Responders, they can t answer 911 calls, we have bridges shut down. that part of the state is probably the historic low point of the areas susceptible to storm surge. first time this area has been hit in my 17 years of being here. todd: you are in emergency operation center, you have crews throughout the state of florida. any reports of damage or other from crews at this point this early in the storm? no, the guys and gals we have they are staged around the state. we have 900 urban first responders ready to deploy out and canine unitses will accompany them. the dogs have ability to help
Easily knocked over. a lot of them are built with concrete poles rather than say the typically wood poles. the same with cell towers and other infrastructure. florida has been hardening. we spend a lot of money and resources on this over time. and in terms of immediate response, a lot of that is prepositioned. that s why this early declaration of emergency are so important. ashley: when you talk about immediate response you can talk about the shelters. as far as the shelters that have been opened, is there any idea what capacity they can hold or if there is anybody who has gone to a shelter that you know of? do you have numbers just yet? i don t have numbers just yet but, again, as part of the preemption process, let s just pray that the storm most quickly that s one of the reasons ian was so devastating. yes, it s the storm surge but
Seen before. todd: the message is clear, evacuate immediately. this is a major hurricane. there is going to be a lot of debris, particularly in the big bend area, power lines will be down and a lot of need for all hands on deck. very few people can survive the path of major storm surge and this storm will be deadly if we don t get out of harm s way and take it seriously. ashley: janice dean is tracking and jimmy petronis is standing by. todd: we begin with matt finn live in st. pete beach. what are you seeing right now? we have been feeling consistent winds for several hours. dramatic shifts and fluctuation in the weather all night long.
Be catastrophic. we have potential for weak tornados, we already have rostation and tornado reports last night. no reports right now, but still possible. impact being felt now, landfall possibly between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. georgia and carolinas into thursday and it moves offshore to the atlantic and sits. we ll track the storm for the holiday weekend. some forecast models bring it back to the coast, this is ongoing, we ll forecast, peak storm surge is worst part of the storm. hide from the wind, run from the water. upward of 15 feet, which will be catastrophic and it will over top homes and people that did not evacuates, pray for them right now.
Ridge. if water comes up, that car will be potentially washed away. some of the high water police vehicles are making sure there is no one out here walking around and no vehicles driving. this is the kind of water, try to put a vehicle through here and it could easily start floating and get washed away. the other side of this hotel is the gulf of mexico. we will make our way around there. i did walk over there and you can see the water pushing in from the gulf over large beaches into the roads. two blocks away is a marina with boats tied up, we watched people shore them up and hopefully they are good and will not be taken off their docks and pushed around. so many elements and things could go wrong thchl storm