that is tonight's last word.

>> millions of people are under threat from a monster -sized hurricane milton. the paddock -- powerful category three storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour has come ashore. it's eyewall made landfall half an hour ago in siesta key, which is a barrier island off of the coast of sarasota. right now the storm, with a diameter of 450 miles, is bringing life-threatening winds and potentially devastating storm surge of up to 13 feet. earlier today the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, noaa, released a video taken by so-called sale drones on the surface of the gulf of mexico. they show that 40 nautical miles away from miltons i winds were gusting at 76 miles per hour and waves were cresting up at 28 feet high. now that powerful storm is hitting land. for those not in the direct path there is still reason to be

vigilant as much of florida is under a tropical storm watch or warning. the national weather service has issued warnings in parts of south and central florida, where milton has already spawned at least 10 tornadoes. airports, schools and businesses closed earlier today as more than 5 million people were urged to leave their homes under mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders. y or voluntay evacuation orders. the national weather service denounced around 2:00 p.m. today that it is now time to shelter in place. the national weather service warns that hurricane milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for the state of florida.

joining me now is nbc news correspondent essie kirsch, who is in sarasota. sarasota in sarasota, florida.ota what can you tell us about the latest on the ground? we hope you are staying safe. >> reporter: we're doing our best. thanks for asking. 5 minutes ago it was silent out here. i could hear birds chirping. it was dry, the leaves were not rustling. but now look what's happening. we were in the eye of milton and i think we're losing the eye. we're now entering what is potentially going to be the most dangerous phase of this storm from where we are in sarasota right now. you can see the leaves starting to blow a lot more, bands of rain back here it seems. i want to have your photographer go to the left. you can see headlights moving quickly offhe a barrier area. that is something we continue to see through the night. there are people on the roads. and i'm not seeing anything indicating that's a first responder vehicle, by the way. we know the police department has suspended having its officers on the roads because of

the risk. we've had people cheering outside, cars with their engines revving, tires burning rubber, the sense of people driving recklessly out there in the streets. and you don't know when the eye is going to end. we had no exactly when this would start to devolve as it is now, so people putting themselves back into harms way as these conditions are so predictable. what we're waiting for now is potentially 13 feet of storm surge and sarasota bay is just beyond the buildings right there. we're also looking at wind gusts close to 100 miles per hour, andological of this comes on the heels of hurricane helene, which left mountains of debris in these communities. that's why i have these goggles at the ready and that's why we're in this parking garage. we're elevated because of the storm surge. we're inside a garage because of the wind threat combined with all this debris, which was not

able to be secured in time. we're talking glass, splintered wood, piece of furniture. and allof of that can potential become lethal projectiles. all of that is something first responders and these communities are contending with yaubd what is typically in mind when we're looking at a major hurricane. at this point everyone should be hunker down because you can hear it ander see it, conditions are deteriorating here quite rapidly. >> thank you for that update. do what you got to do to stay safe. now let's turn to nbc news meteorologist bill karins. what can you tell us about hurricane milton's path at this hour? >> alex, we're at that point in the storm we know destruction is happening. k we can't show it because it's too dangerous to be there and there's no power inec those are. once the storm is gone and helicopters are up there showing us the destruction we actually realize how bad it is on the ground. we've had unconfirmed reports of

a 10 foot storm surge, and in naples confirmed of a 5 foot storm surge. some of these areas are going to be hit for a second time and in some cases worse. we had on extreme wind warning. we had winds gusting 100 to 90 miles an hour to tampa to st. petersburg. that number is growing quickly with those extreme winds. there is the storm surge still going up. tampa bay had no storm surge at all. these numbers are negative because the wind is actually taking the water from the bay and sending it out to sea. as we go through the current gusts, 90 in st. petersburg, 82 in tampa. typically you start to lose power when you get to 50 or 60. this is roof damage and trees calling on cars and homes, that sort of thing. it is still a category 3

