>> janice: not done. >> ainsley: it is still major hurricane going to impact millions of people. >> brian: if any state can handle it, been used to it, florida. >> janice: georgia and south carolina >> wow. okay. here we go. >> dana: impact is here. hurricane idalia slams into florida as a category 3 storm. you are looking at perry, florida, floodwaters are moving fast. bill is off today. good morning, bret. >> bret: this is "america's newsroom." this is a big storm, dana. it got to category 4, came

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. >> wherever you are, hunker down and don't take anything for granted here. this is a very powerful storm. there will be impacts far beyond the eyewall. those will extend to places like tallahassee as well as places like northeast florida. when the winds die down to a sufficient level, search and rescue efforts will begin. we have eight urban search and rescue teams staged ready to go. 33 ambulance strike teams. 5500 national guardsmen. we also have the coast guard on standby should that be necessary. >> dana: fox news and weather have resources with all angles on the storm. nicole valdez is in tampa. what are you seeing this morning? >> dana and bret, incredible scene along tampa bay as the

storm surge continues to pick up and the rain falls here. you are looking at three feet or so of water that has been pushed in from tampa bay as these incredibly strong wind gusts continue to pound the tampa bay area. this is not a coast or clear water beach. this is not p st. peter beach but this is tampa bay area. bay shore boulevard, a low lying area that tends to flood but this is unlike anything even police officers who worked in the city for more than 20 years tell me they've ever seen. what you are noticing are waves that are breaking up against the barrier there and pushing over and crashing over with such power. it is so dangerous, meanwhile as people wake up this morning they are coming out to try to see just how deep this goes.

what this person is doing here is so dangerous, so ill advised. police officers will likely stop him in a few moments. meanwhile across the state of florida more than 200,000 people are without power. we're seeing even really more devastating storm surge impacts up in the big bend area near cedar key near where idalia made landfall a few hours ago. it is incredible to look at how intense the impacts are in an area like tampa bay that sits several hours south of where it made landfall as it continues over florida, georgia and south carolina and the southeast. >> dana: be safe. >> bret: steve harrigan is live in tarpon springs, florida northwest of tampa. you are seeing people trying to get out of the water. i don't know you've covered hurricane ian, 144 people killed

there because they stuck around and drowned in the after math of the surging water. what do you have there now? >> a different feeling here now as we can see that chrysler pushed that vehicle out. for one thing the winds have not been as dramatic where we are. the real danger is the storm surge that could get up to 16 feet in some areas. already we see 3 to 4 feet of water. local officials are telling us we'll see two more feet before high tide ends here. the danger. we're seeing flooded houses and buildings and the real challenge is trying to get from one place to the other. the wind isn't blowing, the trees aren't being knocked down. it is daylight and the water continues to rise. we've seen fire rescue vehicles unable to get to a fire. firefighters watching a plume of smoke rise in the sky. anxious and eager but they can't get through four feet of water. the next couple of hours of real

struggle here. the good thing is as those people get the woman to safe it's floridian helping floridian and trying to block off as many roads as possible to prevent that from happening again. back to you guys. >> bret: those stories are great. we're talking high tide, a full moon down there overnight. you have high tide coming within the hour, right? >> that's right, around midday high tide. we've been seeing people come out and watch their boats. they keep rising. one has already gone over the sea wall. there is a major property destruction when you have 3 or 4 feet of water in your home or business the floors, the furniture, the equipment, destroyed. it is not getting a lot of attention. it is not dramatic. we are seeing with the daylight hours people are able to try to pick through what they can now. the costs, the bill will be enormous.

