hurricaneidalia. it is 10:00 a.m. eastern here in crystal river, florida, thank you for joining us for a special two-hour edition of josé diaz-balart reports. florida s big bend is right in the thick of it as we come on the air this morning. hurricane idalia now a cat 3 making landfall just a short time ago. it has actually now been downgraded to a 2, but it hit the coast of florida as a cat 3, a very high cat 3. joining us now, telemundo s julio varcado with me here in crystal river, nbc s maggie vespa and meteorologist bill karins standing by with our forecast. maggie, what s the situation where you are? reporter: thankfully things have started to lighten up in the last hour or so. we re still getting really intense bands of wind and rain as well coming through. the big concern here in tallahassee in the state s capital is the power outages. thousands across this metro area without power, somewhat miraculously we ve already seen utility crews across the area driving ar
It's the 117th annual Rhododendron Festival, also known as Rhody Days celebration.The annual event is running now until Sunday May 19th in Old Town, Florence.Th