hurricane as it is tracking inland. overnight we're going to take it just south of interstate 4. the highest winds and heavy rain tampa, into orlando, and then over titusville, the melbourne area. by about 10:00 a.m. it's gone. it heads out to sea, and all the wind and all the rain should be done with it. we have a lot of flash flooding issues, mostly that i-5 car dor to tampa we're expecting catastrophic flooding not from the storm surge but inland rain. this is not that. florida's flat. this water will pileup and sit there. and it may be in homes but it won't be a rushing river because of the terrain of florida. but it's that i-4 corridor we're still predicting that additional 5 to 10 inches of rain. we had tornados that took homes, mobile thhomes, and that was on the east coast of florida. with a major hurricane like

this, we won't know. it's kind of like the fog of war type thing. we won't know until tomorrow afternoon just how bad the damage that'soo occurring right now is now. >> meteorologist bill karins, thank you for that update. with us now is ken welch, mayor of st. petersburg, florida, which is about 45 miles north of where milton came ashore tonight. thank you for being here. i know sis a busy and hectic and chaotic time for you. we really appreciate your time. what can you tell us about what you're seeing in st. pete? >> well, alex, we were blessed this storm isn't hit 50 miles north of where it did. we werehe looking at 15 feet of storm surge, catastrophic winds, and looking down the barrel of that gun for 24 hours kind of wears a community down. we're not out of that yet. we still have really high winds, and of course we are coming off just two weeks ago hurricane helene and still trying to recover from that. but i think this storm opened a

lot of eyes. we had much better response from our community, and we asked about st. pete and pinellas county to evacuate, and we think overall they were very responsive to that. this is just an example of our new normal as storms are becoming more powerful and moving more quickly and really testing our infrastructure. >> yeah, can we talk about that because of the one-two punch between helene and milton. and granted you're not in the direct path of this storm right now, but you're close to and dealing with it as you say the cleanup from the last monster storm. what is your expectation about how long it's going to take to get things up and running. >> we don't. from a debris standpoint from helene we were looking at months from debris pickup, and one of the problems we ran into is trying to compress six months of

debris collection into just a few days before hurricane milton hit us. we've also got infrastructure needs.so we believe in climate science, and we've been investing in our cpi forou our infrastructure fo years, but the pace of change that we're seeing and the strength of these storm and the impacte is really outweighing r capital investment, so we got to look at everything from our sewer plants to wastewater to sea walls. all those things have to be improved at a more rapid pace because change is coming that much more quickly than we thought it would. >> do you think these two storms are an inflection point in terms of how the state thinks about the climate crisis and how it manages its mitigation? >> yeah, i think everyone sees the impact that these storms making to our economy. we have to rebuild in a resilient way, in a way that makes sense given our new realities. we focused on mitigation, not

contributing to the problem of carbon emissions and sea level rise, but now we've got to focus more on adaptations and do that, and everything we do in terms of ourte capital improvement, that needs to happen. and i'm seeing across the board folks understand we need to change the ways we look at our environment and how we build in the state of florida. >> are you talking to other mayors? i would assume, you know, because you guys are all dealing regionally with the same crisis here, the hurricane coming through the area, do you have a sense what the needs are more broadly in the region? >> i think mayors all across the state from tallahassee down to south florida, as we kind of call each other when we're in the target of these storms. at the local level the mayors and commissioners understand the investments weco need to make given the realities of these storms and the impact they can have on our community.

they're becoming more powerful and they don't give us a time to react. milton went from a tropical storm to one of the most powerful hurricanes we've ever seen and we're working well together and hopefully the state and federal government will continue to partner with us to make thoseco investments. >> st. petersburg mayor, ken welch, it's great to hear from you. thank you for taking the time in this busy moment. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, alex. have a good one. coming up, we are going to continue to get live reports from our nbc reporters on the ground as hurricane milton hits florida. but first, republicans are now saying that democrats control the weather. the insanity of climate change denial just got crazier. we'll discuss coming up next.

hurricane milton, a category 3 storm, made landfall less than an hour ago in siesta key, florida, which is just south of tampa bay. joining me now from tampa where residents have been bracing for a magnitude of storm unseen there in a century is nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk. stephanie, what can you tell us? i can see from the shot the storm is whipping around and there's a lot of rainfall. what can you tell us about where you are?

