right now on a special edition of "josé diaz-balart reports," hurricane idalia slamming into florida's coast as a category 3 storm. the strongest hurricane to make landfall in florida's big bend in 127 years. this region contending with a surge of water, that flooding fueled by a rare king tide and blue super moon. plus, wind gusts so strong they toppled over a billboard. our meteorologist and our reporters are in position across florida this morning to cover

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 driving around restoring power we're told to thousands of homes already this morning, but the wind gusts have been intense, and we've been told, again, that the outages are widespread. you might have seen this morning governor ron desantis during his press conference here in tallahassee, the power took a hit, it dropped out. generators kicked on. we've also got sandbags here outside local businesses. keep in mind the prep here was last minute. it was frantic. tallahassee originally wasn't really in the path of this storm. it wasn't until the last 24 hours or so that basically we noticed that the storm, forecasters noticed the storm was tracking west. suddenly hundreds of thousands of people in this metro area, which is not normally hit, not

historically hit by storms this strength had to wonder about sandbags. had to wonder about boarding up windows and had to weigh like so many other floridians whether or not it was time to evacuate. thankfully it seems like we've gotten through the worst of the wind gusts and it's going to be up to the emergency crews and emergency response coordinators to start assessing any damage that might exist. jose. >> thank you so very much. julio, as we come on the air right now, we're getting our news, confirmation of the first fatality. it is someone who lost their life inside a vehicle on i-75 somewhere near the tampa area. but that's the first confirmed fatality that we have. julio, you and i have been here. this is zone a, evacuation area. this -- and i just want to kind of give you all an indication. julio and i at maybe 5:30 this morning were right there, and that's the canal of king's bay, and this is happening, what, 15,

20 minutes? >> it's impressive how the water level has risen very, very quickly, jose. however, we have to say that crystal river has been pretty lucky when it comes to the winds and the potential of a storm. we went around crystal river. we drove around, and we saw how the water level came up in exactly 20 minutes, it covered the pier, and what's important to say is people have taken seriously the evacuate orders and the announcements from the authorities. and we didn't see anybody outside, which is also good news, and a lot of authorities and sheriff's and police officers just taking care of the situation, but this storm surge is remarkable. >> i mean, it's right. this canal back here has a -- there's essentially a wall, a seawall that's maybe 6, 8 feet tall, and that's all under water. as a matter of fact, all of this

looks like one continuous body of water, but it isn't. and this was not even high tides. so bill, can you give us exactly an indication of how the symptom is progressing, where it is now, and what we can expect? >> yeah, i'll first start with where you guys are located there, not far from you is horseshoe beach, and a storm chaser friend of mine, he put a camera on a pole that was height of about 10 to 12 feet, and that camera got washed under the waves. that gives you an idea of how high the storm surge has been in areas near where you guys are located, and that's why we're seeing those pictures from those drone shots that you're showing us because the storm surge has been as high as at least 10 feet in some areas, and further up the coast i've seen all the buildings that are under water or in the water, i should say, and that looks like probably maybe 10 to 12 feet, and north of there up towards where the landfall was, that may have been possibly up to about 15 foot of

storm surge. it's not fort myers beach because it's not a city, but all of these small communities are under water north of tampa and especially in the coastal areas. we still have damage that's being done. we industrial trees that are falling down. we still have people losing power. the area now of concern is valdosta, georgia. if we're going to see the highest wind gusts there, possibly up to 90 miles per hour, that would happen in the next hour. the winds are lighter now in perry. where maggie was located in tallahassee, just lighter rain for you. madison, the heaviest rain is over. you're still under that extreme wind warning for a couple of more minutes. from lake park, georgia, to valdosta where interstate 75 heads down to florida, that's where we're seeing the strongest winds left with the storm. we have a new tornado warning north of new brunswick, in

