where did the person contract zika and, could it have been spread by a mosquito in pinellas county? either way, it is certainly a wakeup call for people all over the tampa bay area. 8 on your side's jeff patterson joins us live with the latest on this story. and jeff, the big question again right now is how? how did this person get zika? >> reporter: yeah, good evening keith. state officials, county officials are now working to determine how this person contracted the virus. we are told the person did not travel out of the country and they did not travel to the miami area. >> so far, the state pumped 28 million additional dollars into fighting the zika virus. the governor claims the state is winning the fight. reducing the area north of

spread. >> we are now able to cut the area basically in half. so now, start out as one square mile. now it is less than one-half square mile. >> reporter: more cases of zika are being found. five cases announced by the governor today. one, in pinellas county. the state is calling that case nontravel related. >> not travel related means that they have not gone to a place where there transmission. >> reporter: the governor told us today they are still working to find out how they got the virus. >> you have to start doing are the teenist strategic testing. >> reporter: and they want to assure tourists that florida is safe. >> we have to be aggressive

anywhere. everybody has to be aggressive with no standing water. >> reporter: that is why i'm standing here next to a public sports complex. old tires can collect water, breed mosquitoes. the parks department definitely need to do something about that mess over there. >> so right now we don't know where the person contracted this. we are not sure how this person picked it up and was it sexually transmitted. do we know anything about it? >> reporter: not information that we gleaned. they are trying to protect the privacy of this one individual. they do not believe this case was sexually transmitted. >> we will stay on it. jeff patterson live in pinellas county. thank you for that. our coverage of zika in your backyard continues on wfla.com. we have posted an interactive map allowing you to track the

now to the latest on the active situation in the tropics. steve jerve joins us from the forecast center. it is a parade of storms out there. >> one of those in the parade dropped out. fiona is no longer a system. we are watching a couple of things. gaston is well off africa and 99l which is good how potential florida impacts. we will continue to watch that. you can see where fiona was located. gas ton is it was investigated to be elongated and disorganized. they saw a 37 miles an hour wind gust. it will continue to move to the northwest. potentially cause some rain for places like puerto rico and long term will be in a better environment for strengthening

friday and saturday. a lot can happen until that point. it is not anything at the moment. it is a large disorganized system but it has some potential and for that reason, we will watch it very closely. >> thanks steve. and now to some breaking news. we just got this surveillance video showing a carjacking suspect. they were wearing a black hat, black shirt, and a hat. he was walkg parking lot across the street from a bone fish grill where a carjacking happened. at one point, he throws his hat on the ground there. detectives believe he carjacked the employee at the bone fish restaurant, crashed her car, and abandoned it. pasco county detectives arrested a new york man for traveling more than a thousand miles to have sex with a 13- year-old girl. investigators tell us the victims' parents came home from

christian roque in their daughter's closet. he admitted he took a train to meet the girl for sex. investigators found nude photos of her on his phone. the family of a bicyclist is mourning his death after he was killed on a busy stretch of north dale mayberry highway. james hope was hit by two separate drivers as he veered into oncoming traffic. he was dragged nearly a block. parents on the scene said this people driving way too fast and with the high school nearby, they are concerned. >> people driving up and down here at 50, 60 miles an hour, if not faster. they act like it is a driveway. it is pretty bad here. >> the bicyclist is at fault. he is the one who veered into

looking for love on the dating website plenty of fish when he was later robbed and killed. more and more people are turning to online dateing to find the one, but something like this really has to make you question how safe online dating is. 8 on your side's melissa marino joins us live in lakeland where she talked to college students and experts about easier targets. >> reporter: it is scary to think about. you can find somebody on your cell phone. it is as easy as that. the problem is you don't know who is on the other end. adam hillary was looking for romance when he went on the site plenty of fish. he had no idea a first date would be his last. >> with regard to count one, there is no bond. >> reporter: auburndale police believe 18-year-old hailey bustos lured him in so these three could rob him.