>> reporter: sure, alex. you know, we are really feeling the brunt of hurricane milton right now. and while tampa bay may not get the surge that would have made this historic and even catastrophic, this is going to do a lot of damage. what we are experiencing right now in the city of tampa, we have winds at times gusting as ferociously as 100 miles an hour. we have torrential rain falling for hours. we were speaking with bill karins, meteorologist and he said actually they're reporting 2 to 3 inches of rain an hour in tampa. you're looking roughly up to a foot of rain falling on this city that has already experienced the rain and flooding and surge from hurricane helene. now they've got this on top of it. and the wind, factor in the wind. there's going to be wind damage. there's going to be damage from

the debris that was already in the streets scattered across roads as well as the flooding that's inevitably going to happen. we've been getting flash flood alerts, shelter in place alerts. it does seem as if people are heeding those warnings. alex, we don't see people out on the streets here. we are in a parking garage, actually, and sheltered on all three sides. and even standing here i can tell you that the wind picks up, and i'm getting knocked around, alex. >> stephanie, what is the expectation for, you know, when tampa may be in the clear? >> reporter: well, there are at least three or four more hours of this. perhaps the wind will die down in a couple of hours, and then things will calm down. it still will be -- you have emergency officials warning people it still will be incredibly dangerous to go out in part because you'll have things like downed power lines, roads blocked off. the bridges may not be open yet that lead to st. petersburg, for

instance. there won't be any gas. it is going to be very difficult and very uncomfortable in this area for many days to come. alex. >> nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk, please stay safe where you are. we appreciate the update. let's go to sarasota and mayor albert. thank you for being here. i hope you're safe wherever you are. what can you tell us about how you're managing this moment, and what is your top concern at the hour? >> first, the top concern is the safety of all of our residents and the hope that everybody gets through this safely. it looked like the eye came ashore on siesta key, which is just right off the coast of sarasota, so it was quiet for a little bit because the eye was going over us. now we can see the rain starting to come, you know, the higher winds.

so this is the part of the storm that we're going to see the worst of it and start seeing storm surge that everybody's been predicting. >> do you have a sense of how many people were told to evacuate and actually evacuated, how many people may have stayed behind and are sheltering in place? >> well, we don't -- we can't -- i don't know what the percentage is, but my sense is a majority of the people did evacuate. we feel at least 90% or more of residents of the barrier islands evacuated. and, you know, the people who stayed felt like they were in a location where they could actually ride out the storm and be safe. >> for people who did decide to shelter in place because, as you say, they felt like they would be able to rield out the storm, what should they expect in the

next 24 hours? >> well, i think in the next several hours, obviously, it's going to be a lot of rain, a lot of wind. and it's going to get a little scary, but we're encouraging everybody to just stay sheltered, stay in place and wait until the storm passes. and then once the storm passes, don't go out if there's standing water or, you know, trees down. wait until the situation is clear that it's safe to stay out of, you know, wherever you're sheltered. oh, sorry. we will be out first thing in the morning assessing the damage and letting people know what they can do, whether it's safe to, you know, venture out of their homes. >> sarasota mayor liz alpert, thank you for taking the time to

talk to us. we're sending our best wishes to everybody down in sarasota and of course florida as they weather this monster storm. stay safe. >> thank you, alex. we will be right back with more coverage of hurricane milton. stay with us. milton stay with us

all of this with the global warming and the -- a lot of it's a hoax. it's a hoax. i mean it's a money making industry, okay? it's a hoax a lot of it.