this is not just a storm that follows a path. it had 20 million people under a warning and streets like this are happening all across florida. people are getting stuck, fire trucks can't get through, people can't get their medicine. people can't get out of hospitals. there is really -- this water just stops everything in its tracks. >> dana: earlier in the day at 7:00 a.m., i believe, you said this storm has the potential to reshape the coastline? >> that's floridian officials saying it could reshape the coastline with the drama and with the storm surge. if you are talking about a 16-foot storm surge you could have small towns and coastal regions gone. right now we're seeing eight search and rescue teams, many from miami and also from around the country, staging in orlando. they haven't even begun to work yet. the water is going down but over

the next 48 hours a lot of rescues and more than 40 counties are under a mandatory evacuation. so all along the coast low lying areas we could see reshaping of the coastline. >> dana: what about that on the evacuation -- on the evacuation do you think a lot of people did leave? >> i think a lot of people did leave. i think the fortunate thing for a lot of people they didn't have that far to go. a lot of times you can just go a few miles inland or try to find higher ground. just try to get out of harm's way. that's what a lot of people did. it has been like a ghost town and now we see people with the sunlight trying to get around and some being too aggressive on these roads. people are wading through and for now not a lot of rescue activity, not a lot of motion. just civilians trying to help each other assess the damage and to help out who might need

urgent help. >> bret: we'll head back in a bit to get an update. thank you. >> dana: thank you, steve. bret, let's go to robert ray live in clear water beach, florida. >> this is coronado drive in clear water beach. the storm surge was up to seven feet. we got just under four. we haven't hit high tide here. look down the street. as far as the eye can see it is like a rushing river. when the heavy weather bands came in in the past several hours, that's what really made this increase, unfortunately. i want to show you something else if we can. our photographer is going to move through here. look at the gulf of mexico if you can down there. about a block away. those waves coming in in earnest right now. we've seen some of the water receding at that pocket but look

at that come in. here is the thing, guys, clear water beach officials have been serving all of this surge and flooding since the light came up. we've seen the vehicles go through, the police and fire running through this. they are advising people on the barrier islands that did not evacuate, even though they were asked to mandatoryly evacuate don't use the water. don't use the toilets or showers. the sewer systems are maxed out as the surge still sits here. the good news is that we're not going to experience any of those heavy bands from this category 4 hurricane that made landfall on the big bend at 7:45 a.m. a path of destruction is going to happen in that part of florida and then into south georgia as it continues to move in. but the deal is that this water should recede at some point later this afternoon after high tide and then the assessment on

damage can happen here on the ground. as far as power outages, this just in. over 200,000 power outages in the state of florida right now. that number will likely go up as the hurricane will make its way through and there are over 30,000 utility workers ready to deploy to try to get power restored. national guard is on the ground and fema. full force of the federal government, state and local to assess this damage as the sun has come up here on this particular area right outside of tampa. this is historic. no doubt. we just hope there is not reported fatalities in these areas. the big bend up there up to 15 feet of storm surge. you can't escape that kind of storm surge as steve harrigan was talking about. we're here and we're still awaiting for officials to start to come through here and take a look but you see the water it stands. it was up to here an hour ago. so we have seen some receding.

that's the good news, dana and bret. >> bret: just real quick we are talking about wind with steve. we saw earlier that you were in one of those bands. 125 miles-per-hour sustained at keaton beach when it came across. you saw gusts there. for people driving a car and stick your hand out the window going 50 or 60 miles-per-hour and you feel it. double that and it's sustained winds. you haven't seen a lot of wind throughout the morning, right? >> i tell you, bret, to be honest with you the moment that fox and friends took myself and incredible fox news photographers on air was the strongest we experienced. and i did not have a meter in my hand. those wind gusts were somewhere between 45 to 60 miles-per-hour based upon other hurricanes i've stood in.

the problem is with that if you are standing there especially in water and it is coming at you and the rain is also coming at you, it intensifies the situation. we did see debris come off trees, some of the palm trees were starting to fall apart but here is the good news. that's why i know it was not probably above 60 mile-per-hour gusts. we didn't see structural pieces come off buildings. none of that was flying around. that happens when you go about 75 miles-per-hour and above. that's a cat one. the gusts we experienced were probably not hurricane force but i tell you what, the tropical sustained force winds are still enough to batter down any kind of vehicle or a person that was out there for sure. that's why i worry about when the storm came in to the big bend and made landfall with 125 miles-per-hour gusts that it is going through, obviously it will knock down trees like nobody's