the incident is raising questions about the safety of using online dating sites. >> i think that there's potential dangers to it. i think that if you are in that situation of online dating and you meet somebody, you never really know who they are. >> reporter: that is why police say it is important to be cautious when using dating sites and apps. 8 on your side talked to police for advice for those looking for love online. >> it is okay for you to play the type of, if there ever was a time, that is when you need to do it. >> reporter: first, research. check their social media. google them. find out as much as you can. >> they can be who they want to be. that is why you have to be extremely careful. >> reporter: second, be careful what you share about yourself. >> your profile, how you manage that. how much information you can control of what you put on there. >> reporter: when you decide to meet, do it in a public place. experts say it is never a good idea to take someone home after the first date. >> you need to get to know them better than that. so that you can kind of judge

their intentions. >> reporter: it is also a good idea to let a family member or a friend know if you are going on a date and who you are going with and where you are going. stacie? >> all right, melissa marino live in lakeland. thank you for the warning. still to come tonight, a new addition at the newest state university. >> we will show you the project florida poly tech is about dive into. >> plus, you paid for a construction project, but no one expected it to take this long. we are taking dot officials along for a bumpy ride coming

>> some sarasota county business owners claim a $17 million production project is hurting their bottom line. construction has be sing january. the florida department of transportation has not blocked off any businesses but some customers have had to park elsewhere because of all the construction. cooper enterprises is telling us that they have already lost about 25% of their annual revenue. >> the worst part this morning is when i came here, i couldn't get my own car in to get to work. and obviously, security is a measure. so we are having to park our car a block away. >> it slowed down our walk-in

people that are coming in are pretty much all buyers. >> and, there is still more time here, this project is expected to wrap up next summer. florida's newest state university is about to get a big addition. a state of the art aquatic center. check out the renderings after the new facility. it is shaped like a phoenix which is the school's mascot. it will have two pools, a 2700- foot squa they expect it to open next summer. >> that looks really cool. >> gorgeous. still ahead, years of construction headaches that cost taxpayers, you, miions. >> so, when is this mess on almerton road getting fixed?

in florida, it used to be that if a child, a senior or one of our four legged friends was trapped in a hot car you and i were not allowed to save them unless we were willing to be sued. has government lost its mind? so i fixed the law to make sure we are all empowered to rescue those who can not rescue themselves. that is the least we can do. after all the love they give.

>> nearly five years after it began, work is still underway on a $23 million state road project that you paid for. we are talking about a two mile stretch of almerton road that remains a work in progress. forget all the agitation for motorists. you paid a bundle for a project and that is why mark is on it.

costing taxpayers $2,000 a foot every foot of the way and it is taking forever to finish. so we took the dot spokeswoman for a ride. a ride to explain all of that time and all of the money that you paid for it. >> that is where it is finished in that area. >> didn't get hurt on that one? >> i got my seat belt on. >> reporter: the dot pays spoke woman chris carson so positive. >> motorists are happy to have all the lanes open. >> but they bump. >> reporter: on projects like this that you paid for, i'm paid to ask tough questions. >> should somebody be fired at the dot for all the things that went wrong at this project? >> no. i don't even understand that question. >> reporter: if world war ii had started the same day this project did, it would have ended last october. but, there's still no peace for motorists on this project.

the road widening is just over two miles in length and costs $23 million that you paid for. that works out to $1,959 every foot of the way. some kind of jackpot for contractors who still haven't paveed the road. >> they are going to get what they paid for. >> reporter: the current contractor is playing catchup after the last one abandoned the job in february. >> it contractor basically went broke right under the noses of the dot. >> there weren't a lot of signs they didn't have issues. >> reporter: the original contractor left behind lots of mistakes including ripped off leaking liners. and shoddy roadwork that failed to meet state standards. >> how do you explain that to taxpayers who paid more than $23 million for this project and it is still running over

are about to hit another bump? here we go. >> we understand motorists are frustrated but the end product has to be something the dot would accept. >> reporter: the reason why it looks like there is no road paving going on now is because the contractor works at night. that is to minimize traffic tieups. when it rains, that work that you paid millions for grinds to a halt barring any further complications. theyec time around thanksgiving. turkey day. >> good point. so if taxpayers are frustrated by all of this time and all of the money spent on the project that seems to be taking a lot longer than it should, what do we do about that? >> we put contact information for the dot secretary on our website so we can go there. e-mail him directly and cop copy us on that. we want to follow up on that.