between new brunswick and savannah. the on and off tornados will be with us all afternoon and especially late this afternoon early this evening, in the carolina areas, you have numerous hazards, tornados, and the current wind gusts in valdosta hit 67 miles per hour. trees are definitely coming down. i'm sure people are seeing the arcing of the power lines there and losing power. that should head up towards way cross georgia in an hour from now. finally back down below hurricane strength, and by the way, we did have rapid intensification yesterday of this storm, it went from 70 up to 120 miles per hour winds. it was a pretty rare feat over extremely warm water, and because it got so strong, and now instead of dealing with just a tropical storm, we could see hurricane gust, areas like brunswick, georgia, savannah, possibly charleston too. that's what we're going to be watching this afternoon. these are the predicted highest

winds through the rest of the afternoon and evening. savannah 76, charleston 71. that's enough to knock down trees and to have power outages. on top of that, if we get those strongest winds around 8:00 to 8:30, we could be dealing with significant storm surge. as of now, the national weather service in charleston is calling for the 11th highest water level. if it's stronger than that it would be top ten. that's a big deal for the charleston area. this is the rainfall forecast. we're getting concerned with areas of inland in south carolina especially, you could see up to about seven inches of rain. tornados, storm surge, still people losing power, jose, ask of course because of that onshore wind where you guys are located, this storm surge that you're looking at and you guys are standing in, it's not going anywhere anytime san. high tide where you are isn't until this afternoon. so even though the storm surge may be starting to come down, high tide's coming up. that water is going to sit there and linger, even though the

winds -- the sun may come up. that water's not going anywhere anytime soon. >> i got to tell you just in the last 20 minutes since we've been here, the water has just come up, and it's all the way behind our cameras. bill karins, thank you very much. julio, let's walk over here to get an idea of just how quickly this water changes, and you know, for folks that are watching, this area is -- you know, there aren't a lot of towns, but just due south, yankee town due north, these are small communities dealing with this very much what we're seeing here. >> what troubles me the most is the number of latinos that live around this area, 57% of the community is latino populated and there's so limited information in spanish, limited resources so i just hope that many of these families just evacuated and didn't stay and don't lose -- >> absolutely.

5 to 7% latino in all these communities, and there's one thing you mentioned i think that's important. it's very difficult for some of these communities to have access to later fema funds and access to all of the help that's being given. i think that's important that we mention that. it's important that everybody receives help. >> and important to also underscore it doesn't matter the immigration status they have. they will receive help if they need it. >> thank you. thank you very much for being with us. for more we're joined by lieutenant scott tumond, public information officer. i thank you for being with us this morning. levee county issued mandatory evacuations ahead of the storm. what are you seeing this morning and what are the biggest concerns at this hour? >> the biggest concern right now is going to be our tidal surge that we're still expecting. high tide is not until 2:00 in cedar key. over my shoulder you can see our

flood inundation maps. we're looking yellow into green for expected water push all the way into our communities along the coastline, yankee town and cedar keys. so even though the storm has passed and the winds are beginning to subside, the worst is not over. we're counting to shelter in place, emergency operations have not yet resumed, so as soon as the wind speed comes down a little bit more, and we can get our emergency crews out there, we'll begin our recovery process. >> and sir, there's been the latest numbers are about 54,000 households that are without power, more than 100,000 households have seen their power brought back online just in the last ten hours alone. so is there power to most of these communities? and i'm just wondering as this water continues to grow, are you in a position now to be able to go and maybe find people that are trapped?

>> at this moment, no, we have not launched emergency operations. the wind speeds have not come down enough so it's safe for the emergency services to get out there. i do not see any power -- in these areas until the water starts to subside, which will be after 2:00 today. we're looking at that king tide to hit us on top of all the surge inundation that we're looking at. our folks need to hold tight. we're coming, but we're going to be hampered by the high water and the debris that's going to be on the roadways. >> i got to tell you, just, again, it's been really remarkable to see how quickly this water has grown in size. it just -- in a matter of a half hour everything changed. what's your biggest worry going forward now? >> our biggest worry is access to the people that are trapped. i mean, we're dealing with a huge amount of water. this is something that we

haven't seen in our area for over 100 years. so we're really hoping that our folks that are in place are safe right now and we want to push that message to them that we're coming, that it's going to be slow getting there until some of this water subsides a little bit, and we're able to clear our roadways and get debris out of the way so we can get emergency services to you. >> yeah, and we're looking at these images of the flooding and some of the parts where we are. lieutenant, i can't thank you enough for being with us. it's such an important time and really appreciate everything you and the fine folks that you work with are doing for our communities. i thank you scott tummond for being with us this morning. we are back in 60 seconds with a legislative update from tampa under pressure from hurricane idalia's storm surge. i'll talk to the mayor next. you're watching a special two-hour edition of "josé diaz-balart reports" live from florida. -balart reports" live fm florida.