business and that's going to affect structures at that speed at that rate. thankfully we did not experience that here, bret. >> bret: robert ray in clear water. >> dana: john mcdonald, an emergency emergency management director. as robert says, this maybe does break some records and make some history here. what are you hearing from people down on the ground? >> the storm surge has already started coming in this morning. it will continue to come in to where we'll see those numbers of 10, 12, upwards of 15 foot of above ground level to those residents along the coastal community. the last time they had seen any remotely type of storm surge like that was 2016 when hurricane hermine went into the same area up through leon county and jefferson county. we had about what they called about seven, it will be double

the storm surge. the highest storm surge they've ever seen. so we've been sending messaging out for the last couple of days trying to get people to evacuate. >> dana: sir, once you get that message to the people, do you know how many people did evacuate or how many people stayed behind? >> our shelters we only have our shelter numbers doesn't give us how many people evacuated and went to family, friends, relatives. we tell them to run from the surge and hide from the wind. one of the reports that i did get that there was roughly 108 on cedar key that didn't evacuate. we did messaging through all of our social media outlets and all of our media outlets, social media outlets and doing old school knocking on doors trying to get people to evacuate. >> dana: you have 800 full-time residents i see. is your bigger concern the wind

speed that came through or the water that's coming now? >> the storm surge, that's pretty -- those people out there, no wind friction loss out there. they've been seeing winds around 55, 68, you know, gusts of that nature and all that. we got a break on the hurricane-force winds. we still have stuff coming in with banding throughout the day and even as far as 6:00 p.m. when the system is all the way out in the atlantic ocean by then. the surge has always been our biggest concern with that because the topography, we're just a little south of there, cedar key, yankee town areas is like a catcher's mitt. it has no place to go other than -- these storms coming in those particular paths like hermine pretty much all worst case

scenario all the time as far as storm surge impact. >> dana: do you feel you have the resources that you need? >> yes. we have a lot of stuff pre-staged. we have things ready to go. we're trying to get the message out to folks to let them know that even though the storm has moved out and winds are subsiding they will still have another 5 to 6 hours of this surge problem going on today and not to go back into the areas or anything until the evacuation orders are lifted. >> dana: john, i hope everything is okay down there for your folks. i know you care a lot about them and we appreciate you being on. we'll no doubt be back in touch with you perhaps within the rest of "america's newsroom." thank you, john mcdonald. >> dana: thank you. >> bret: let's bring in national hurricane center director michael brennan. thank you for being here. let's go through where the storm is now and what you are looking at.

>> right now it's moving inland. the center over north florida moving just south of madison, florida and we can see the very strong north west eyewall that's still moving inland. we saw wind gusts 80, 85, almost 90 miles-an-hour in perry. they're moving to madison and we're seeing the inland wind threat play out while we still have a high storm surge along the coast of the big bend. cedar key you were talking to the person from leavey county. they have 6 to 7 feet of inundation and well south of where the hurricane made landfall. storm surge will stay up for several more hours as these west winds on the back side of idalia continue to push the gulf waters against the coast there. >> bret: it was a category 4 as it came to shore but came on shore at landfall category 3.

the real problem is the surge as we've been hearing down there. >> yeah, certainly that has the potential to kill the most people. if we talk 12 to 16 feet above ground level. i'm six feet tall. that's 6 to 10 feet above my head. not a survivable event. we asked people to evacuate those areas if they're told to do so. the surge threat will continue with 4 to 5 feet of inundation in tampa. the heavy rainfall threat and downstream storm surge and wind surge into georgia and the carolinas tonight and tomorrow. >> bret: we'll check back in later. >> dana: let's bring in citrus county sheriff. thank you for being here. what are you seeing or hearing from your folks on the ground? >> we've got a saturation of our patrol deputies across citrus