wfla newschannel8 and please leave a comment. we have a severe thunderstorm warning in pinellas county until 6:45. this affected area in yellow includes some of pinellas county. a wind gust of 56 miles an hour. a pretty good thunderstorm moving across the bay. watch all the way out to ac wind gusts. potential hail. a lot of lightning as well as across the bay. you can see a few other thunderstorms continue to develop back to the north of it all the way back to polk county. polk city. down around parish in the western part of manatee county. bradenton, might want to watch for that area. that is the view from sun city center. did pick up one tenth of an inch of rain. that is good news because it was a very hot day. help today drop the temperature around some of the area today.

have seen warmer temperatures. 95. feel like temperatures have been quite high. tied a record. 95 set in 1989. that is in tampa international airport. many spots seeing hotter numbers than that today. the dew point was so high. upper 70s meaning very, very high humidity. that is our severe thunderstorm warning in effect. northern areas relatively quiet. may see a few showers clipping pasco zephyr hills. zephyr hills might pick up a few showers. the heavier stuff, the bulk of i-4 in the northern part of hillsborough county may pick up a few thunderstorms as this particular area moves to the southwest at about 10 miles an hour. a lot of lightning strikes here. hundreds this afternoon. needless to say. most of this south of 275. the concentration of south pinellas county. watch for the wind gusts. it looks like around downtown sarasota. just north of that area out to

otherwise, relatively quiet inland. a very hot day today. 93 for tomorrow. scattered storms. northeasterly flow back in the picture. that is more of the typical pattern. temperatures fell at macdill thanks to the thunderstorm. 77 degrees. these will drop too. 95 still in bartow. they have not experienced thunderstorms to drop the temps. bartow in places like sebring and avon park. lakeland s venice could use a few showers. a slight chance a few of those could be to the north of this evening. still a chance as the activity goes to the west. high pressure, from northeast to the southwest. the wrap model picks up on shower activity for the short term. long term quiet. partly cloudy skies. developing showers once again for the afternoon hours. that is in the morning. but in the afternoon, we will likely see the west coast sea breeze. similar to today. the model on that particular

we could see similar shower activity as the thunderstorms come together and see the sea breeze collision. 40% chance for wednesday. same for thursday. high temperature near 92 degrees for friday. an then you can see for the weekend, very typical afternoon activity looks like for saturday and sunday. we talked about the tropics. the severe thunderstorm warning for pinellas in effect until 6:45. folks in pinellas, watch for that as it breezes your way. some good wind gusts to baton down the hatches. >> thank you steve. coming up next in sports, the bucs defense impressing with a different nfl team. >> the coach was not too happy about the practice with the

>> last week, the bucs practiced in jacksonville with the jaguars. today, the bucs played host to the cleveland browns. by the way, tomorrow's joint practice at one buc place, 9:435 in the morning. the last chance for all fans to attend practice. if you haven't been, that will be now, we had good plays today. this was a mixed day. jameis winston to bernard rudy here. a deep ball, later winston going to hit mike evans. keeps his feet inbounds. then the bad stuff. a tipped pass from mike that results in an incompletion. and winston is going to get picked off on this one here. so, dirk koetter who watches the offense all day was not too thrilled about the morning. >> uh ...

no juice. no juice. no one wanted to practice today. we had balls tipped. we had poor throws and bad protection. overall, just a bad day on offense. i wasn't on the defensive field. we did fine over there. the joint practices, i only get to see half of it, i will not know the rest until i get in and watch it. >> keith cate has observed there is no juice. >> no juice. >> you heard dirk koetter mention the defense. vernon hargraves got a few off of robert griffin of the browns. he has received praise throughout camp and we are seeing why. gerald mccoy who has seen it all has high hopes for the season. >> we brought in some guys, and got a lot of experience. really good player.

along. clay mcdonald. we call him the hammer for the reason. the guys who develop it. coach smith's scheme is great man. it leaves opportunities for everybody to make plays. >> chris archer get it is ball against boston for the rays. coming out of a wonderful outing against the padres. pitched to the 8th allowed four hits. the red sox have taken over first place. a tie at least in the al east. so, rays trying to get back on top. david price owned them last night. >> cleaned their clocks. >> koetter needs more juice. that's his line. i love it. >> i see a juice promotion. >> i like his cantor.

developing news font. new homegrown zika, confirmed outside of south florida, in the center of the state. a donald trump calls for a special prosecutor to investigate the clintons as new questions arise about the clinton foundation and trump faces questions about his new controversial. and epipen cost skyrocketing 400%. and a little miracle.