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only on verizon. i didn't know what i was going to do until these guys showed up. i was going to actually stay and swim in my house. >> how grateful are you to them? >> so grateful, me and my dog. >> i was going to say, the pup made it out too. >> yes, he did. >> who is this? >> this is egan. >> egan, you made it. thank goodness. i'm so glad you all are safe. go somewhere and get dry, okay? >> a great, great story to see. a rescue of man and man's best friend. that near tampa, and let's talk to tampa a little bit where waves are already crashing over some roadways, flooding local streets. bridges closed due to high winds there. the area is expected to see up to six feet of storm surge.

i want to bring in nbc news correspondent marissa parra who is in tampa. good morning, what are you seeing there? >> reporter: if you were to look over here, it's hard to tell whether i'm joining you from the streets of downtown tampa or tampa bay because tampa bay has completely overtaken streets here. if you were to look a little further over here, what you're going to see is a car that tried unsuccessfully to drive through these flooded streets. it was just last night, in fact, maybe even earlier this morning, that we saw cars driving through here. this is bay shore boulevard. this is a pretty normal place, a pretty average place to drive through in downtown. but as you can see, lots of flooding here. this person inside this car needed to be rescued. they tried to drive through an area they shouldn't. authorities kept asking people don't drive through flooded roads. otherwise we'll have to come and rescue. we have heard of several rescues

in the area happening. we know of at least a couple in the peninsula, clearwater and st. petersburg. we know that st. pete fired had to rescue someone from a mobile home park. so jose, when we talk about the concerns here, we have known for some time that tampa bay was not in the direct line of idalia. we did not have concerns about strong winds here, the same way that we do further north. the concern has been the surge, the storm surge. we're talking about the bay waters going over the seawall and posing a problem not just for the streets, not just for cars to get to where they need to get to, but also for homes, low lying homes, and that's why they had those mandatory evacuation orders. now, i can't say that all of the people in zone a, which is the mandatory evacuation areas evacuated. we've seen plenty of people that have been walking around, enjoying their lives, living in the homes that were supposed to be evacuated. but what we can say is the

majority of places in zone a are seeing the flooding. we have seen exactly why those places have been evacuated. that goes not just for here and tampa, we're talking also about the peninsula. now, i want to point out behind me over in that direction tampa general hospital. this is tampa bay's only level one trauma center. that is where people with the most serious of injuries go to. it is supposed to be operational during the hurricane. it is only accessible by those bridges. it is on an island. it's really interesting, they obviously have to put a lot of precautions in place. they have these things called aqua fences to make sure they have upwards of 15 feet of stormwater protection. that is definitely making things eaier for them. it remains to be seen what we'll find later in the day, jose. >> marissa parra, i thank you so very much. really appreciate it. i want to bring in the mayor of tampa. thank you very much for your time. tampa is not getting hit

directly by the eye of the storm, but the storm surge of course is of concern. what are your concerns this morning? >> our concerns are just what you heard from those on the ground here in tampa, the individuals that didn't heed the evacuation warnings and now are calling for assistance. we have a number of areas that are cut off, davis islands where just talked about about tampa general hospital. you can't get onto that island now, and you can't get off of it unless you traverse through some pretty high water. we are just asking everyone to stay inside, that the worst of this storm is not over. the water, the flooding that we're experiencing right now, it has nowhere to recede to. and as that high tide, that king tide comes in, it's just going to bring more water into our area. >> mary, your city police chief said the department has been preparing for years for this.

