Maybe reckless endangerment. Whether or not the charges come. Hard to to imagine they didnt evacuate these people. And move them to a working hospital. Where they could have saved their lives. The news continues. Cuomo primetime starts now. Im chris cuomo, welcome to primetime. Soon it will be too late to escape florence. Go now if youve been directed to evacuate. Officials up and down the coast are echoing this warning. Please hear it. Many of you are watching from the areas that could be affected. Please dont meet me the clown under circumstances you may regret during or after this storm. Winds are beginning to blow now even more americans are in the path of destruction. Florence has weakened slightly to a category 3, but its increased in size and taken a slight turn. The second and third factors matter way more than the first. Georgia is now in jeopardy as well and the entire caroline coastline is bracing for a direct hit. Tonight we have the one ask only sam champion is here. The storm is coming, my friends, its time to prepare. Lets get after it. The storm of a lifetime, thats what experts are calling it. Lets show why forecasters warn that florence could be the most intense hurricane to strike the eastern seaboard in decades. What are the numbers . 25 million in the forecast. Sam champion is here. We Work Together at abc news. Sam men order the me in the ways of weather for years. Thank you, brother. Its good to have you. Pleasure to be here. This does not look good. No, and its important because these things will fluctuate in strength. This storm is really getting bigger and thats bad in a lot of ways. So tonight we need to double down on who should get out because tomorrow even though were going to start to see those Tropical Storm force winds, we wont have time to make the decisions. Whos going to flood. And theres a big area of that as well. Fresh water flooding, storm surge flooding, this storm has it all. Lets start with the data and science. We have tom sater. What do we know, tom . You got a good mentor there. For those of you who wanted to know how large in size florence is, to compare to the land, were getting much closer now. You can see what a monster this is. This all started a little wave off the coast of africa, the First Advisory was august 30th, two weeks ago. For the first time in history a Storm Hurricane at this latitude and longitude is making landfall. Never before has that happened. Theyve all moved to the north. Heres the problem. Between tomorrow night, thursday night and sunday morning, florence may move only 150 miles. That is slower than a walking pace. Two to three miles an hour. Like harvey. Thats port of the problem now. You look at the Hurricane Force winds. The Tropical Storm force winds, youre starting to see how its broad eng out. This is an amazing storm. Early in the morning on the Northeast Quadrant a wave height was reported at 83 feet. Is that thats mind boggling. So this system as it moves in you can see how far out 300 miles of Tropical Storm force winds. Its day in and day out of storm surge. This is a relentless rainfall and believe it or not, we may see more rain than washington, d. C. , picks up in an entire year in just three days. I got a quick question because people will be looking at numbers and chris and i were just talking about this before the show. When you see two times in a row this storm has dropped or weakened a little bit, and some people might get the feeling this is going to an allclear. But talk to me about how this storm could strengthen, weaken, and how its not an allclear. When you look at the satellite, its quite ragged. Theres dry air coming in underneath and youre losing an eye. Hurricane hunters flying into this. Do not bite on the notion this is weakening. Tomorrow it will get to the gulf stream and it has a few tricks up its sleeve. These things as you know, everyone is different. Every characteristic is different from storm to storm. The National Hurricane center is going to play with that track a little bit. It cant jump on over model that would be irresponsible. Right. We need to get supplies in place and evacuations, but just looking at these molds and for the european, looks like wilmington is going to get hammered. Carolina beach. But the european model, it wants to drift it back off shore. Down to the south. Thats why the size winds up being relevant. Stay with us. Lets go over to the wall and start going through some of these factors and ill use both of you guys to kind of let people know why were worried about this. Again, this idea of just worrying about the numbers itself, its not enough. Here we are last year with irma. The difference between 145 miles an hour and 105 miles an hour, meaningless when youre standing in it but people take the numbers as some type of direction as to how bad it is. Category 4, 120, category 3, so dont care about the categories. This is a dangerous and destructive storm. That storm did a lot of damage. This storm will do a lot of damage. As tom mentioned, theyre all completely different. Pushed my hairline back half an inch. You mentioned the wave 83 feet. People will look at the data and say the face of it was only 35, 40. We measure from the back of the wave from meteorology because that indicates the force that is pushing along with that water. Thats what creates surge. What do you see in these numbers . That wave was on the northern right side of the storm. If you took the storm and drew a pie across it, the wave height was up here. If its coming this way, its over here. Right. So, this is the worst part of the storm. That quadrant, right front quadrant. To get off what were talking about for a second off that wave, when that moves on shore, this will move on shore like that which means everything north of wherever the center of the storm strikes, all of that on the coast line, north and east, will get the worst part of this storm. So thats where that wave height, that 83foothigh wave was. Were not going to see waves like that along the coast. But heres what that tells us. First of all, that wave is there because the storm was moving, it was trapped in