hurricane milton is bearing down on florida, whipping the state with 100 mile per hour winds, torrential rains and a tornado

outbreak that's triggered more than 133 tornado warnings across the state, according to the national weather service. good afternoon. i'm kristen sze. we are closely following this storm. the team had to evacuate. has certainly passed. now. anyone left in the most dangerous storm zones will just have to shelter in place and hope for the best. president biden just spoke about the dangers of this hurricane. >> milton still carries a incredible destructiveness, can wipe out communities, can cause loss of life. storm surge is still expected to be up to 13ft. so i urge everyone in hurricane milton's path to listen to the local officials and follow all the safety instructions they give. >> and now let's take a live look at conditions in florida. the kind of conditions that president biden just spoke about a half hour ago. this is naples pier in florida. you can just see the storm surge and just the conditions out there, even though this is, well south of

where milton is expected to make landfall, the most dangerous area, the most hard hit probably will be a little north of here. but you can see even in naples how terrible and frightening it is getting. let's get a better idea of the size and scope of this storm, which certainly has been growing. hurricane milton's wind field has more than doubled in size since yesterday, and it's expected to continue to expand before landfall. the storm surge is expected to hit 13ft in some areas. this is a recent satellite image of milton for you, abc news reporter jacqueline lee is in tampa now with the latest on hurricane milton closing in on the west coast of florida. rain and wind already being felt, the storm's outer bands spawning several tornadoes throughout the state. home security footage capturing this possible tornado tearing through a neighborhood in fort myers, leaving a trail of damage. the massive storm, expected to bring a record breaking storm surge of 8 to

12ft for the tampa bay and fort myers areas, and even bigger storm surge of 10 to 15ft is expected into sarasota and south. water beginning to cover streets in sarasota. >> hurricane milton is going to be a deadly and catastrophic storm. it will bring massive storm surge, high winds, and severe flooding. >> resources assembled to respond. utility crews on standby, anticipating widespread power outages. president biden and vice president harris both briefed on the situation. this afternoon. >> but i urge everyone in hurricane milton's path to follow all safety instructions as we head into the next 24 hours. it's a matter of literally a matter of life and death. >> millions warned to evacuate and many listened. some packing what they could. going to shelters. >> everybody's worried about the same thing, you know. do you have a home to come back to? or. >> you know that nature. the sunshine skyway bridge over tampa bay closed. people fortified their homes, buttoned

up the best we could, and we got out of there. one homeowner literally tying down his home using heavy duty straps. fema says there are more than 1000 responders ready with food and water, as well as search and rescue teams. jacqueline lee, abc news, tampa. the search and rescue teams will certainly be busy after this has passed. by the way, in just about ten minutes we will be checking in live with abc reporter jacqueline lee, whom you just saw, to get the latest on conditions in tampa bay area. rescue teams have deployed to florida to help with the response to milton. these photos photos are from the california task force three, an urban search and rescue team based in menlo park. a 26 person ground crew left yesterday with trucks of supplies. several members are from the san francisco fire department, which also sent four search dogs to the storm zone. >> what these dogs do is they search for people and if they get a hit, they're able to locate a person, and then the user teams would go in and breach concrete or lift heavy

wooden objects off of someone that may be trapped. >> concrete breaching and heavy lifting were two of the exercises the san francisco fire department practiced today at their training facility on treasure island. they held an urban search and rescue drill with members of the military in town for fleet week. the future is uncertain for thousands of students, parents and teachers in san francisco. the school district yesterday released its list of schools at risk of closing or merging, due to a sharp decline in enrollment and a budget deficit. so here is a map of the campuses on that list. to be closed or merged. you can see they span across the city. the district identified 15 other schools that could take in displaced students and happening right now, teachers and parents are protesting these anticipated closures, this one taking place at harvey milk civil rights elementary. one of the schools you saw on that closure map. abc seven news reporter lena howland talked with parents, and they're

very, very upset. >> a gloomy wednesday morning as parents drop their kids off at san francisco public montessori. not knowing this school year could be their last. >> from the custodian, mr. eddie to front desk. miss marilyn to miss benitez, the principal. it's been incredible. >> the wilkinsons have been coming to this elementary school for nine years with all three of their daughters attending. >> it's an unfortunate shock to see this leaving. >> they say the public montessori is a critical resource for the district to even consider losing it very much focuses on autonomy, independence, hands on learning, hands on learning, project management. >> all the things that we think are lifelong learning skills and wouldn't be available to many other than in the private sector. >> san francisco unified superintendent matt wayne says school closures can't be avoided, with a $400 million deficit over three years shrinking student counts and the threat of a state takeover. the