the department clearly has high water and rescue vehicles ready to go. walk us through some of the preparations that you and your team have been doing getting ready for something like this. >> right, well, i happen to have spent 31 years at the tampa police department, and i've been mayor now a little over four years. so a lot of experience with these types of storms, fortunately for us, we have not taken a direct hit in over a century. but we send our resources out throughout the southeast to help when other areas are hit hard. so we bring those lessons back, positive and negative, and we integrate those into our strategy, but we really planned for these events year round, exercising, doing everything that we can, and we have made changes. if you think about it through the years, we used to tell

everyone when it came to these hurricanes that were going to make a direct hit, evacuate, leave town, and now what we're saying is, you know, hide from the wind, run from the water. so for our residents just getting out 10, 15, 20 miles away from those coastal areas is critically important. we have 126 miles of waterfront property in tampa, so there's a lot of areas to be flooded, and the bridges that you keep showing up here, we have two of the three bridges that go to pinellas county are currently closed. howard franklin, and courtney campbell causeway. those will probably be closed until 4:00, 5:00 this afternoon. >> mayor, what about power situations? i mean, you know, do a lot of the folks in the tampa area, bay area have power or have you been seeing a lot of hits on that front? >> no, we're good with power. had several calls with our local

power supply tico with their ceo archie collins, and as soon as we have reports of power outage, they have the crews on the ground to take care of those. so we don't have any widespread power outages. we have you know, a one, two, three here and there from downed tree limbs and those types of things. but that is not to say we won't have further outages when that water continues to come into the low lying areas. >> mayor jane castor, i thank you so very much for your time. it is an extremely busy day for you, and i thank you for taking the time to be with us. >> without a doubt. >> i wish i had done this in the beginning -- sorry? >> oh, i said we have a cabin right by where you're at, so i've been in that location many times. good luck to you. >> and i've got to tell you, just the water that has been

coming in, it comes in so quickly. mayor, i thank you, and i wish i'd done this in the beginning of this hour, but when we were starting this broadcast about 22 minutes ago, i don't know, i seem to recall that the water where i am is about at my ankles, and you know, now it's -- here's my -- here's my knee. it's growing very quickly. you know, there are so many dangers involved in water. officials are talking about don't go out, we have been taking all the precautions. there are lamps out here, they're low voltage, and they've been disconnected but you just can't be walking in this kind of thing. it's just really, really dangerous. next, we're going to get an update from the mayor of tallahassee. you're watching a special two-hour edition of "josé diaz-balart reports" live from florida. art reports" live from florida. from big cities, to small towns,

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we are back this morning, i just want to give you another kind of an indication, king's bay is a couple hundred yards from here, and right here these little bits of wood that you see are actually the top of a seawall that is, i don't know, 6, 10 feet deep, but all of this is just flooded. i wanted to kind of show you this because this is what officials are having to deal with if they have to go and rescue people. that's why it's so important that people stay, and if they were told to evacuate, evacuate it. this is zone a, tom llamas is also in this area. tom, you're seeing the difficulties of this water throughout the area. >> yeah, jose, let me explain to you. we're about 20 minutes north of where you are, an area called

yankee town. the river on this side has met the bay on this side. this is what people feared the most. a lot of times when people think of hurricanes, they think of it as a wind event. of course it is, there are still dangerous winds associated with hurricane idalia. here in the big bend area, they're worried about the water. i'm going to ask my photographer to pan over here to his right, and you can see this is a neighborhood completely flooded, inundated with water. you can see where that gate is, that deer sign is right there. the top of that gate is almost completely flooded oaf. we're talking about a storm surge at least three to five feet where we are, probably even higher. here's the thing, as you know, this is going to affect you where you are in crystal river, high tide is not until 4:00. this is really what they're worried about. there's ongoing rescues there. people didn't want to get out, they didn't want to evacuate. all that water has come in. the only bit of good news is this is happening during the daylight. hopefully first responders can get to them. what i'm hearing from people out