winds pushing in the same direction. As that gets here, what we know now is there is a wall of Water Associated with this storm. Usually as this storm is bigger, so is that wall of water. With the eye getting bigger, the wall of water gets bigger. And we know that wall of water is going to end up someplace, the storm surge along the coast. Transfer that 83foot wave down to about 9 to 13 foot storm surge. Were pretty darn sure thats going to happen because there is that much wave action. Tom, one of the reasons were looking at this and trying to figure out what it means, numbers can be deceptive. This is the regular height in that region, tom. If if you can see this from where you are, this is what 6 to 13 feet winds up looking like. It takes you fought top of your house. Unless you hide in the attic, weve seen very low percentage. Even if you have to get out of the water, its better to take your chances not in the house than to get in the attic. Nobody can get you out if there are no windows. There is an nobody carrying machinery to get you out of the attic in a storm like this. Heres the other thing you need to know. A lot of these homes are built on stilts and they think theyre doing okay. Remember, the stilts are not quite a full story. When we have a 13foot storm surge, thats a story and a half. So thats almost two stories of moving water coming at your house. Even if you had stilts on the house, youre still going to wind up about here. You cant exist in that. What always confuses me or concerns me, those that stay behind say i have supplies and i have a generator. You lose a roof or you have 6 feet of water in your house, youre not using your generator. The other problem how many thousands have they sold and theyre firsttime buyers . Theyre going to use them in their home. Every storm we see fatalities of people using generators inside. Good point. Let the visual tell the story for you. If you had a generator where is it, where is it with this kind of water . Its under water. The other thing is water is going to be sitting here for a while, if you stayed in these communities with the water trapped around the house youre not going be able to get in and get out. Youre going to have several feet of water. Its not water any more. Once youre in there, its sewage, everything thats runoff from everything. It gets toxic quickly. We hear about secondary, tertiary, third level infections. Good point. Rain level, size of storm has created new potential for different areas that werent waiting, sam. Right. Tom did a great job of showing you how the storm moved off the african coast line. Its had days to collect moisture in the storm. There is a lot of rain here. Prior to the last 12, not even 20 hours, the South Carolina area wasnt thinking about this much rain. We were really focusing on it here and possibly a little bit in southern virginia. Now this turn and drift that he mentioned is critical. Its hugely important because all of South Carolina is in play. Look at that, all of South Carolina is basically going to flood. Weve got the low lansdowne in here. So even if you dont flood like savannah, youre looking, oh, im not getting the big water out of this. Youre going to get the big drain out of this. The other thing that happens with this is that storm surge pushes water for the entire time its here. Its going to be more than a day kind of wandering the shoreline maybe. That water is holding in those bays and inlets pushing water in there. Tom made a good point. This is not spongy space. Its permeable and thats why its so destructive. Tom, please, go ahead. You know, the second part of this is the mountains of the blue ridge and the piedmont up to areas of shenandoah because theyve already been inundated with flooding in parts of pennsylvania and upstate new york. When this system starts to move northward in the next several days, its going to pull a lot of moisture in that area that theyve already been performing water rescues. I mean, the streams are so high right now, this is not just a coastal event when we get toward thursday wednesday, thursday and friday. So this is going to be ongoing. And really stretch the resources for Law Enforcement and First Responders well up in i think to areas of new england. So the last factor, youve got capacity and concentration. Hazelle was what, 1940, 1950 something hazelle came in there . Eisenhower was president. This was who was exposed then. Look how over time 1990, now were talking hurricane hugo. Category 4 changed the topography of this area. It was the most expensive storm in termds of damage at the time. But now look at it. Look at the concentration, look at the over building and the population, sam. This is the problem. In the old days, chris, we would say that this part of the country is well versed in hurricanes and Tropical Storms. This area gets hit a lot. They have to prepare a lot. They know a lot. But whats happened in the last ten years is that population explosion, and at the same time there hasnt been a big storm. A lot of these people and this is a big college area inland as well. A lot of these people will be in the storm for the very first time. Look how many people live along the coast line. Weve got the coast line handled with those evacuations. My real, real, real present concern is whats going to happen inland. Were talking about, chris, feet of rain. When youre talking from 20 to 30 to possibly 40 inches of rain and all of that rushing in kind of a runoff direction, its going to be a catastrophe for some town, some area with this flood. Tom, you have the storm surge and the winds pushing that water so its not just the rain event. No. And then with all the rain thats falling, that surge is going to keep it inland. Part of the problem is this topography, too. The angle of the coast lines and the angle of approach florence is making. Its a big difference when you have it perpendicular is or parallel to the wind event. So i mean youre absolutely right. Were going to have flooding thats going to be well inland. That surge is going to keep that rain and its going to return on the backside of this storm. So theres always a