Stay updated with breaking news from Steve traxler. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
way here into this studio. he has an hour to get here. apparently, they are in kind of a lockdown at the moment. but he will eventually we believe get here. just don t put him up at the top. i thought he was going to be at the top of the show. do you need me to tap dance? it will be a minute. we were hoping to get him earlier. but he will get here and tell us what went on in there. spill the tea. i want to know. well, we are waiting for mike. the name of this episode is waiting for mike. a new play by lawrence o donnell. exactly. thanks alex. carry on. thank you. thank you. well, a presidential campaign came to new york city tonight. in fact, it is across the street from here. at radio city music hall. where the single biggest fundraiser of the presidential campaign took place tonight with three presidents on stage. biden, obama, and clinton. the event shows the unity of the democratic party. not just the democratic party today but the last 30 years as ....
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 driv ....
residents. people need to get ready for life-threatening storm surge that could be up to 16 feet that officials are now calling non-survivable. brian: all right. we have fox team coverage all morning long. senior meteorologist janice dean has been all morning long. tracking the storm on the ground. fox weather multi journalist brady campbell. nicole valdes in tampa and we begin in clearwater beach with robert ray. hey, robert. yeah. good morning, guys, from clearwater beach we have experienced what we expected and that is the storm surge that is coming in to clearwater beach here this morning. this is coronado street here and right off of the gulf of mexico. what do we see? we see at least a foot of water here come in. many of these roads are inundated around clearwater beach. this is what the anticipation was of this storm as overnight it just actually in the past hour kicked up to a category 4 major hurricane as it s making its way to the southeast of tallahassee ....
we saw heavy downpour, strong winds and would hit lulls and become dry and calm. now the winds moving steadily over past couple hours and notable, the water line. the gulf has slowly inched closer to land hitting the dune, probably moved up 10, twenty, 30 feet overnight consuming the beach behind me. seeing combination of high tide with storm surge we ve been reporting on. this area is low lying area, st. pets beach is barrier island, popular tourist destination. there are hotels and sprawling resorts up and down the beach. mandatory evacuation orders for this town, mostly a ghost town. most people are cooperating. governor desantis said if you have not evacuated by now, a first responder may not be able to respond to you. todd: matt finn, thank you. bring in nicole valdes live on the ground in tampa. nicole, what are you seeing out there? nicole: just along tampa bay, show you this, we are seeing three feet of storm surge come crashing over bayshore boulevard, site ....
ashore as a category 3 in the big bend region which hadn t seen anything like this ever. dana: even before i think in the 1800s is when governor ron desantis said might have been the last time this area saw one. not the most populated area but people are in the evacuation zone there. many people left. some were left behind. you have to imagine they are undergoing quite a bit of impact right now. bret: the hurricane is lashing the coast near keaton beach bringing with it the potential for catastrophic storm surge. forecasters are calling this storm nothing short of unprecedented because since 1851 as far back as weather records go, the state s gulf coast has never seen anything like this. dana: right now the life threatening storm is packing winds near 125 miles-per-hour prompting tornado warnings and alarms and impacting millions of people trying to cope with imminent danger. florida governor ron desantis warning earlier saying it will be felt far and wide. wher ....