county now. one of my colonels that works in the agencies on the west side of the county is sending us photos we are sharing on facebook feed and sending a lot of folks out along u.s. 19 corridor, which is flood zone a in citrus county. a mandatory evacuation zone. while we didn't experience the high winds we would typically get as a storm passes by. the significant nature of this storm that was a category 2 late last night and become a category 3 and worked its way to category 4 a few hours ago before it made landfall up in the big bend area will bring a lot of storm surge potential for us. we're working towards low tide and we've got very unseasonably high tides right now that have come over parking lots and it's really working its way towards the u.s. 19 corridor. before too long we might see flooding along the flood zone a

area like what we saw during hurricane hermine. that's many hours before high tide after 4:00 p.m. this afternoon. so we've got a long ways to go before we're out of the woods and we've been telling folks that, you know, you can run from that water and stay away from it for long enough and we'll let you know when it's clear and safe to go back in there. we have a lot of folks out there, we still have quite a few folks that did not heed our warnings and evacuate when we issued the mandatory evacuation order on monday to get them to safer ground and to get them out of harm's way away from the storm. >> dana: sir, are you one of the entities that does not have power right now? >> actually, we do have power but we do have some power outages sporadically across the citrus county. i looked up on the television station tracking a couple of other things going on. we have had two tornado warnings in our county earlier this morning. my phone just went off while we were waiting to get on the air

with you and bret and i know there are tornado warnings popping up all over the interior parts of the state of florida. so we've got a long ways to go before we're out of the woods when it comes to the threat from tornadoes that are being spun off on the dirty side of the storm which all of the west coast of the state of florida is on the dirty side of the storm now except for the extreme northern part where the hurricane made landfall a couple hours ago. >> dana: it is moving fairly fast? >> surprisingly, i was shocked when we were tracking it moving northward at four miles-per-hour and it stayed consistent with all the models we were seeing coming out of the national weather service and all of a sudden overnight during the hours of darkness it accelerated to 14 miles-per-hour and the next thing i know it's moving at 18 miles-an-hour as it tracked northward towards the big bend area. a good thing about that. while the northern parts of

where the hurricane was traveling are you going to see more significant water from the surge and inundating the low lying areas, but for us it doesn't allow that accumulation of water to build and get packed up in there and not have an opportunity to go down a little bit. we're still going to see surge-type levels we've never seen before here in citrus county, especially over there on the western side of the county where the city of crystal river just celebrated its centennial a few short weeks ago over the fourth of july weekend. earlier on monday i made the unilateral decision to shut down all my operations and substation that we share with the city of crystal river. i moved all my equipment, i moved all my personnel out of that area because of the national weather service's predictions for 7 to 11 feet of storm surge over in the crystal river area as the storm tracked north. >> dana: how does it compare

with hurricanes you've dealt with in the past? >> i've lived through a super typhoon on active duty in the army stationed in the far east and that super typhoon was something i don't ever want to experience again. i reckon it is probably what the folks in bay county survived when hurricane michael struck in 2018. in the past few years with hurricane hermine, which was not a hurricane, it was a tropical storm that later developed into a hurricane and hit up in the cedar key area as it continued to move north and pretty much wiped out a lot of the old buildings up there in that historic fishing community that everybody loves to go and spend time at during the summer months and enjoy all that really raw nature that's up in that area. unfortunately i think they will see some 12 to 18 foot potential wind and wave action up in that cedar key area as the storm

continues to get some of that energy bled off it and pushes the storm surge further north. we don't jut out so deeply into the gulf of mexico like cedar key does and parts of leavey county. >> dana: given the name of your county citrus county you have growers in your area. what were their preparations like? >> ironically the citrus industry took a beating back in the late 1800s. our country was created in 1887 and we were renowned for orange juice and citrus products. we have some growers on the east side of the county. we have a lot of agricultural land. not only do we raise agricultural products but we have some great dairy farmers and great poultry farmers and a lot of cattle ranchers in our county and they depend mightily on the economic impact of the