district put out a list of schools tuesday afternoon that fit the criteria to close or merge. >> we've got fewer teachers than we had, so we right now have five classes in the elementary school for six grades. so, you know, we don't even have a one class per one classroom per grade. now. >> harvey milk elementary, near the heart of the castro district, made the list, too. teachers say the school represents values like justice, freedom and acceptance and are now planning a march wednesday afternoon asking district leaders to keep their school open. >> they're talking about equity equity, but they're not considering the lgbtq plus community in this equity conversation. and it's blowing my mind. and i'm just i'm devastated right now. >> the district is planning to engage with families, teachers and staff. all of these impacted locations through a series of town halls over the next few weeks. the first is happening virtually tomorrow night at 530. in san francisco, lena howland, abc seven news.

>> all right, now to your accuweather forecast. it actually feels like a rather typical fall day here. and for the first time in more than a week, there are no heat alerts. abc seven weather anchor spencer christian has a look at how long this cooling trend will last. >> right now, looking out at the marine layer now from mount tam with some wispy cirrus clouds above. you see the forecast headlines are these remainder of today becoming sunnier in the afternoon. the next few days will bring us breezy conditions and a continuation of our cooling trend. and by the weekend, certainly by saturday, we expect not only increasing clouds, but a pretty good chance of some light rain or showers. this afternoon, though dry conditions and increasingly brighter skies. high temperatures will range from about 63 at half moon bay to 69. san francisco 73, in oakland, mainly mid 70s and other bay shore locations. inland areas. the warmest ones will warm up to about 85 or 86 degrees. and as we look at the forecast animation, you can see little systems out at sea moving in our

direction and by the end of the week, we'll see an increase in clouds and a weak cold front is expected to move through early saturday, perhaps producing some light rain or showers in the midday or afternoon hours. but it will break up quickly and it's not likely to continue to produce rain into sunday, so here's the accuweather seven day forecast. the next couple of days, thursday and friday. uh- moderately cool to mild with inland highs in the mid 80s around the bay shoreline. we'll see low to mid 70s and low to mid 60s on the coast. saturday will become the coolest day at least in the next few days, with inland highs barely hitting 80 degrees. we'll see increasing clouds and a chance of slight chance of showers, but then sunnier and drier conditions on sunday and monday and a few degrees milder. nice week of fall weather coming our way. >> all right, we'll take that. san francisco mayor, london breed and other city officials are celebrating the grand opening of a new 100% affordable housing project on treasure island this afternoon. a ribbon cutting ceremony was held at

star view court. a seven story housing project which is reserved for low income residents. many of the residents of star view are formerly unhoused people who live on the island. >> i am so excited that this is going to be one of the best neighborhoods in san francisco because of the investments we've made and because of projects like the one today. so thank you and congratulations. we're looking forward to more to come. >> the overall redevelopment plan will bring 8000 units. 2200 of those will be affordable housing units. are you prepared for disaster ahead? we'll get some answers from an expert in emergency responses on florida's preparedness for hurricane milton about to make landfall and the lessons w

but our problems get worse. they say this is the best that we can do. they blame the system, but they built the system. i have a plan to change it. with accountability and rooting out corruption, we can tackle our housing and drug crisis, clear the tent encampments and bring our businesses back. are you ready to stop settling and start demanding more? join me in changing city hall.

massive storm surges and sporadic tornadoes as the monstrous hurricane milton prepares to make landfall tonight somewhere north of this. this is naples. so a little farther south, so we're talking about the tampa bay area, where they're really just bracing themselves. already. utility poles have fallen, flooding has been pervasive, and entire areas are covered by debris left over from hurricane helene just two weeks ago. all of this complicates the evacuation protection and response efforts. joining us live now to discuss what's going to be needed in relief. natalie simpson, professor of operations management and strategy and the university at the university of buffalo school of management. professor simpson, thanks for joining us. >> oh, certainly. how can i help? >> well, you are an expert in emergency responses, so you can help by just giving us a sense