here is already crews are stretched thin. a lot of crews ran to cedar key to help out there because the storm surge there was also pretty wild. now they have volunteers doing roadblocks because they've run out of troopers and firefighters. it's a fluid situation. no one's ever going to get this right. that's what's happening right now. our viewers have to understand across the country, especially here in florida. this is just getting started. we're going to be seeing this and monitoring this until at least 4:00 p.m. today. you can see this house over here, this house is probably a story to two stories high, about 10 to 20 feet in the air. you can see that water rising almost to the living room floor there. so the water's on the rise, hopefully it doesn't get much higher. that's what they're planning for, that's what the big danger is here. there are urban rescue teams, all those members have been activated in case people get trapped in their homes, they go all the way to their attic because there's no place to go. that is the worst-case scenario.

we saw something that i have never seen, which is we saw animals trapped in the flood waters in realtime. we saw an armadillo crossing from over the river and having to swim in the bay because there's no were where to go. we saw deer doing the same thing. they almost looked confused. you know it's a bad situation when the animals are confused. we've seen a ton of water moccasins that have been swimming up and down the road with these flood waters. be careful where you're stepping. >> tom, that's great, and i really appreciate you saying this, and you know, there are a -- few people with more knowledge and experience than tom llamas. i'm looking for those moccasins because this thing is getting kind of deep. one of the things that really characterizes florida is how it reacts to hurricanes, and i think that we're seeing once again how this state is eminently prepared and does what it has to to deal with something

like this, even something that is more than 110 years unusual. >> reporter: no, it's true, jose. i'll tell you this from talking to people in crystal river where you are. there are people that have lived there, a lot of people have second homes, but i actually saw the fear in their eyes. usually sometimes floridians -- i'm a floridian, you are, they can cavalier about certain storms. but they were actually worried about this one. they went to bed, it was a category 3, when they woke up it was a category 4, and there were tornado warnings going off in the area where you and i were staying overnight. we do know the governor of florida ron desantis has been taking time off the campaign trail. but the reality is as you know, there's only so much you can prepare, right? hurricanes, natural disasters, they expose vulnerabilities in the system and right now what we're going to see here, the test is the water. how far does it go? how high does it get, and the people who didn't evacuate, can they get to safety?

>> tom llamas, i thank you so very much. good to see you, buddy thanks. back with us is nbc meteorologist bill karins. let's talk more about idalia, where it is, where is it heading. this whole issue of the water, it's not unusual. king tides exist, high tides exist. this is just a lot. >> yeah, jose, i thought you were going to say lest talk about the water moccasins, that's what i thought you were going to say. >> they're around, i tell you, i got to be careful. >> someone in the studio was like there's alligators in florida too that are confused. probably not where they're supposed to be. >> true. >> safety to all of you, you've got us all cringing a little bit. perry, as far as wind damage goes, 85 miles per hour winds, horseshoe beach on the coast was 81. where it actually made landfall there was a report of 77 miles

per hour wind. valdosta in georgia, 67 miles per hour gusts. so that's continuing. and now the center of the storm looks to have crossed the border where it's right along the border heading from florida into georgia, and the heaviest rain, strongest winds are right over the top of valdosta at the current time, even a couple of lightning strikes left with this thing. it's likely quickly going to be going down to a category 1 hurricane, probably with the next update, as the wind field continues to weaken, we still do have that extreme wind warning from the northern portions of madison county. there's some significant tree damage throughout the area. as far as the winds go and tornado threat. still have one tornado warning here south of savannah on the coastline near new brunswick. not seeing any other tornado warnings at the current time in central florida. as we get these bands breaking up, we're going to see a little more sunshine. a little more heating of the day, the latest update from the hurricane center has it right along the florida, georgia border. notice this heavy rain shield has moved well not quite to