products that they produce for sending to the markets not only here in citrus county and across the state of florida but across the country. some of the products end up being shipped all over the world because of the high quality of the things that come out of citrus county. >> dana: i imagine a storm like this gives them a lot of heart failure as they see what is coming. >> it does. especially for the fishing industry. it has been disabled for several days now and don't know what it will do to some of the fishing grounds on the west side of the county. the gulf of mexico borders us from the tip of our county on the north end all the way down to the south end. we have some great scallop grounds here. we don't know how that will be impacted. scalloping season continues until sometime a month from now into the latter part of the month of september. we don't know what the storm impact will be on that very fun recreational activity that you get to do in citrus county when

you have blue skies and light winds and all the great things you can enjoy during a typical summer day in florida. >> dana: sheriff, thank you so much. they are lucky to have you down there and grateful to have you on the show. >> thank you, dana and bret. thank you for what you do. be safe out there and for folks up north of us we are praying for you. >> dana: thank you, sir. >> bret: it is great to talk to authorities and they are in the middle of all this trying to help people out. it is really serious in the back end of the storm, too, as the sheriff talked about. you have a lot of people dying from drowning and accidents that happen after the storm has already passed because this surge water. they have 40 shelters around the state and hopefully people get to safety. >> dana: look at that video with all the trees that are coming down right there in the middle of the road. it is best to listen to local authorities and if they want you to try to stay home as much as possible or stay in the shelter do so and they'll get you back up and running as soon as

possible. >> bret: we'll have more coverage live here on fox news channel after this quick break.

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>> bret: continuing coverage of hurricane idalia as it continues to go up the big bend area of florida to the north. it made landfall this morning near keaton beach. let's bring in andy baier. braving the hurricane from inside his hotel in florida. andy, thank you for joining us. how are you doing and how is it looking there? >> good morning, how do you do? it's a little gnarly here. i think we'll be okay. i've been in and outdoors for the last hour or so and it doesn't look like the surge is coming up -- hasn't moved in about an hour from what i can

see. >> bret: that's good news. they had predictions about the storm in cedar key. what they were projecting above a certain number of feet and it could be over the entire area there. you are just not seeing that as of yet. >> well, no, i haven't, no, i haven't. the power went off about 5:00 and i've been up since about then. i've watched the water come up but -- walked down the street and saw there was about a line on one of the measuring polls about nine feet of surge, which is what we had back in hermine, which was pretty bad deal. but i can't imagine if it goes much higher than that. >> bret: how does your hotel survive, the 164 year hotel.

you've survived some other storms. >> well, historically we've done okay. historically we've never had a tidal surge that came into the hotel. we've had the roof blown off and got some rain in it. but when we had hermine back in 2016 with a nine-foot surge we had some, you know, wiggle room still to go. we could have gone another 4 or 5 feet before it came in the building so by the fact we're on high ground on the top of the hill in town, we're being lucky. >> bret: how many people stayed, andy, do you think? >> well, we had a couple of media guys last night and a couple before that so most everybody left. i think any of the non-media people have left. all the tourists went away. >> bret: you've been through a lot of these storms i'm sure through the years. would you rate this one so far?

>> well, it's not being nearly the wind event that it was -- people were talking about. it is blowing 50 or 60 out there right now rather than 100. i'm glad it's not 125 like people had talked about. so maybe in that aspect we're maybe dodging a little bullet. >> bret: it's broader about the state. some insurance companies are leaving the state. people who are there have trouble getting insurance. it is really expensive. is that an issue for you all? >> yes, it is. you know, yes, flood insurance is almost can't get it anymore. and we've been fortunate in the hotel where we haven't had a mortgage so we are not required to have it. so yeah, we're okay.

