Before making landfall earlier Than expecTed TonighT in florida. ForecasT To bring up To 15 feeT of lifeThreaTening STorm Surge To some regions, up To 18 inches of rain in areas like Tampa, and caTasTrophic, susTained winds. AT This hour, parTs of florida are already feeling The effecTs as milTon grows in size and moves closer To The WesT CoasT. More Than 1 Million people are under mandaTory evacuaTion orders. Thousands are sTill fleeing The sTaTe in search of higher ground, as The window To geT ouT sTarTs To close, and resources dwindle. As of This morning, 60 of Tampa Bays Service sTaTions reporTed They are compleTely, compleTely ouT of gas. And now Tornadoes like This one in broward counTy, hundreds of miles from milTons core. This is new video of IT Crossing i75 Today. Ill speak wiTh one of floridas mayors, The One who has rode ouT a whole loT of sTorms since The mid70s in a momenT. WhaT he says milTon could do. FirsT, leT us geT To our reporTers. Joining us now, nbc News Correspon
Right now theres widespread devastation, and an urgent search for survivors. The storm decimated towns with historic flooding washing out bridges and roads, and leaving some neighborhoods completely under water. Take a look at asheville, North Carolina, where homes and trucks were swept away by Raging Waters that have turned roads into rivers. At this hour, more than 2 Million people across the south are without power, hundreds are still unaccounted for. Well have live Team Coverage from across three states this morning. Joining us now, nbcs reporter, florida was the first place the Storm Hit. What are you seeing there . And im seeing George Solis there, who we will have on shortly. There is guad, also with us priscilla thomson. Guad, lets begin with you. Reporter total destruction in this area. So we are on treasure island. This is one of the islands on what they call the barrier islands, furthest west from the Tampa Bay Area, and i dont even know where to start here. So, the sand you
we begin with our chief meteorologist rick reichmuth in the fox weather center. rick? yeah, landfall about 55 minutes ago just around the georgetown, south carolina area. that s where the worst of the storm surge is. the storm surge on shore already. winds sustained were 85 miles an hour. a category one storm. we look at the satellite picture. looks like a mess. it s turning into a more typical storm that you might see in the northern latitudes or at least a combination between those two kinds of storms. the rain field will stretch out. we ll see the wind field stretch out as well across a lot of areas. in general, a weakening wind trend now that we have the storm over land. the winds gusting 46 miles an hour. that s an offshore wind. that is pushing water, not allowing storm surge there to be coming on. we have rain here. some of the storms out across east earn north carolina will have a tornado thread there. there s one tornado warning out there to inside of the outer
I cant stress this enough, this is an Ongoing Investigation in the early stages. More information will come out, in conjunction with the Attorney Generals Office as the lead prosecutor. We cant share all of our information right now and im sure you understand that. Im going to give out two numbers that go to a tip line. 911 is also appropriate for this, but if anyone can call these two numbers, this would go to the state police tip line. Area code 2072139526. 2075099002. And well be sending something out later that has that information in it, if you werent able to grab that now. Again this is a very fluid situation, we have a lot of resources as chief st. Pierre had mentioned earlier that are on the ground, in a coordinated effort to apprehend this individual. We have notified the department of education, and they have determined what theyre going to do with the schools. A lot of schools, area schools were shut down today based on our conversation with them. Again, as more information
And so, it is the Ongoing Investigation to apprehend this individual are happening simultaneously. I cant stress it enough, this is Ongoing Investigation in the early stages and more information is going to be coming out in conjunction with the Attorney Generals Office as the lead prosecutor. We cannot share all of the information right now, and i am sure that you understand that. I want to give out two numbers that are good with the tip line and 911 is appropriate for this, but if you can call these two numbers this going to the state police tip line. Area code 2072139526. 2075099002. Well be sending something out later that has the information in it if you were not able to grab it now. Again, this is a very fluid situation. We have a lot of resources as chief st. Pierre had mentioned earlier that are on the ground and in a coordinated effort to apprehend this individual. We have notified the Department Of Education and they have determined what they are going to do with the schools,