atlanta but through macon, georgia, augusta, savannah, now starting to pour in charleston. these areas are going to see an all day rain. we're concerned about that. the next issue with the water is going to be in area of south carolina and georgia coastal warning. you're under a hurricane warning. i paused this at 6:00 p.m. this evening. these little wind arrows show the wind direction. notice that southerly wind. that piles the water up at the coast. picture the wind blowing the water, it hits the coast, has nowhere to go. it just piles up. that's the storm surge. 2 to 5 feet at about 6:00 p.m. notice savannah's high tide, 7:37 p.m., charleston 8:24. the timing of all of this is like worst position of the storm with southerly winds, with the storm surge, with the super moon and the high tides astronomically with that. that's going to be an issue, one of the things we're going to have to watch later on tonight. we also just looked up the tidal data from where you are, tampa

to cedar key, all those areas we have seen have hit their high water mark and it is now inch by inch slowly starting to reseed -- recede and come down. you seem to be delayed by a half hour, hour compared to the coast. >> bill, thank you so very much. as a matter of fact, when you were speaking about that, i was actually noticing how the movement of the water has changed, bill. it was all coming from this canal, from king's bay through the canal, coming this way, and it actually just went right past. we had all these structures created for the cameras and everything like that. everybody there is in almost ankle deep water, but that water that was just uniformly coming this way, i don't know if you can see this, it's actually changing. and you can see some of the -- like just the natural debris,

it's actually moving away and going towards that canal. >> yeah, jose. >> i don't know if you can see that, but right behind me -- >> the thing you would normally look at, look at the buildings beside you, if you can't see the wet mark. if you see a wet line that's dropping, that means you've already hit your peak. >> that's a great thing. i see a little bit of a line, right now as you say, we're on a delay, and it's nice to see the folks that are outside there. i can see them on their phone. there's three people that are kind of looking at the situation outside their home. bill karins, i thank you so very much. so far about 270,000 floridians have lost power with columbia county the hardest hit. in the capital city of tallahassee governor ron desantis lost power during his press conference earlier this

morning. >> and it's going to be very, very dangerous, and there we go with our -- with our power here. we're back. >> and we are back, we want to bring in the mayor of tallahassee, john daly, thank you very much for being with us. you've asked people who chose not to evacuate to shelter in place. what are you seeing this morning? >> well, we're seeing the storm move past us. we're still dealing with the wind event and rain event. we've got about 35,000 people without power, our crews are out working around the clock to restore power, and we're just asking everybody still to shelter in place. give us time to clear the roads and get the power lines off the roads so we can be safe. >> what are you seeing now as far as effects of this storm? and i know it's -- you're just essentially in it, but what are you saying some of the biggest effects of it?

>> so remember, we're not a coastal community, so we don't have to deal with the storm surge. we are concerned with area flooding in local line areas. for us it's the wind event. we love our trees in tallahassee. trees and power lines don't mix when it comes to the wind, and so we're still assessing the damage to see what kind of damage to the electric infrastructure we have, but we have prepared for this storm. we have tripled the size of our electric utility department specifically for the repairs to any damage that we might sustain during this storm. >> so mayor, for the people that have power and that are watching and listening to you as they should, what do you have to say to them this morning? >> we're still encouraging everybody, look, let's take the day. everybody stay home, shelter in place, let's stay off the roads. let's give the professionals -- and by the way, i am proud to work with the great men and women of the city of

tallahassee. our city manager, they're out there working hard to clear the roads. let's be safe. let's be smart. just stay home. let the experts get out there and restore the power and clear the roads. >> major john dailey, i thank you very much for being with us this morning, really appreciate your time. >> thank you, be safe. >> thank you. an update from gainesville where so many evacuees have hunkered down. you're watching a special two-hour edition of "josé diaz-balart reports" live from crystal river, florida. crystal river, florida taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. have fun, sis! ♪♪ can't stop adding stuff to your cart? get the bank of america customized cash rewards card,

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42 past the hour. just to give you an interesting perspective on this -- and we have the most extraordinary crew of nbc professionals here covering this hurricane -- i was just told that just in the area

where we are, water has been coming up six inches every 15 to 20 minutes. that's six inches, 20 minutes, another six inches, 20 minutes later, and another six inches 20 minutes after that, and that's what we've been watching, and it's really remarkable to see this. power crews and evacuees, meanwhile, from the coast have been using landlocked gainesville as kind of a staging area to ride out hurricane idalia, but this morning it looks like even plan b may be in some jeopardy after the storm intensified overnight. there are new fears that high winds could spawn tornados. there was at least 11 tornado warnings overnight that could cause structural problems and knock out power to the entire region. nbc's guad venegas is in gainesville this morning, what are you seeing?