>> bret: you talk to residents who have a problem because it is so pricey. >> it is horribly expensive especially if you are not -- if your home is not up on poles. ground level people are paying a lot. >> bret: we appreciate your time. please stay safe and we'll check back in. thank you. >> if you need anymore i'll do the best i can, okay? >> bret: thank you, andy. >> dana: thank you, bret. joining us now is hillsborough county, florida sheriff. hi, sheriff. thank you for being with us. tell me where exactly is your county and what you are seeing today. >> good morning, we're in tampa. a little south of the storm. unfortunately part of that storm surge. matter of fact historic storm surge. it wasn't a huge wind and rain event here. less than 1% without power in tampa electric is doing a great job getting that turned on.

now with the high tides and full moon and king tide we expect at 2:00 p.m. we have some flooded areas that will get even worse. >> dana: what was the evacuation situation in your area? >> they did very well. we had shelters for 10,000 people. yesterday morning we started 153. we ended up with a little bit over 1400. those individuals who couldn't go stay with a friend, they did end up going to a shelter which makes me a happy guy and they got out and kept they and they are loved ones safe. >> dana: after the storm gets past, you expect a surge at 2:00 p.m. a long time between now and then and people might think it's okay to go back out? >> that's the biggest problem we're facing now is we have a lot of flooded areas. too many people letting their curiosity get the best of them. it is making and creating slow response time for emergency vehicles. they are placing themselves and

their family in danger. they are the risk taker and driving through standing water only to lose control of their car or lose their car all together and we have to do more rescues. please, if you don't have a really, really important reason to be on the water it's time to -- be on the roadways, avoid the water, stay at home and keep you and your loved ones safe. >> dana: the power is still on where you are? >> we're very fortunate. almost 1.5 million people in tampa. we have only had less than 1,000, around 1%, about 6500 people in tampa electric has some restored. it's around 3500. again we're so fortunate here. i'm just worried about the flooding that will get even worse here as this next big tide comes at 2:00 p.m. >> dana: it occurs to me that you are in tampa there. so much croaked and that area is popular for people to go to. it could be their first

hurricane season. i'm sure you've been through many of them. does it cross our mind as you got ready for this? >> it absolutely has and that's a great point. we have really been heavily focused on putting out information. for some of us you are right, old hat. we're going through another hurricane. for some, i have to tell you what, i stand here as a proud sheriff. they heeded the warnings. they went and got supplies in case they lost power and evacuated if they were in the low-lying areas or in a manufactured home. we had a lot of calls for service and none of them were rescue related because people heeded the warning. i'm a very happy man this morning. >> dana: in some ways it's like hurricane season comes along but you prepare all year for this. do you feel like you have the resources you need from the state or federal government? >> yeah, we absolutely do. the governor i just got off the phone with him. we're in constant communication. you bring up a great point. we train for this all year long. we have the resources and i kept

telling our community here in tampa, we are trained and prepared and ready. >> dana: anything else you want for the people out there listening to know? maybe reiterating your call for them to sit tight, as you said, don't let curiosity get the best of them. >> please, we're doing well and haven't had to rescue anybody. we don't want to start now. stay at home unless you have an emergency you need to be on the roadways, keep you and your loved ones safe. we'll give you the all clear as soon as we can. >> dana: sheriff, thank you so much. i'm sure we'll be back in touch with you. we appreciate your time and service. >> absolutely. thank you. >> dana: bret, i think one of the things that is so clear as we've been talking to these sheriffs and the emergency managers is that they are very much prepared. they feel very much in command. they are calm, cool, collected but also have a little bit of a sense of urgency to make sure the word gets out for people to stay as safe as they can and

holding people back from getting out of their shelters or coming back too soon is a really tough call. >> bret: it's a big deal. people there understand it. they've been through a lot. some people want to stay. now i think they've learned some of these big storms better to get out of the way. we have a great partner in fox weather and they do amazing stuff during especially these events like this. we'll dip in to fox weather. if you don't have the app, get it. let's dip into their coverage. >> a roof completely removed is what i'm hearing you say? >> yeah, you could see right into their bedroom and everything. the roof was completely gone. there were a lot of other homes that had roof damage but that was the only one i was only able to see it for the short time before the wind picked back up on the back side of the eye. generally speaking i would say keaton beach probably fared

better than a lot of us and a lot of residents thought they were going to bear. >> watching that landfall occur, keaton beach is the location the national hurricane center highlighted. you had mentioned when we were speaking earlier the surge came in on the back side of that eye. you were more so on the left side. it was going through an eyewall replacement cycle at that landfall. when you were there was it clear that this was the eyewall as it was moving through? on radar we had seen that cycle almost begin. >> it wasn't as -- a lot of times in the eyewall it is very evident. the winds ramp up. this was more gradual and then there was a nice long period where there was just occasional very strong gusts. and then once we were through it, it was pretty evident that we were in the eye, the wind calmed down quickly. for ten minutes it was completely calm.

