n ordered to evacuate as hurricane rita now is bearing down on the state shr gulf coast in just a moment.t. florida governor rhonda santos will join us first herest with the very latest from thisrs category three storm weather. in meteorologist ian oliver is with us in thisoliver. looks like it s going to be a direct hit right over. looks like somewhereoks li nortr fort myers, right towards tampa. yeah, anywhere from naples. igto the southern part of tampa bay, the mouth of tampa bay: stl still a reasonable scenaril o ao here. this is a monster of a storm, still a category three , as your mentioned,ee max, winds at 120we miles per hour. we actually had this inner eye wall that s been degrading, but there s an outer one that s forming. what that does is it spreads out the wind field overh a much larger area. we ve seen these impacts starttw already. tornado warnings throughouarnint the afternoon and evening across much of south florida. we ve got some active onesh flom right
Cycle, you re talking aboutr ont nine feet of water on top ofop normally dry ground across that entire barrier island.le e the whole area there irrn fortos myers beach, that s one threat ,the storm surge. we ve also got the hurricane conditions that will spread far inland. at dad then look at look this, ths darkrk red , including perhapsea the tampa bay area. that s 15 to as much as 20 aroun inches of rain. if you ve been around the tampa- bay area that amount of water will lead to catastrophic flooding. those are all the threats that we re watchingg. thwatching as we moveple of through the next couple of days. days. back to you in al ean: t our thank you for that. hatreport. we re going to more also with joe bastardi later on in the show. joining us now joining with moreh mo on this looming storm , floridae governor rhonda santurce,are bu governor , i know you re up.sy i know you re busy.i hear i heard your press conferencd e earlier two 1/2 million people have been ordered to ev