>> reporter: jose, good morning. well, we had a tornado warning about two hours ago just south of gainesville in marion county, and we are, of course, under that tornado watch that's going through 3:00 p.m. local time. so that's what's worrying authorities here, the tornado watch for most of central florida. we got a lot of wind and a lot of rain overnight. obviously the dangers here are different than those where you're at on the coast where the storm surge is what's been worrying authorities. county authorities say they've already had reports of falling trees in some part of the county, and also there's power outages. we've seen these power outages that have been reported all across the state, jose, more than 250,000 customers affected. here it's about 15,000 customers last i checked. that's about 10% of customers in the county here that have been affected, and authorities want people to wait, even though conditions have improved somewhat here, we've seen some residents come outside and take a look at the conditions, jose, and what you see if you go

outside here in gainesville is a lot of branches all over the place from the trees that have obviously fallen. this is an area with lots of trees. i should also say the university of florida is here, the university played a big role preparing students as the hurricane made its way through florida. it's fairly quiet. we still have wind coming through and a little bit of rain with of course the worst part of the storm already making its way north. but authorities telling people to be careful when they go outside here if they see fallen trees, and of course, jose, for the possibility of damage to the power lines that, of course, can be dangerous as these power crews are making their way through the states to make those repairs that are necessary, jose. >> guad venegas in gainesville, i thank you so very much as we were chatting with guad, you know, the weather just changed in a second. it just started pouring. and that just shows you that these wind gusts and these

different streams of the hurricane are very much a part of the florida ecosystem. and joining us this morning is florida congressman jared moskowitz who was former director of florida's division of emergency management. congressman, i thank you very much for being with us this morning. you led the state's response to hurricane michael, a cat 5 storm in 2018. what are the lessons you learned from that as we look at 2023? >> well, thanks, jose. look, one of the lessons we learned is that in addition to the wind, the water is extremely damaging, and when it comes to loss of life, that storm surge that came into gulf county and bay county in hurricane michael, you know, that was where we saw significant loss of life. so making sure folks that are in that zone a, making sure they evacuate is extremely important, making sure folks that are in manufactured homes, making sure they evacuate is extremely important, and you can already

see the devastation from idalia as the sun now is up everywhere in florida. you can see that the storm surge, the significant storm surge that they were warning against, that they were predicting has come true everywhere from tampa all the way through the big bend area, and so, you know, we'll see that water go down over time, but you know, because of the low lying areas, it's going to take a while. people should still be staying inside. they should not be walking in that water. they don't know where downed power lines are. they shouldn't be driving in it, shouldn't be driving their bicycles in it. now is not the time to be venturing out. >> i mean, congressman the first confirmed fatality was indeed someone inside automobiles is what we were told this morning. so i'm just wondering this is such a uniquely different storm because of where it's hitting. i know that 2018, we saw hurricane. we saw a hurricane in the west coast just last year, last

september, but congressman, i'm just wondering what is it that we could do about this? >> that's a great question. i mean, listen, yeah, hurricane hermine came in a similar path, that was a category 1 storm. this is a cat 4 upon landfall. the difference between that wind is not just the wind damage onshore that we're going to see, it's the water. all of that water being pushed on. listen, so what we can do is what we've been doing, which is we've been changing how we talk about these events before they happen by warning people that more deaths happen based on storm surge. it's not the wind that kills people. it's the water that winds up killing more people, and so talking about that in advance is extremely important, and now trying to warn people, obviously, that the water levels are still very high. it doesn't go down as quick as it comes up, and so staying inside is extremely important if there is storm surge area.