one of the calmest eyes i've ever been in. in fact, the water was being pushed out and the water was very low on the front side. it was way past low tide low. as soon as the backside winds struck they weren't as strong as the front side but it pushed the onshore flow and water right on. around four feet of storm surge which is much less than we all feared. >> also the wind gauge captured an 85 mile-per-hour wind speed before it broke. useless at one point during the coverage. when you look at the impacts here, this is an unprecedented storm for this area. we've never had in modern times, we put it in perspective, have we had a landfall direct hit in this portion of the big bend. for these people who evacuated -- >> bret: amy on fox weather. you can scan the qr code on the screen right now and get more of

the coverage on the app. it is a great way to track with the storm going north. if it is your community north of florida or in the northern part of florida a great way to track every moment. fox weather has it covered and we'll be tapping a lot of the reporters that are out in the field, dana, the rest of the show. >> dana: their coverage is incredible. first of all, all the people that work there are amazing humans, really good people, fun to work with. wonderful to have them as colleagues. their coverage is excellent and they have a lot of experience as well, which is great. if you are looking for -- ever in a commercial break and want to check out what's going on as fox weather they're very good and the app is terrific. it is accurate and gives you a good indication of what your week will be like. bret, stick by with me as you have done the last two days. i appreciate that. we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. veteran homeowners checked your credit card

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a lot of people worried about the high tide coming up in the next two hours. joining us now tyler payne, mayor of treasure island in pinellas county. thank you for joining us. what's the situation there? you are west of tampa. what does it look like? >> thank you for having me. we're west of tampa in st. petersburg where one of the beach communities one along the st. petersburg area. we had 3 to 4 feet of water coming over our island. we are a system of four different individual islands that are connected by bridges. we have three access points to our island. we have one very low-lying neighborhood at the south end of our city that has experienced quite a bit of damage, sunset beach where the water came over from our beaches and washed sand

into the streets. a lot of seaweed and debris on the streets and we believe the water from the bay connected into the water from the ocean. totally covering the island down there. a lot of homes have six inches to a foot of water in the homes. >> bret: we talk about the upcoming high tide. mayor, what is your biggest concern now? you are in a car. do you have power there? what's the biggest issue? >> we actually are sitting at the entry way to the city on our cause way bridge. we had a nice shot for you in the background of our main roadway into the city that has several inches of standing water at this point. we got caught in a torrential downpour, the most rain we've gotten through the whole storm at this point. but we have some power outages in that neighborhood that i was mentioning, sunset beach.

for the most part we do still have power. it's really just the flooding and the storm surge that was an issue for us here. >> bret: did most people leave? >> i talked to our fire chief just before this interview and he did not see a lot of cars around the area when they went through this morning to do the assessment. so we're glad that a lot of people seem to have heeded the warnings. we tried to emphasize there may not be a lot of winds because the storm will hit to the north of us but the storm surge could be catastrophic. it made landfall 200 miles north of us but we're seeing 30 mile-per-hour winds here sustained and that storm surge i can see just from this bridge several properties that have several feet of water into their yards. >> bret: your state is used to these things. tons of storms. been through a lot. this particular area, the big

bend area where the storm came across haven't seen a big storm. >> right. we haven't seen a big storm in the tampa bay area, either. i'm sure our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors to the north in the big bend area for sure. >> bret: okay. we appreciate the time. thanks for getting on and stay safe. >> thank you very much. >> dana: thank you to the mayor. let's go to grady trimble live in steinhatchee, florida. where is that and what you're seeing? >> we're about 20 miles south of keaton beach where the hurricane made landfall. you can see that it is still extremely windy here and some rain coming down. it does seem like the worst of the storm has passed through this area. that being said, there is a lot of destruction that it left in its wake. this is the steinhatchee river. we believe it is flowing away