the climate hysteria hoax. no, it's a hoax. the whole thing is a total. it's so crazy. within 300 years we're going to gain 1, 0.01 in the ocean. the oceans are going to rise 1/8th an inch. the ocean's going to rise and you'll have more sea front property, right, if that happens. i said is that good or bad? i said isn't that a good thing? >> as hurricane milton makes landfall, it is important to remember that that is how the republican candidate for president thinks about the forces tat are intensifying these storms. donald trump is so far-out on the fringes of climate consmeers conspiracy he even denies the exist ons of phenomenon republicans accepted decades ago. remember back in the george bush administration the federal government took action to fix the hole in the ozone layer

caused by harmful pollute wants called cfcs? decades later, decades after that donald trump continued to rail against those ozone reducing regulations because it resulted in a ban on his favorite hair spray. >> you can't use hair spray because hair spray is going to effect the ozone. i'm sitting in these concealed apartment, this concealed -- i do live in a very nice apartment, right? returns but it's sealed, it's beautiful. i don't think anything gets out. and i'm not supposed to be using hair spray. >> trump has a million of these. he thinks windmills somehow cause cancer, they don't. he thinks democrats want to replace all your regular windows with tiny windows. they do not. trump has been repeating this nonsense for so long, it's hard not to become kind of numb to

it, but a decade into the trump party, trump's acolytes are taking the party to extremes. for the past week congresswoman marjorie taylor greene has repeatedly repeated the baseless conspiracy that the federal government is secretly controlling the weather. she keeps repeating this claim, doubling and tripling down on it in just the past week alone. and now it's being amplified on right-wing media. >> has the government figured out how to build a storm into a super storm that will destroy everything in its path and then aim it right for where they want to aim it? it just happens to miss south florida where all the democrats live. >> it just so happens. things have spun so widely out of control here that even some republicans are now feeling the need to push back. florida republican congressman carlos jimenez posted on "x"

anything who thinks they can control the weather needs to have their head examined. tom tillis told his supporters in an e-mail the last thing the victims of hurricane helene right now is political posturing, finger pointing or conspiracy theories. even florida governor ron desabt s has felt the need to push back. >> we live in an era if you put out crap online you can get a lot of people to share it and you can monetize that. that's just the way it is. but if you're hearing something that's just outrageous, just know in the state of florida none of that stuff would ever fly. >> and yet none of that has been enough to stop the flood of conspiracies coming out of maga land. today north carolina republican congressman chuck edwards sent a press release specifically aimed at conspiracies concerning chimney rock state park, which is a park in his district. these are quotes from that

actual press release from an actual member of congress. hurricane helene was not jeo engineered by the government. local officials have confirmed the government is not seizing chimney rock. local officials are not abandoning such and rescue efforts to bulldoze over chimney rock. and it goes on and on and on like that. today president biden addressed this wave of insane conspiracy theories and directly called out the maga politicians responsible for promoting them. >> these lies are un-american, and there's simply no place for them, not now, not ever. former president trump has led this onslaught of lies. now, the claims are getting even more bizarre. marjorie taylor greene, the congresswoman from georgia, is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather. we're controlling the weather.

it's beyond ridiculous. it's so stupid. it's got to stop. >> joining me now is the only member of the united states congress who is also a meteorologist. representative eric sorenson of illinois. representative sorenson, thank you for joining me tonight. i wonder both as a u.s. congressman and a meteorologist what you make of the absolutely paranoid, baseless insane conspiracy theories that the government can control the weather. >> it's amazing, alex. it's good to be with you. first thing's first, i'm thinking about the folks in harms way in florida today and tonight. it is night and the hurricane has made landfall, and now these are the most dangerous times for people. but, look, we have to make sure that we have a -- a country where we look up to the smartest people, the meteorologists at the national hurricane center, the national weather service because it is essential that