for on the scale of emergencies that you've seen, how big is this one? you know, we're talking about the response that's going to be needed concerning uh. >> this is obviously actually a very large storm. and one of the things that i've been kind of fretting about was the particular area that it's targeting. tampa bay has not suffered this kind of blow in over 100 years. and considerably more people have moved into that area than 100 years ago. and it's coming on the back of another storm. that is a worst case scenario in emergency management. it's not one big event, but two events close together. anyway, milton is lining all those things up. okay? >> the fact that, like you said, you know, it's been over 100 years, so people can they get a sense of complacency. like, i can ride out this one as well. and, you know, what do you encourage people to think about when they're making that decision? as to staying or going, or at least going to a shelter nearby? >> oh, i always encourage

people, go, go, go. i think if strangely, perhaps with helene, we're seeing a little bit more action than we normally would from the population, which is wonderful. i mean, i know everybody who is stuck on i-75 yesterday that that was, you know, terribly, terribly stressful. but that was a remarkable amount of people that were managing to make their way out of the path of the storm. and it might be because of helene. right. making the threat of milton a little bit more tangible. you can you there will always be the problem of nobody wants to evacuate. they'll always be the problem of people thinking, oh, you know, i can ride it out. or i did ride it out last time and it was just fine. that is overreading experience, right? just because it didn't happen last time doesn't mean it won't happen this time. you can see that the local agencies and community

governments have been working very hard on messaging for milton. i don't know if you guys caught the quote where several actually emergency managers were advising people to write their name in permanent marker on their arm if they're not going to leave. a part of that is to get people to picture the consequences. and just to make it a little bit more tangible, because, again, nobody wants to leave their home. everybody's afraid. they they leave their home and they won't be able to get back in. yeah. everybody worries about what might happen to them on their job if they leave the area. just yes, but picture yourself dead floating in the water with your name written on your arm. >> oh my gosh, maybe i will leave that, but yeah. right, right. yeah, but maybe we'll leave then. let me just ask you, you know, when i looked at the evacuation, you know, freeway shots yesterday and the gas station shots that were running out of gas that is a critical challenge. in a time like this, when you're evacuating millions of people, right? i wonder, given our transition to evs, especially here in california,

how that impacts our thinking towards emergency escapes? >> yes. this is going to be interesting times because while it's wonderful as we switch over to an ev fleet, we're in transition. as far as you know, the charging of evs and what we have we certainly don't have is we don't have robust surge capacity, right, for people making unplanned trips for long distance. so you do see already some innovation. you see, you know, in several cases where temporary charging stations have been set up, i think we're going to we're going to see the need to pay more attention to that in the future. and i think that there's a variety of agencies that are well motivated to pay more attention to that in the future. one of the things that sort of concerns me, it's probably not so much a problem in california as in, for instance, the southeastern united states, where evacuation,

the threat is flooding, and evs are not good in high water. right. and yes, and i well, this this is this is a new era. we're going so it's interesting. you know, what tampa did is they announced all of their city garages. parking is free. whatever you do please go move your ev up to the top decks. yeah. is that that was very smart. >> if you're still there is the is the advice just to get to higher ground at this point. and i guess are there certain homes or structures where you're really more vulnerable? i mean, we know about the low lying areas, right? due to the storm surge, if you're close to the close to the coastal areas. but, you know, what do you think people should use in terms of their own criteria for, hey, i got to get to higher ground. >> well, first off, there is the idea of the storm surge. and so it depends on where you are and what the predicted storm surge was. but you know, if you're in

a low lying area and the storm surge is going to be higher than your elevation, you really definitely should get out. and i think you've probably been advised repeatedly up to this point. there's certain types of structures that are more vulnerable than others. yes, rvs are extremely vulnerable because they're not tied to the ground. manufactured housing, mobile homes are somewhat more vulnerable regardless of their elevation, because they're not as tightly tied into the ground. concrete structures, you know, generally fare better than wooden structures. there becomes a point when you're looking at your shelter, there becomes a point that regardless of where it falls on this scale, once the wind rises, the eye wall is arriving. you need to you have to. you have no. you've left yourself no choice. you have to shelter in place. it's not habitable outside. so it doesn't matter. >> let's let's assume people did go and i hope they pack their go

bags right. the go kits. and you know we need to think about that here too. in california obviously we have wildfire evacuations, earthquake disasters where we may need to get out of area and not come back for days. so what should be in such a bag or a kit? >> well, there's a lot of advic, actually, on fema's website about this, right. and it's good to have lists because even if you don't have an actual bag that's packed all the time, you say, well, that the various items that's not practical for me. then by all means actually have an on paper list posted somewhere, right? and then be aware of where you can locate these things in the house. you know, a lot of things. there's certain things that are just for the for the trip. if you've got to leave suddenly they say bottled water, you know, even if you're not a fan of bottled water, have a little bottled water in the house for the go kit and some kind of high energy snack. and this is if you get stuck in traffic, you know, if