problem, too, on the backside that many think theyre in the clear and theyre just not. People sleep when they see the eye and its a bad wake up call every time. Tom, thank you very much. Ill be checking back with you early and often. Sam, stay here because now were going to go to the next phase of insight. Were going to have brett adaire join us. Hes a storm chaser. He just made his way to the front lines of florence. What concerns him about florence and something many dont know about the economic risk for people who live in the carolinas. Stay with us. Dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands. Commanded armies. Yielded to no one. When i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. My name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. Now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com you wouldnt accept an incomplete job from any one else. Why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase sensimist relieves your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. It helps block six key inflammatory substances. Most pills block one. Flonase sensimist. And an ice plant. Rs withne. 70megawatts, 35 mules, but we brought power to the people redefining what that meant from one era to the next. Over 90 years later we continue to build as one of the nations largest investors in infrastructure. We dont just help power the american dream. Were part of it. This is our era. This is Americas Energy era. Nextera energy p3 its meat, cheese and nuts. I keep my protein interesting. Oh yea, me too. I have cheese and uh these herbs. P3 snacks. The more interesting way to get your protein. The good news is florence has slowed down. Heed the warnings, execute it, get out if you were directed to do so. The bad news, slowing down has allowed this storm to expand. Its roughly 300 miles off the southeast coast of wilmington, North Carolina. Locals have cleared out to a large degree. Some hunkering down. Take a look at this video. This is inside the eye of the storm. This is the calm area with hell on all sides. Air force flying right into it gathering weather data for the National Hurricane center to provide all of us with the most Accurate Information about this monster storm. That takes us to brett adaire. These a storm chaser extraordinaire and field meteorologist. Joins us right now from wilmington. Now, youre there. Thank you. Be safe. Because thats where we expected to be the main hit from landfall. But now we see a turn, we see an increase in size. What does it mean to you . Yeah, chris. Weve been watching this thing all day with the Hurricane Center updates. Weve been watching the live air force reconnaissance going in checking the storm out. To us basically, a stallout on the coast line would be a worst case situation because youre going to see those Hurricane Force impacts be felt here in wilmington and along the beaches here for a much longer period of time as well as that inland heavy rainfall threat. Plus youve got the storm surge. And then youve got the waves on top of the storm surge so were very concerned for this area no doubt. Whats next for you in terms of what you want to see with this storm . Well, chris, were really just monitoring the situation. We want everyone here to understand just because we have seen maybe what they would call a weakening of the storm, just because the winds are down below 120 miles an hour, that means nothing. This storm is massive. It is much larger than hugo was when it hit this area in 89. Its larger than hazelle was when it hit in 54. Those are the two benchmark storms for the carolinas. So just because youve seen a little bit of weakening in the winds doesnt mean those wind fields arent growing larger and going to affect a larger land mass. This is still a serious storm, a dangerous threat as we go into the next couple of days. All right. I have sam champion here. What do you have for brett adaire . So, brett, i think you made a huge point for these people because there is only one time that i have ever been forced out of a shelter, and that was a category 1 storm, brett. Its exactly what you just said. Is that it stayed over us for 20 hours. The building was fine, secure, the roof was fine. This was a great place to be for the storm. But 20 hours of being in a blender took the windows out, took the walls down, took the roof out. Its the kind of thing that prolonged damage can be worse than that initial hit. So, brett, are you hearing that people are relaxing a little bit now, or are they still on point with the watches and warnings in the area . Oh, everybody is still paying a lot of attention to the situation, sam. Most of the folks we talk to here along the immediate coast line are absolutely going to heed those evacuation orders and get out. Some of the more interior people, you know, they were getting all the supplies, the generators, the fuel. But again, like you said, if this storm sits here for 24 hours, even longer, youve got the freshwater flooding threat that you could get trapped along with that wind damage threat, the surge threat, all that water from the atlantic is going to go up the rivers and into the inlets. Where is it going to go . Its going to spill out on the land. And water that you cant use. So if youre stuck, you dont have potable water. Youre just sitting and waiting and putting a ton of stress on the First Responders. And we know how that story goes. Brett, be safe. Ill be checking in with you. Im going to be down there later tonight. Im sure well meet up at some point, okay . Thank you, brother, appreciate it. You know, the story there is a story in a lot of the science. So you and i are covering a we covered like a hundred storms. A lot. I think were in super storm sandy, and im standing somewhere and you say, we have to leave. Were in downtown manhattan. It was not that bad. I remember. You say, no, its duration. We cant take this level of rain for this long with this wind. Were going to get stuck. Cut to two hours later, were staring at my brother across in that big humv. The west side highway, we were trapped on top of a van and inside the van for the entire nig