persistent. >> please don't call these shoplifters. >> reporter: at nearly every walmart they could find. >> they're experienced criminals. >> reporter: tonight the sheriff says his team busted a long standing walmart crime ring. investigators say at least 7 people went from store to store snapping high end electronics by stuffing the merchandise in items like right here, a diaper box. and then paying for just the diapers. this trick worked for them for at least two years. >> low lives, i think we should punish them. >> reporter: detectives believe the grou all over the southeast. by their count they stole more than $178,000 with of electronics that were later sold for cash on craigslist. >> $178,000. you know who pays for that? not walmart. you do as the consumer. >> reporter: tonight these four suspected thieves are sitting in the count jail but deputies are still searching for these three from jacksonville. they're offering a 2000-dollar

of the store unless you want to go to the county jail. we don't have nothing to steal from there except orange jump suits. >> reporter: all seven suspects are facing serious felony charges of racketeering through the state attorney general's office. sending a strong message to anyone thinking about not paying. in polk county ryan raiche. all right. i am just posting here to facebook. wee got a special marine warning and i just wanted to show this to you here. getting this out on facebook and twitter as quickly as possible. if you know any boaters in the area and or if you happen to be living in this area just south of the skyway heading into manatee county this batch of storms moving west have the potential to not only degree create some very gusty winds over the skyway but also have potential for water spouts. so this system in particular we want to keep a real close eye

warnings associated with it but there is potential for 35-40 mile per hour winds. also with this batch moving through sarasota i would anticipate gusty winds and potential for water spouts as this moves off shore, as well. so again, we'll continue to keep an eye on it. those are the two strongest watches. the rest of the area seems pretty typical summer-like weather with those hit or miss showers and storms. heavy down pours. at least through 8:00. then we'll watch it taper off from 10:00 through midnight. temperatures coming down from the 90s where we've been to the 80s as those showers and storms roll through. the rest of you who haven't seen any rain, well, your temperatures will come down, as well, into the low 80s after sunset. i'll have the 7 kay forecast and a look at the tropics coming up. right now an army of firefighters is working to contain nearly 30 wildfires out west. we want you to take a look at

still burning out of chrome. dangerously close to homes and a major freeway. it's already scoreched about 50 square miles. and it's threatening some 34,000 homes. all we brought was the clothes and our dog. >> the sheriff came and said out. we were the last ones out. >> and listen as intention winds fuel the flames crews are working to keep the fast moving fire from devouring any more dry brush. meanwhile, good news further up slowing down a little bit. 4000 people north of san francisco finally able to return home tonight. we have an update on the pulse nightclub shooting the last victim in critical condition now showing signs of improvement. doctors at orlando regional upgraded the person to guarded condition tonight. they are not saying who that person is. a day after the shooting you'll recall doctors feared that some of the six people in critical

all six are still alive tonight. well, today the state's second medical marijuana dispensary opened in clearwater. they will be able to provide cannabis to people with serious medical issues. the process to get the drug went be easy. >> reporter: patients have to be referred here by their doctor. >> they also have to be on a state wide registry. the overall idea is to help those who have simply run out of other options. >> i have recurring cancers. and i'm very hopeful that this is going to help. >> reporter: florida's newest dispensary will beat second location opened. the first in tallahassee. >> they also licensed for home delivery. just recently announcing delivery to a patient in pasco county. patients at the clearwater opening thankful for yet another health option. >> we have really bad tremors.

ptsd. >> reporter: true leave provides low and high thc. medical cannabis available to patients listed on the florida department of health's compassionate youth registry patients have to visit a doctor. those eligible with epilepsy, severe serbers, muscle spasms, cancer or deemed terminally ill. dr.cathy anderson believes it will become mainstream. >> i think it will. we'll all learn it will simplified. people won't be so nervous about it. the stigma attached to pot smoking as it was will be removed. >> reporter: the medical cannabis can be used by inhalation orally or a tampa cal solution. patients believing this will have a major impact. >> as far as my life it's going to increase it a lot. before i couldn't even see the floor. and i had a hard time eating. and doing small things. i couldn't do things with my hands.

planning several other locations with operations starting this year. and if you were wondering insurance does not cover the treatment. live for an update on a former deputy on the wrong side of the law. the woman accused of robbing two banks at gun point now facing more charges out of citrus county tonight. according to a brand new indictment we got our hands on elizabeth perkins stole money from a floral citibank about a month after a bank in plant city. she says she did not commit either crime she left fingerprints behind at both banks. new reaction tonight from two film of women riding the world's tallest slide with a young boy who actually died on that slide. right now investigators still trying to figure out what happened. when 10-year-old caleb schwab slipped out of his restraints e. he was riding down the slide at the kansas city water park. two sisters were in the raft with him.

and are committed to preventing future tragedies from happening, again. investigators still trying to determine if the raft weight was more than the 500-pound limit. new at 5:30 a florida teenager rescues a woman and three dogs from this burning home. nicholas swan says he saw smoke and called 911. the dispatcher told him there was a woman inside and she just called for help. he r certain amount of time considering how much smoke was coming out other back of the house. he was in a panic. she was actually bald up. so i helped her out. >> less tine this. he actually had firefighting experience he's a four year veteran of the explorers program. with many folks living paycheck to paycheck putting food on the table can be tough especially fresh produce. but tonight we found a bay area church offering farm fresh produce to anyone who needs it.