these remain the authority on such life threatening events, that they don't get pushed aside and force people to make poor decisions. and it is unconscionable to me who worked as a meteorologist on broadcast television for 22 years that now we actually have elected leaders that are not just leading americans astray, they're leading their own constituents astray. >> yeah, it reminds me and i know my colleague chris hayes was talking about this, too, of the covid pandemic. when at the service of a political agenda, an anti-vaxx, anti-science agenda republicans dissuaded their supporters from getting lifesaving covid vaccines, again putting politics above humanity. you have politicians once again championing their own political

agenda against their own constituents. i've got to bring up the fact, congressman, if trump is re-elected, part of the plan here as outlined in project 2025 is to dismantle noaa and privatize the national weather service. as a meteorologist, what does that mean to you? >> i serve on the space, science, and technology committee in congress where we've got some of the brightest minds working at nasa, working at noaa to make sure we're learning more about this science than we have in the past so we can learn from our mistakes. look, if these things go away, one of the things the national weather service, it is so trusted for those folks especially when we talk about chimney rock, we think about the folks that are down in bradenton, florida, tonight. they have heard from these experts on what to do, but what happens if now we have a

populace that doesn't understand what to believe? that is exactly what they want to do because it's the same thing, alex, as to what you just said about the pandemic. look, there were so many people, my own neighbors, that made poor decisions. but here's the thing, if i got mad at my neighbors, it wouldn't help solve the problem. they have bad data that was coming into this equation. it was tucker carlson that was giving them the bad data, and then they were making a bad conclusion. it goes over and over again because now they're realizing on the other side that that was effective, and so now they want to do it and politicize the weather. >> the one thing -- i mean, it is also a complete moral and ethical lapse. it is also cutting off your own nose to spite your face, to undermine the sort of ability of noaa and the national weather service to predict monster

storms that affect a lot of parts of the country where there happen to be republicans but also democrats. florida is a red state. why would you want to put the people of florida in harms way to a greater degree by not getting them accurate data to help them predict what would be coming next? i feel defunding these agencies would do just that. >> or even the fact we left washington, d.c. with a short-term continuing resolution with a lower projected funding amount for fema knowing that helene was going to come into florida, georgia. and now two weeks later here we are with another catastrophic hurricane that is hitting florida. you know, what's next? we need congress to do its job. and the folks at fema who are doing the lord's work tonight and in the days to come, we need to make sure they're support. now we have these great workers,

these federal workers that are being threatened because of conspiracies that are on the internet. it is this absolute destruction of the good communication that we need more people to be connected to. >> illinois congressman and the only meteorologist in the house of representatives, eric sorenson, thank you for your time, sir. we're going to check back in now with nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch who's on the ground in sarasota, florida. jesse, what can you tell us about the latest? >> reporter: yeah, alex, conditions have deteriorated here quite rapidly. i'm going to have our photographer, david, come to the corner of the garage. look at all that water. this is the water lushing in and continuing to rise. we were just blocks from the edge of sarasota bay. you can see the first level of that garage across from where we are is submerged in water. i saw a trash can floating around in there. and even in the last 15 minutes

or so this has been unfolding i've still seen headlights on the road. you can see how the wind is whipping off the tops of these palm trees and the rain is coming in more heavily now, but the biggest concern always in a hurricane is the storm surge. again, we're just blocks from sarasota bay, and this is the impact of hurricane milton. remember within the last hour it was silent out here. nothing was moving. i could hear birds chirping, and now we are contending with the backside of milton, as it makes its way inland. and this is what we expect it to be, the gnarliest part of the storm and it is living up to expectation right now. we're in an elevated parking garage and the garage shielding around us. you can see the walls off to the side here. we've got fortification on either side of this window where i am right now, because there's an added element of concern with this storm. this is less than two weeks after landfall of helene in the same area, and just up the road from where we are, i saw homes

