potential for flash flooding and those tornadoes the rest of this afternoon. about 24 more hours until we can get everyone the all year from this storm. >> things in that picture you showed us right now, may look calm, in fact, calmer than they looked two hours or so ago. she warns starting at noon, the king tide is going to come in, and raise the storm surge again until at least this evening. >> the king tide is just an overwhelming term that they use for exceptionally high tides when you have full moons. and the full moon, literally about the closest we can gets to the moon this evening. if you look tonight in the sky, if you have clear skies, it's going to look compensationally -- exceptionally bright. that pulls on the ties and tugs on the ocean. even without the storm we would have had high water levels throughout the southeast, but because of the storm with the additional of the storm surge, it's like a double whammy. if i was a circle on a calendar, before hurricane season, when would be the worst time to have a hurricane hit, i probably would have circled today because you don't want to have a full moon with astronomical high tides with storm surge on top of it. that's worst case scenario. that's what happened when we had sandy in areas of the northeast, the exceptional high tide plus the storm on top of it, and that's when you can get crazy high water levels even without a category 3 or 4. a tropical storm or maybe a category 1, we're talking about rivaling some of the highest water levels in hilton and charleston. hopefully it won't catch people by surprise. hopefully they're heeding warnings. >> charleston, already we're expecting some surge, and now mix in a hurricane with it. bill, thank you so much. we'll be back to you shortly as our breaking news coverage continues after a quick break. it's a live picture of tampa right now. as we said, the worst is not over there. the king tide coming in, we'll speak with a public safety official just outside of tampa when "morning joe's" coverage of hurricane idalia comes right back. coverage of hurricane idalia comes right back somedays, i cover up because of my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to 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that's a current look at 9:35, florida time, of hurricane idalia, a category 2 storm that made landfall nearly two hours ago now in a little town called keaton beach, florida. made landfall as a strong category 3 since downgraded as it moves across land. joining us now, the public safety information chief with hillsboro county fire rescue, rob heron, located about ten miles east of tampa. thank you for your time this morning. tell us what you're seeing where you are, and if you have had to make any rescues this morning? >> good morning. yeah, we have several teams that are out doing needs assessment, damage assessment, reporting it back to our command center where we're going to mobilize technical search and rescue teams to the hardest hit areas. so far i haven't had too many reports of rescues. there's some individuals that we encountered that were able to walk to our vehicles, to our trucks, but that was a lot earlier before this, you know, high tide. it was at low tide where the water is coming in, were probably the lowest. we anticipate that ramping up. we have boat assets stand big ready to affect rescue as necessary. >> have any of your people been able to get out yet safely and make an assessment of the damage. if so, how bad does it look out there? >> yes, we've been out probably now for two and a half hours, maybe a little longer. we have several teams that are out assessing the damage. right now, there is a significant amount of flooding in the coastal regions of the tampa bay area that are pretty heavily populated. we have not had too many calls for rescue yet. but as we know, we've discussed here on your program, the worst is still ahead of us with the king tide, and high tide still not projected to be until 1:00 and 3:00 this afternoon, depending on what parts of the bay area are involved. >> i was going to ask you about that, rob, which is that you could see where some citizens might turn on the tv or look out the window and say, oh, it looks like it's cleared up. it's safe to go outside, what is the message you would give to those people and the residents where you are. >> i would say, stay where you are until you hear from local officials that there is the all clear. we have these teams in place, they're ready to respond as needed, but, you know, we have some rivers that are set to crest to pretty high 5.7 feet this afternoon at that peak tide, and, so you know, it might look sunny. might be the calm after the storm. the winds and the rains have subsided, but that surge is delayed, and we ask that you, if you're in an evacuation area, and you chose not to, please stay put until you hear from local county officials that it's clear. >> yeah, there's still a lot of water, a lot of surge ahead as you say. public safety information chief with hillsboro county fire rescue, rob herrin. i know what a busy day this is, we appreciate you taking the time with us, thank you. >> thank you. >> when we come back, our reporter in tallahassee, 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[mind blown explosion noise] there it is, the moment earlier this morning when a billboard collapsed in perry, florida, a town the name the country's getting to know this morning, some of the strongest weather of hurricane idalia where winds have gusted up to 100 miles per hour. joining us now from tallahassee, a little bit north of there, nbc news correspondent maggie vespa. we have sort of been tracking the situation in tallahassee by looking at you in these live shots, how is it right now? >> reporter: thankfully it's lightened up a little bit from the last time we talked. basically we had, and i think bill karins was on at that point, saying tallahassee is getting hit with the worst it could get all morning, it could get better from there. still have power. that seems to be the case. we do have strong wind gusts out here, and power outages remain the major kind of concern throughout the morning. i'm going to walk so you can see the scene behind me, how things are gusting, water is sheeting, pooling, we have somewhat miraculously, despite the ongoing intense winds seeing power crews, utility workers, restoring power. we have heard thousands of homes have had their power restored after losing it this morning. we have also been seeing that clip all morning of governor ron desantis holding his press conference with state emergency leaders and emergency response coordinators, when the power went out for them. you said before, heading to break, that is kind of the unique challenge we're seeing in tallahassee, the state officials having to respond to the hurricane, coordinate the response while on a rare occasion, a historic occasion here, getting hit with remnants of the hurricane itself. tallahassee, typically not in the strike zone of these storms. yesterday, a lot of people here in this metro area of 200,000 plus, learning that idalia had tracked further west than initially forecasted and suddenly they had to learn about the storm. we saw people frantically filling up sandbags, and weighing suddenly, whether