>> reporter: hundreds are not only getting what they want but what they need. >> three more. >> reporter: free and fresh produce. >> it's not just for poor people. it's forgery body. >> reporter: three times a week a semi trailer full of fresh fruits and vegetables unload here at the new church without walls in hernando. >> i get anywhere from okra to antelope, walter melon, squash. >> reporter: the first come first serve no i.d. >> there's little food left over. >> reporter: he knows his community is struggling to put food on the table. something he's been through. growing up with 17 siblings right here in citrus county. that's when he became a sheriff deputy that he began helping. >> the first thing i did that touched my heart was during thanksgiving and christmas. we began to throw turkeys in the back of the patrol car. >> >> reporter: the veteran retired and started the church

they recover food from farms that's donated to feed the hungry. >> because of mr. alex and der my kids can have some of those things that i can't financially provide for them. >> reporter: they don't know how to cook what's given way but volunteers are here to help with that, too. >> when you fry them up you can fry them with brown sugar. >> we make sure that everybody is taken care of. >> thank you very, very much. >> reporter: in news. jacqueline thank you. still ahead a missing 11-year- old is found. then goes missing, again. his grandmother telling us she's having trouble keeping him under cell. the resources for thousands of grandparents like her who need

happening right now i want you to take a good look. the search is still on at this hour for this 11-year-old boy who ran away in manatee county. >> we first told you about him yesterday after he disappeared from his bus stop. his grandmother telling us he returned last night only to run away, again, just a few hours later. >> she's raising him and

under control. jake petersonerson shows us resources now available for the rising number of grand parents who are having to raise their grandkids. >> reporter: dora has the sleet in two days. >> he's probably snapped and just ran away. >> reporter: she's raising her 11-year-old grandson for three years after his parents got in trouble with the law. >> trying to say him from the bad. >> reporter: but it's not easy for this single grandmother to raise four kids alone. this ishe nathaniel has ran away in two years. >> when i turn pie back i come back and he's gone i know people are thinking what kind of grandmother i am. i try my best. i'm 63 years old. i have tried my best innocent s they were little. >> reporter: approximately 300,000 grandparents living in florida who are raising their grandkids and there are resources available to themch the family resource center in st. pete and children first in sarasota offer classes

themselves parents, again. the classes show them how to help children cope with the trauma of losing their parents. garza thinks this would be helpful. >> they never told me i could go to classes, how to do this and. i would have done it. >> reporter: that's a tough situation. manatee sheriff says they are still looking for nathaniel. they don't believe he's in danger but they do worry about this trend. >> you're seeing more and more of that with millennials having children and then fo reason, they can't take care of their kids and the grand parents end up with the kid. >> reporter: this child will end up in juvenile key tension for this most recent run away. but she believes it's better than him being on the streets. >> they come and see me and tell me he's dead. >> reporter: reporting in manatee county jake peterson. breaking news a cuban family torn apart finally reuniting tonight here in tampa

it's a story michael paluska has been following since may. he joins us live. michael, minutes ago two girls saw their parents for the first time in two years. and you were there to see it all go down. >> reporter: it's amazing. you know the father standing here looking at every single train going by looking for his daughter. the other daughter looking for her mother. they've been torn apart for two years. show you the video. probably the best think i've ever seen. daughters coming out they've been in cuba. we went and visited in may. after we went theory to visit. u.s. congressman saw our reporting and decided to help. they had been stuck in some sort of political process where they couldn't get the girls home to tampa. you see the hugs, the smiles, the father just unbelievably emotional. hard not to cry seeing so much

old. the first thing they want to do is learn english. they want to study and go to school. they've never been outside cuba. they didn't travel through the iron of cuba. they have the entire world opened up to them. even though that they were in cuba for the past 12 years and 20 years for the other young girl. it's pretty amazing to see the process and see how the face of them changing in cuba. five years ago this would have be especially because the husband who we'll talk to later spoke out against the government and as he spoke out he was placed into jail. he fled and felt that he needed to leave for his safety and family's safety. he was being persecuted for speaking out against the government for his freedoms and after two years and a month he's reunited.

wow, a beautiful day en some spots for them to be reunited. it's amazing how it was raining in some spots and right across the street it wasn't raining. >> right. i mean that is just so typical of our weather this time of year. and we're watching those showers and storms really starting to fire up now right along the coast. you can see sunshine in the foreground and then in the background, you can storms rolling on through. so, again, you're looking in the area of -- or in the direction of bay shore. so it's a mixed bag out there. but the majority are set up right along the coastline. let me show you that here on the radar. from palm harbor on north into bayonet point. southern pinellas county a bit more patchy right ruined the skyway bridge, though. this is were we have an intense batch of storms.

