How concerned are you about what is happening, and frankly, there are people who are refusing to even evacuate. well, they are. good evening, laura. you know, gloria had it exactly right. we are about 25 miles south of where she is in clearwater. down here in st. petersburg, florida. and what we have told folks from the initial projections is that we need to run from the water and hide from the wind. and when we have a category four hurricane, now, even if it is 100 miles west of us, we still expect to get that 4 to 6 feet of storm surge. and that will be devastating. what we try to tell folks, and part of the issue in florida as we have so many new people to florida to have not dealt with a hurricane before, is, you know just look at our neighbors down in the st. meyer s fort myers area who almost a year ago had a similar situation where the hurricane was not projected to hit them straight on, but at the last moment it
Hurricane idalia barreling towards florida s west coast with what could be a life-threatening storm surge. cnn s gloria past middle s in clearwater, where big storm conditions are set to happen around midnight, just about 40 minutes from now, with a surge that could reach 4 to 7 feet. gloria, what are the conditions like right now along the coastline? well, laura, listen. we have been here all day, and it has gotten worse and worse by the hour. the wind has significantly picked up, and just in the last few minutes, it was raining and sheets. but as you can see now, it is not raining as hard, and that is what we have been seeing in the last hour or so, it just comes in and out. and what we are experiencing is those outer bands of the