they needed to evacuate. you might be able to hear the generator at the hotel here. we had the power trip out in the last hour or so. the generator now keeping power on for our hotel, and seemingly a cup of buildings in this part of town, so, again, power crews out across tallahassee. the concern across tallahassee, these strong winds knocking down trees, throwing debris and in a lot of cases, thousands of cases, willie, knocking out power across the area. . back to you. >> it has to be underlined, how amazing the power crews are, already up on the lines, the linemen fixing power, getting it back to people who need it so badly. is there any sense that the response to this has been hindered at all by that weather in tallahassee? it sure doesn't seem like it. >> reporter: i apologize, with the wind gust at that point, having trouble hearing what you just said. >> i was just saying is there any sense that the response from tallahassee, from the governor, fema at the state level, has it been hindered at all by the weather you're seeing in tallahassee or is it moving forward as planned? >> reporter: it seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern, which seems to be the plan, so to speak. the worst of the storm is still making its way across the area, so think of it how they have been warning people that, for instance, even local public safety officials have been saying, once the wind starts gusting, blowing sustained, 35, 45 miles per hour, that's when a lot of emergency response officials, a lot of first responders can be on the roads, can't help you at that point, it's too dangerous for them. again, we're starting to see the power crews out and about. we should, we haven't seen the remnants personally, but start to see the response more broadly. fema, like you talk about, state emergency response officials like you talked about, assessing the damage. keep in mind, this has slowed down in the last half hour or so, and we're still getting wind gusts and sheering wind, which is making it tough to hear you in the studio at times. as this starts to subside, hope fly we'll see the response in realtime. >> maggie vespa in the state capital of tallahassee. as we head to break, a building on the ground at a hotel in cedar key, florida, washing away. you can see the significant flooding and devastation across that area, not terribly far from where this storm made landfall. again, idalia right now, a category 2 as it moves inland across florida, and then up into georgia, south carolina, and parts of north carolina over the next couple of days. our coverage of idalia continues after a short break. ge of idalis after a short break. 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and relieve your asthma symptoms. so you can be you, whoever you are. tezspire is not a rescue medication. don't take tezspire if you're allergic to it. allergic reactions may occur and can be serious. rash or eye allergy can happen. don't stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection or your asthma worsens. sore throat, joint and back pain may occur. avoid live vaccines. by helping control your asthma, tezspire can help you be you. no matter who you are, ask your asthma specialist about tezspire today. new video just in to us from pasco county, florida. these are images, actually, photographs from the sheriff's office posting these pictures of flooded roadways and homes, downed trees, power lines. authorities warning residents absolutely not to go out and drive in these conditions. pasco county just north of tampa, which, again, is expecting another surge of water this afternoon. so as the mayor and emergency services have told us, it may seem okay for the moment. maybe the weather feels like it's cleared, but there is more water on the way. please be very careful out there. as hurricane idalia a category 2 continues to hammer florida's gulf coast, the insurance industry calling it a multibillion dollar event. hurricane ian slammed into florida inflicting nearly $100 billion in damage. according to "the new york times," insurance companies still reeling from ian. some firms doubt they can continue to cope with these super storms. while others have limited their business altogether in florida. one insurance trade group estimates the property and casualty insurers in the state have had cumulative underwriting losses of more than $1 billion for the last three years. so that's something to think about down the road as the insurance for the here and now. let's go back to our meteorologist bill karins. as we come up on the 10:00 hour hear on the east coast anddown in florida, how's the storm looking. >> only two and a half hours ago, two hours ago, and the storm surge going into the storm, we said the storm surge was the biggest threat. that's what was requesting to -- going to cause the most damage. this is not fort myers, into a major city but for all of those small communities and towns north of tampa especially, that's where we've had the damage. one of the storm chaser friends i have, he put a camera up at horseshoe beach that was roughly about 10 to 12 feet aboveground level, the camera was washed away. just to give you an idea. those pictures will trickle in. there is significant damage. we showed you the pictures just now from pasco county from the sheriff, other areas, water all into all the buildings, and obviously cedar key set their record for the highest water they've had with an 8 foot storm surge, and up towards the eye where it made landfall. we haven't had those pictures yet but i'm sure it's going to look similar if not worse. let's reset for you. we get hourly updates from the hurricane center, hourly positions. at the top of the last hour, it was 110. we'll probably drop this by another 10 miles per hour. still likely a category 2 with the update coming. we're watching the storm beginning now to cross i-10. now it's heading its way into georgia in what's left of what was the eye wall, this area of intense thunderstorms. you can see a couple of lightning flashes in the last half hour is now crossing the border from florida into georgia. a lot of even the heavy rain has stopped. it's still windy from perry to cross city, and then tallahassee, it's still raining, still gusty. if you have power at this point, you likely will keep it. tallahassee you'll even see the sun breaking out. >> thank you so much for all of your coverage this morning or these last four hours. we sure appreciate it. we understand that president biden will be speaking later today about these storms that are in florida, moving into georgia, south carolina, and north carolina when we came on the air this morning, it was dark. since then the storm has made landfall and now we're getting our first light in looking at some of the damage left behind. this is a long storm. this will be a story for a couple of days as the damage is assessed. that does it for us this morning. we'll be right back here tomorrow morning on "morning joe." josé diaz-balart, ryan nobles pick up the coverage after a break. pick up the coverage after a break. used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. ♪ chevy silverado has what it 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meteorologist and our reporters are in position across florida this morning to