so if you don't need to be driving in this area any time soon. i give it at least another half an hour before things start to clear up. and this also includes desoto. so if you are in that area there's a potential there for water spouts. so we'll continue to monitor this. but at this point, this is the strongest batch of storms that we have in the area. we do have more storms from sarasota north across 301. just abou corridor. so things will be carrying up there but moving across the beaches of manatee and sarasota counties here over the next 45 minutes or s. tar pun springs, new port richey heavy town pours. this is all -- downpours. this is all exiting across honeymoon island. >> you can see even father to the north. hernando beach, we have that heavy rain all up and down the coastline of pinellas -- that

into pasco and hernando counties. as we look at the lightning strikes they were around 600 in a half an hour period about 20 minutes ago. but we've more than doubled that now. so you can tell, just how much we have seen these storms fire up as they're trying to move off into the gulf. they started off on the east coast of florida self hours ago. and again, they're just making their way into the gulf of mexico over the next couple of hours. then we're going to be dry for the rest of the evening. you can see in the hourly forecast a lot of cloud cover right through sunset. those showers and storms continue to move out into the gulf. overnight we're nice and dry. and tomorrow morning you'll be waking up to temperatures in the mid- to upper 70s across the area. so tomorrow, with the same weather pattern that we have seen for several days, it's a great day to head to the beaches. because of that east to west flow, we have lots of sunshine and late afternoon we're talking three, 4:00 before the storms start to get closer to the beaches. clearwater beach e you're going

degrees. the water temperature in the gulf is 86. only about 30% coverage of storms tomorrow, that's less coverage than today. timing will be similar but we went have quite as many storms out there. it's really looking like a fabulous day to be outside. just got to beat the heat. once we head into the weekend we are going to see a pattern change. and we're going to go to a west to east flow. so what that means is that we'll have chances for rain before noon across tampa bay and even a chance for a coastal shower in i think that's more likely for sunday than for saturday. the storms will fire up and mover inland through the afternoon. that will help to keep the temperatures just a little bit lower especially on sunday. but, again, we're still looking ate pretty nice pattern overall. just wanted to show you the tropics real quick. early next week we're going to wants to keep an eye on this next batch of storms that's just starting to roll off the coast of africa. that one could be impacting some of our caribbean islands into late next week.

week. so we want to keep an eye on that. pretty consistent summer-like trend over the next 7 days. well it's a resource that could save your life but most bay area counties don't have it yet. muddying into what's holding up texts to 911. -- muddying into what's holding up text -- i'm dying into

again, breaking news from brazil. yell swimmers rain k lochte and james fee began just indicted for false reporting. they claim they were rocked at gunpoint in rio where they competed in the summer olympics. but this week brazilian authorities began looking into allegations they lied about the entire thing. >> more details right now on our free mobile app. a pilot walked away from a plane crash in the desert in nevada.

before 8:00 this morning on public land near the base. the pilot under to eject. the spoke person for the company says all the pilots are form e air force, marine and navy fighter pilots. >> he was one other most experienced pilots. he was one other most experienced pilots in the squadron. >> witnesses saw this happen. two pair chutes deployed but the company says there was only one person inside the plane. well, the see yet is out just yet. rumor has it apple is pushing back the release date. broom berg saying they would be on sale september 7 but according to a tech website the new release date is september 23. apple has yet to comment. and look at what's happening at 6:00. text to 911, it's not happening in some of the area community. one thing keeping you from getting an answer when you really need it the most.

the streets. >> that's been the big factor. >> the lack of affordable housing in penn county making it so difficult to keep these families from becoming homeless. >> hey, hey, tampa bay your drive times are blowing up now that school's back in. we hit the road to test the worst compute times. we'll show you how to avoid the

breaking news from brazil. just minutes ago officials in rio de janeiro indicting. s. olympic swimmers ryan lochte and james feeling en on charges of making up their storie about being robbed at gunpoint. investigators saying the four americans actually vanderbiltlized the bathroom at a guess station after a party early sunday. >> we don't want to see anybody forced out onto the streets. >> faced with eviction finding homes for those who need it the most and the one thing that's making it so difficult. and new tonight the 911 text to

catchup with texting technology. >> we found out most emergency centers are behind the times when it comes to texting to 911. >> ax news anchor discovered some of the most rural counties counties in the state have better technology than we do. >> reporter: when gunfire was outside the pulse nightclub inside it was the sound of silence helping victims getting out alive. texting for help when calling >> reporter: most 911 centers don't yet have the ability to receive emergency text messages. >> 911 has always been behind the curve and it's the technology. it's not necessarily the agency that's receiving the 911 calls. >> reporter: for the exception of hernando and sarasota the five other tampa bay counties currently don't have text to 911 technology. and abc action news has learned at least another year away from getting it. let me show you what happens