it's going to be a while, right? you have something to tide you over. there are things that yes, you would want to keep with you, even though you have to quickly leave your house. where are your insurance cards for instance? do you need prescriptions? where are your prescriptions? right? you're going to need your prescriptions. >> are important questions. we are out of time. i'm sorry, but professor simpson. no, it's all great information. thank you so much. >> oh, certainly. >> happy to help. all right. take good care now. are you disaster ready? this has us all thinking, right? abc seven wants to make sure you're prepared. get a kit, make a plan and be informed. if you need help, check out abc seven news.com/prepare n

facing numerous sex crimes charges, including sexual assault and sex trafficking. abc seven news anchor reggie aqui sat down with our legal contributor, brian buchmeyer, for an inside look at a 2020

special, the secret life of diddy. >> brian. ever since these allegations came out, people have been fascinated about how this could have happened to such a mega star and how really it appears that people have been covering up allegedly for diddy, for so many years. >> yeah, that's the shocking part about this case against diddy, and it really stems from that racketeering conspiracy, because at the heart of these allegations is not just one man, it's one man perpetrating allegedly some of these crimes, but a network of individuals helping to support and cover up some of these allegations. and i think as that case starts to unravel and unfold, many people are looking to see who else is going to be named, who else is involved, and how do they get away with this for so long. >> so what are we going to be seeing in this special? does this take us back to the beginning so that people can get filled in on how this all started? >> this case takes us back to the beginning and then some. it

talks about cassie's lawsuit that was first filed last year in november, and how this all started to kind of put eyes on diddy. then you have a number of lawsuits that flow from it. the rating of his homes, but also people with exclusive background knowledge of sean combs, cassie ventura's relationship and how what they saw and what they saw and where they saw it all intertwined into this conspirac, sex trafficking and prostitution. >> i know that you're also going to be hearing from ray j in this special, and what can we expect to hear from ray j. >> well, i don't want to give too much because you still have to check out the show today at ten. but ray j, as we all know, has his fingers in and out of the music industry and has been there for quite some time. he's giving an exclusive look in terms of the life and the partying of sean combs and what he himself says he saw and was involved in to some extent, and giving insight as to how people are going to see sean combs going forward. again, this is about the secret life of diddy, and this is an attempt to try to reveal all or as much as we can

as his investigation continues on. >> and this does bring to mind another case. obviously, there are going to be differences, but it's hard not to look at the facts of this case and not think of what happened with r kelly. >> yeah, absolutely. and to make that comparison as well, you're going to hear from lizzette martinez, who was known as jane doe number nine in the r kelly case. and especially for us here in new york, sean combs is being prosecuted in the southern district of new york in manhattan. and r kelly was prosecuted in the eastern district in brooklyn. and so there are so many similarities that people are pointing to and asking questions of and still asking, how did this all happen for so long and no one said anything. so making the comparison, i think, is fair, but there are definitely some differences that you're going to want to check out on this show, right? >> i'm sure that his attorneys would like to point out a ton of differences. >> oh, absolutely. r kelly being already convicted after being tried and his attorneys are trying to make any and all distinctions. distinctions from

r kelly, distinctions from jeffrey epstein, ghislaine maxwell, harvey weinstein, the defense attorneys making the strong argument that sean combs is not guilty and that he is far different than all the other powerful people who have been convicted before him. >> well, we'll be watching brian, because this is something that people have been, i mean, really at the edge of their seats because there have been so many twists and turns. so thanks for doing this special, and we'll see you at ten. >> my pleasure. see you then. >> the abc news 2020 special secret life of diddy airs tonight at ten and right before it airs at 930, is the season premiere of abc's hit show abbott elementary. both will also strea

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and nears the coast. right now, this is bradenton, which is near sarasota. we are expecting landfall near there later this evening. and you can just see we're talking about 120 mile per hour maximum sustained winds right now. category three hurricane. as it's only 83 miles away now from tampa. you can live stream abc's hurricane coverage throughout the night on abc seven, bay area app, or wherever you stream. so tonight, a special edition of "world news tonight," bracing for hurricane milton. set to make landfall a short time from now. the dangerous hurricane, a major category 3 storm now, winds up to 125 miles per hour. they are warning of an historic storm surge. tonight, the first images now coming in. the conditions worsening here. the outer bands of the storm alad