with about waist-high waterline marks from helene. that means all kind of stuff was ripped out of those homes, furniture, picture frames, shards of glass, wooden planks, envelopes, food, you name it, it's on people's lawns and it was not all cleared in time. the governor says only about 50% of debris was cleared from barrier islands despite a 24/7 operation to get it out of here. in addition to everything else we always expect from a major hurricane, we are looking at a variable we don't fully know what the impact will be and that is all this debris could become projectiles. all the power is going out where we are right now. the power is out in the garage right now, too. david, spin around real quick. for a moment the only lights in this garage were our lights which is being powered by a generator, not the electricity. lights are coming back on, but

they're flickering on and off. we're really in the impact now. we still have cell signal because we're able to communicate with you. you can see the lights flickering and there's an eerie sense this is going to keep continuing right now. and a generator seems to have kicked on over here according to my producer. you can see the flickering lights on that building. i don't know if it's reading, potentially it may not be. but the eeriness right now, alex, lights flickering on all around us, and the rain coming down, and i just saw a flash of something. i don't know if that's from a transformer or lightic. the water level you're seeing below is continuing to rise all around us, guys. >> jesse, let me ask you. you've got to do what you've got to do. >> reporter: we're good in all directions. thank you. >> we really appreciate what you're doing right now. in term of the water level rise, when we talked to you at the top

of this hour, you couldn't see water. now, it's hard for us to understand and hard for you to estimate, too, but it looks like it's rising rapidly. do you have a sense of where it is versus where it was when we talked to you just half an hour ago? >> reporter: yeah. i'll try to keep my finger to show you so off to the right the water level is around here in the last 10 minutes, 15 minutes. now look where it is. this is a ramp and an incline. so it is going up a ramp. i can tell you even with a bit of rain earlier, theed flooding was overwhelming, the storm drain over here hours before landfall. the fact this is happening, is by no means surprising to me. we heard from people in the area this happened with hurricane helene. again, we were expecting potentially twice as high of a storm surge this time around. because we're to the right where this storm made landfall, this is the side of the

hurricanethality typically sees the most powerful winds and most powerful storm surge. and right now we're seeing this in realtime. i keep watching that water level. it keeps inching up. i know based on what i've seen and our producer has seen there's water over here and at least three sides. we can't even get safely over to the water in the marina to see if we're surrounded. i want to stress we're elevated. we're multiple stories up for that very reason. but there are people who live in one, possibly two-story homes on those barrier islands. and if they have not evacuated, this is what they're contending with, and this is probably not the end of it, alex. >> invaluable perspective and really brave reporting down there, nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch. jesse, safety is power mount. do what you need to do, and thanks for the update. still ahead this evening, how did we get here? i'm going to tell to jeff

goodell, "the new york times" best selling author of "the heat will kill you first," about how hurricane milton intensified so rapidly, and about whether this is just the beginning of the new abnormal. that's next. new abnormal that's next.

before hurricane milton even made landfall this evening, the national weather center warned it would become one of the most

destructive hurricanes on record. scientists have been alarmed by its strength and its size and also the super charged rate at which it grew, what is known as extreme, rapid intensification. the cause for that is fairly straight forward. unusually hot ocean water especially on the surface provides fuel for these storms. and this year the gulf of mexico saw record high temperatures. scientists are clear that a primary reason for that is climate change. according to a recent study, climate change made the record break in water temperatures that fueled hurricane milton up to 800 times more likely. author of "the new york times" best selling book "the heat will kill you first," jeff goodell puts it plainly, hurricane milton is a drivenicate tastrophy. joining me now is jeff goodell, a scientist who has covered

climate change for decades. i will note asheville is not a place known to have the need to brace from the impact of these monster storms. it's a testament to climate change, i would say, that you're even having to grapple with this. and our thoughts, of course, are with the people in your community and those in florida grappling with hurricane milton. let me start with the idea climate change is making a storm like milton 800 times more likely. does that sound right to you? >> the study you're it's making these hotter temperatures as you talked about in your introduction, more likely. it's not making the storm itself 800 times more likely, it's making the hotter waters that are driving these storms much more likely. but we do know because of these