also, you know, the rain, it's still raining in a lot of areas, so even though the sun is up, the storm is passing through, now is not the time to go out and venture if you don't have to. listen, i want to thank all the emergency management personnel, the state emergency management director kevin guthrie, those swift water rescue crews are out there trying to rescue people who didn't evacuate or water came where it wasn't anticipated. that's how the state emergency management response got one of the best in the country. we thank fema for coming behind that with resources and dollars to help reimburse the cost of response and to help this area recover. >> there are a lot of people who are going to require a lot of help, congressman. i thank you for bringing that up, and i thank you very much, congressman, for being with us this morning. so i want to just let you all in on what and how we're doing it. the water, as the congressman

was saying, it's far from receding, as a matter of fact, at least where we are right now, if anything it's growing. it's increasing, and once again, i look at the -- kind of the currents, and they're back to bringing in more water to where we are, so much so -- we were just talking about -- that it takes about every 20 minutes ev minutes we have been seeing six inches of water in the area where we are. what we're going to do is in the name of safety, we're going to break down where we are, and we're going to go and change to an area that is a little bit more safe and we will be back in just a minute. but i want to turn over my coverage, briefly, to my dear friend and colleague ryan nobles. ryan, take it away. >> jose, you and your team doing excellent work, please go find a spot where you can be a little bit more safe and we'll hear back from you in the next few minutes. thank you, jose. we appreciate it. next, what does a king tide mean for hurricane idalia's

storm surge? we'll talk about that. you're watching msnbc. storm surge? we'll talk about that. you're watching msnbc.

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wildly hot gulf of mexico. so, joining us now for more on this confluence of events is ryan mcnaulty, senior research associate at the university of miami's rosensteel school of marine, atmospheric and earth science. that's a trio of very scary things, brian. king tide, a super moon, and this warm water. talk about why this makes this particular storm so dangerous. >> it came at an unfortunate time with the highest tides basically right now, with the full moon happening today. so we were already expecting exaggerated tides and so, of course, when you add storm surge on top of that, it is not good. >> and from what you've seen so far this morning, what do you think of the worst that we could see? is it going to continue to grow in terms of a threat? >> it should begin to recede.

most places on the gulf coast of florida have probably seen the peak storm surge. but it is going to take a while to recede. and then we look kind of up the southeast coast on the atlantic side, you know, to georgia, south carolina, north carolina, they're in line next for the storm surge, from the tropical storm, hurricane, whatever it is at the time. >> and you were tracking a buoy west of st. petersburg that reached wave heights of 34 feet. which is unbelievable. have you ever seen anything like that? >> yeah. it is very high. and certainly impressive. but in major hurricanes, especially on the right side of the track, you can get 40, 50, 60-foot waves, you know. certainly not a condition you would want to be out there in. >> many long time floridians

wince when they hear the name of an i-named storm making its way to the sunshine state. if you look at some of the most recent ones to make landfall with the first letter of i, these storms, why is it they seem to be the most dangerous and damaging? >> yeah. it is an interesting little fact there. i think a lot of it ends up being luck because, you know, you think maybe the i storm happens around the peak of hurricane season, where we are now. but then all the letters around it just aren't there. they're not as high. you look at, you know, f, g, g, h, j and k are all low. so, you know, f is higher, c is then next, and then a is and d.

so the time of year thing, not sure it quite clicks. >> yeah, right. brian, thank you for your expertise. we appreciate it. and we have just learned that at 12:30 p.m. eastern, we're going to get an update on the storm from florida governor ron desantis. but, first, we'll have more in our next hour, including an update on hurricane idalia's track from the director of the national hurricane center. you're watching a special two-hour edition of msnbc reports. ecial two-hour edition of msnbc reports. my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. ♪i've got home internet from t-mobile.♪ ♪it only costs $50 bucks at t-mobile.♪ ♪just one cord to set up.♪ ♪say goodbye to that truck.♪ ♪oh, what a beautiful mornin'...♪

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good morning. it is 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i'm ryan nobles. i'll be joined by my colleague jose diaz-balart in moments, he's reporting from crystal river, florida. he and his crew are moving to higher ground and to safety. right now, hurricane idalia is pounding parts of the southeast, with heavy rains and high winds. and we just learned