from the gulf of mexico and deadman bay. it's flowing in the opposite direction it normally flows. that gives you a sense of the power of this storm as it pushes the water from the gulf of mexico up into the wrong direction of the steinhatchee river. also in the distance there you can see some of the destruction, including it looks like some sort of structure, a mangled metal that we've seen debris and other items like a capsized boat is what it looked like floating down this river. i think it might be the metal structure we saw floating down the river earlier that has now stopped and seems to be resting against another structure. and then we're along the main road here. this road leads into the town of steinhatchee. there is water in that direction so it is very hard to pass unless you have a high water vehicle or high pickup truck.

then in this direction you can see that there are trees down, power lines snapped in half, and that's a huge issue here, by the way, is power outages. at last check, a while ago, it could have gotten worse, about 3/4 of taylor county where we are was without power. again, those numbers could be climbing. we've talked to people in this area, dana, and what they've told us is that they've never seen water levels as high as they are right now. people who have lived here all their lives have never seen this type of flooding before. we've also seen search and rescue crews, volunteers with air boats and other types of watercraft trying to move into this area. the challenge that some of them are facing is that their trucks can't get over the area of high water over the road here, which you cannot see. it is just outside of our view because of this hill. in addition to the search and rescue crews, we're seeing

people who live here, locals who decided to get away from the town of steinhatchee and get farther away from the river itself to ride out the storm and now they are coming back in for the first time to assess the damage. of course, all of them have been keeping up to date with people who rode out the storm in steinhatchee trying to talk to them on social media and ma'am, do you live here? have you seen your house yet? >> i can't get over there. >> you will go over to see if you can see it. >> hopefully it's okay. take care. dana, that's what we're seeing. people coming back to assess the damage for the first time. from what i can see from this vantage point and for some people it won't be good. >> dana: i have a question. i know looks can be deceiving. the area where you are seems maybe to have come through everything okay. is that your general assessment

or is it too early to say that? >> i think it's way too early to say that to be honest with you. where i'm currently standing, yes, i think it's okay. my concern from talking to the search and rescue crews with higher vehicles able to get into steinhatchee, they have told us there are some areas that are so flooded right now they couldn't even pass through. it does sound like in terms of people who might need help from those search and rescue crews they aren't too concerned. a lot of people turned away help. but i think there will be a lot of destruction once the water recedes and we can drive into the town and see how high the floodwater rose into the buildings there. one more point i will make, dana, is that the infrastructure here will be a mess, too. the power lines and those types of things. as we were driving in you can see the big tree that fell down there. as we came up this road, it was

littered with leaves and branches to the point where it looked like the road was painted green. that's just one small stretch that we were driving through. so the people who are in this area are dealing with not only the storm surge and the threat of flooding and at this point the likely possibility of flooding, but they are also dealing with downed trees, which obviously we have not been able to assess the full extent of. we haven't seen any that have fallen on homes or businesses or anything like that but, you know, to be honest with you, haven't had much opportunity to move to different locations and see how this area fared. there will be significant damage when the water resides. >> dana: glad you're in steinhatchee. thank you for bringing that report. we did not lose him. there he is. fox news alert. hurricane idalia slamming into florida making landfall near get

on beach a little more than two hours ago. 60 miles southeast of tallahassee. it is weakening to a category 2 moving across the state of florida threatening the region with storm surges, damaging winds, flash flooding and even tornadoes. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom," i'm dana perino. bill hemmer is off today. good to see you with me, bret. >> bret: i'm bret baier in washington. hurricane idalia battering the state after cracking ashore in the big bend region where the storm is predicting up to 16 feet of storm surge. we haven't seen that yet. damaging winds spreading inland over northern florida. national weather service calling idalia an unprecedented event. it hasn't hit this particular area ever. a storm this big. the storm tracking north/northeast at 18 miles-per-hour. maximum sustained wind