hotter waters, hurricanes are not only more likely but more intense, more destructive. we've seen that with milton with the rapid intensification of the storm and i think what we're really seeing is a sign of this new climate we're creating by continuing to burn fossil fuels. we're going to see more and more of these kinds of storms. this is not a freak storm. this is not just a kind of random event. this is, you know, the kind of world that we are creating for ourselves. >> you know, we talk about rapid intensification or have a lot in the last 24 hours because it's a hallmarker for hurricane milton. but it seems it's characteristic of several of the hurricanes

we've weathered in the last two years. i think hurricane otis in 2023, hurricane idalia, hurricane ian in 2022. those are category 5 storms that intensified rapidly. for people that don't understand why that matters, can you explain rapid intensification and why it makes these storms more perilous? >> let me start with the idea about 90% of the additional heat we put into the atmosphere with co2, which traps heat into the atmosphere, goes into the ocean. the ocean is like a giant heat sink and it sucks up a lot of the heat. so as we get these hotter oceans, you know, hurricanes are like heat engines. they work off the differential -- they get their energy from the differential between the ocean temperature and the cooler temperatures at the top of the atmosphere. and so as the ocean's temperature increases, that sort of heat engine spins faster.

and a faster spinning heat engine like that is very dangerous because, first of all, it's much more difficult to predingt. these things happen very quickly. they come out of nowhere. they spin at a sort of much faster, much larger diameter. they are because of hotter air carries more moisture, so they are wetter, which is really important. we're seeing that with milton as the rain begins to fall. for every 1 degree of warmer atmosphere, you get 7% more water in the air. in vermont last summer we had intense rainfalls very damaging. it wasn't because of a hurricane but because of this hotter atmosphere of carrying more water. and then when you add the final thing onto this which makes this

more destructive is sea level rise. the gulf coast, sea levels are rising twice as fast as the rest of the united states. we've seen 5 inches in just the last decade, and that's just going to accelerate. so all these factors together is what makes these storms much more destructive. >> jeff goodell, author of "the heat will kill you first," thank you for explaining a terrifying phenomenon as elizabeth colbert said, the new normal. we'll have more coverage of hurricane milton. stay with us. have more coverage hurricane milton stay with us

a flash flood emergency has been declared in the florida cities of st. petersburg, tampa, river view, and palm meadow as hurricane milton rages across the state. multiple fatalities have already been reported in fort pierce after a tornado touched down around 4:30 p.m. over 1 million floridians are

currently without power as hurricane milton gets downgraded to a category 2 storm with winds as high as 110 miles per hour. joining me now from tampa is nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk. stephanie, it looks bad there. what can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah, alex, it is bad. it may be a category 2, but we are getting a brunt of those winds right now and a good sense of why hurricanes like this are so damaging because we were standing here for a long time and the wind was going that way. and then it started to pick up, and not only did it get stronger, it shifted direction and started coming right at us. and that is one of the things about hurricanes that makes them so damaging. on toff of that, you mentioned it, the flash flood warning here in tampa. the alert going out to people not only tells them it is a flash flood warning but it is a life threatening situation. and the only reason you should leave where you are if you yourself are experiencing those floods and you need to get out

of a place to try to escape the water. but i can tell you that right now these winds, 70, 80, 90-mile an hour gusts at a bare minimum, we are really seeing the intensity in the last half hour ratchet up. and while that surge, that historic surge people are worried about here in the city of tampa doesn't look like that's going to happen, the rain we're getting on top of this ferocious wind event means there is going to be damage here tomorrow, and it is going to take a while for them to get back on their feet on top of hurricane helene as well, alex. >> nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk, please stay safe. do what you need to do. we really appreciate the reporting tonight, stephanie. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. good morning and welcome to "way too early" on this thursday, october 10th. i'm jonathan lemire. we appreciate you starting your