The news. Thank you so, much good evening everyone, im laura coates and this is cnn tonight. Our Breaking News, a brandnew forecast for Hurricane Idalia, the storm rapidly intensifying as its lashing florida ahead of what is feared to be a catastrophic landfall on the states west coast in just a matter of hours. Potentially deadly storm surge and Hurricane Conditions expected not only tonight, but also tomorrow. Officials say that the surge could be a Once In A Lifetime event. Idalia is now a category two, with maximum winds of 110 miles per hour. It is now forecast to become a powerful category four, before landfall tomorrow morning. We have got to 49 florida counties that are under states of emergency as we speak and as they are waiting to see what the next few hours will bring. Well be covering everything as only cnn can tonight. We have got to teams out across the entire storm zone, weve got chad myers in the cnn winter center, Carlos Flores is in tampa, brian todd is in st. Marks
As well as clearwater. we are told that there has been some reports of flooding there, right now, laura, this is the worst of the weather that we have seen, although when you take a look at the radar of, of course it explains why it is happening. we have that hurricane that is off to the west of the tampa bay area having, again, spent the better part of a day out here. we were talking to a number of folks who came out to this location and they told us, look, we don t think it is going to be as bad considering how things are right now, so a lot of folks that we came across told us, look, we are not going to evacuate, we re not going to go inland. it s a message that emergency officials really don t want to hear because the concern going into tonight and then tomorrow is that then we are going to start seeing storm surge and so the last thing that emergency officials want our for folks to be complacent and to be out and about thinking that the worst of the storm has passed by, which by a
It is just gaining more strength, so going from 1:10 to 1:30, just in the next nine hours is really going to be an impressive intensification here as the category four, right there, not that far from all of our reporters that are up there in that big bend area. here is the rainfall on the radar, that actually can be seen from tampa and also from key west. some of these storms on this outer band, they could contain some tornadoes tonight. make sure you have a way to get your warnings tonight. something else here, though, i think. 110 mile per hour winds and even gusts all the way across the florida georgia line and then, finally, a hurricane still for jekyll, new brunswick, jacksonville florida. because the storm is going to be moving so quickly, not losing a lot of strength, those winds will stay with the storm. and so, therefore, the winds will continue to knock trees down, knocked power lines down. this will be a massive cleanup
Hit, the volumes of businesses, the number of people affected, look to the population centers, because that is where you are really going to struggle to get the info. getting resources to people who are affected out here? that could be really difficult. pretty unbelievable. and, i am looking at this and wondering how it compares to other storms we have already seen. even in recent days. you know, i have been covering hurricanes for a long, long, long time. you can do all the protecting you want, in the and the water comes, and the storm comes in, and you find out what really happens. and the case of ike in 2008, what we saw what really happened was 15 to 20 foot surges in texas near galveston, about 25 billion dollars in damage. hurricane denys in 2005, 7 to 9 foot search on the florida panhandle, pushing up towards alabama,. their 2.2 billion dollars in damage. again, think about where it hit, how much building went on there, because some of these storms are very expensive because
Heavily populated areas. because it is so much harder to get out there, even if you try to flee. if everyone tries to flee at the last minute, and now we are past the last-minute, we are at the point where you have to do the best that you can t right now to do what is safe. even if you try to flee then, the roads can become completely clocked, even before the storm gets there. that is why they warn people. your mayor said a little while ago, new arrivals? every single year in new orleans on the gulf coast, they were saying to people, if you are not from here, please listen. you don t know what this thing is like until you have been through some of them. and sunshine distance mean that it is over. oh no, oh no. and honestly, this was the day, right? this was the day. the day that katrina actually hit your hometown. it changed so many things, down there. i always say, don t forget the gulf coast because we re towns up there that, honestly the gulf side part of those towns c