right now at 5:30 -- as

closer to the bay area the rain is already here. >> abc action news making sure you're ready for the potential flooding as it hits part of the bay area. >> the rain already moved in. the latest from the national hurricane center, really no big changes as far as the track and what we're expecting. still a heavy rain event. still coastal flooding potential especially through tomorrow at the time of high tide. right now 35 mile-an-hour winds, yes, that is a tropical depression. not a tropical storm. you get four more and you get a tropical storm which is what we're expecting here. me anticipation of what the storm will be like as it approaches the area. this will become a tropical storm, it's going to head to the north and northeast with winds at 50 to 65 miles an hour between thursday morning and thursday afternoon and then by thursday evening making landfall along florida's big bend. the trend has been, you've been noticing the last couple of days shifting further and further away which is excellent news. it's not to say we're not going to get effects.

from coastal pasco, hernando county and citrus county, winds 40 mile-per-hour certainly likely. the potential for 70 plus miles per hour is there. i don't think it will happen but it's a possibility which is why along that same area we have hurricane watches as well that will be in effect as we head through tomorrow. tomorrow is the day we get not just the rainfall but the wind as well. let's show you the latest as far as the coastal flood potential. ongoing. we'll watch it closely tomorrow the potential for isolated tornadoes. janelle and i have been looking at the roads and radar together. it's a mess through pinellas, already crashes as a result. the rain will be heavy today. it will be on and off and continuing right through tomorrow. so folks, slow down especially along the coast. that's where we're seeing problems on pinellas with the slick roads. we've already have two crashes on 275 through the st. pete

roosevelt is off to the side so not slowing things down too much. looks like cars are slowing down a little bit but still up to speed there. looks like the crash that we were watching here at 2nds avenue -- 22nd avenue south cleared moments ago. good news, but again the roads are slick. so give yourself extra time and slow down especially when you pass those flashing lights. we have a crash from overnight but it's having trouble clearing because it involves a semi leaking some fuel. so they are working to get this cleared roads because roads are dry here, u.s. 19 and tampa road but for the short term expect some delays westbound and southbound. we'll continue to watch this and i'll let you know on twitter and right here as soon as it clears. as ivan and janelle watch the forecast and roads we know some people are on edge this morning. parts of the bay area under a hurricane and flood watch. >> one of the places is citrus county. abc action news reporter rodney dunigan is live near the homosassa river now, folks are

ready. >> reporter: folks here are not wasting time and they are taking all of this very seriously. now, the major concern this morning are for the homes that line the homosassa river behind me. folks i spoke with this morning are concerned that in the next few hours they will be forced to leave their homes. we also stopped by a local restaurant, pretty popular in the area, freezer tiki bar. the manager says they have generators on hand, they also have lanterns ready in case the power goes out. the community for some time, manager telling us that they have seen floods in the past, they've survived those and they are pretty confident that they will make it through this. >> we go through this every year. and the freezer is the freezer, when the tide gets up too high we'll either leave or stay and make potato salad and party. >> reporter: hopefully it will be safe enough for them to simply make potato salad and party. the citrus county emergency management director says they

strengths and path of this storm. several local parks will be closing a bit early this afternoon. back here live this morning there are two sandbag locations which will open up in citrus county around 8:00 this morning. for a full list of the locations and to find locations near you head to our web site, abcactionnews.com. for now reporting lifer in citrus county, rodney dunigan, abc action news. 5:35. authorities are looking for a man who escaped hillsborough county man during a traffic stop. here's a look at jesus roman muniz. police say they found 20 baggies of heroin on him before he ran away while handcuffed. deputies and police are looking for him in the area around fowler avenue and 22nd street in front of the university mall. we're working to post this picture on our facebook page now so you can share it and warn your family and friends. the literacy leadership technology academy in tampa is

the damage is covered with a tarp after the lightning hit yesterday. two teachers felt the impact, were checked out and we hear they should both be ok. in democracy 2016 -- a tropical depression in the gulf is not stopping republican vice presidential nominee mike pence from making his first florida campaign events in the bay area. he will be rat a private fundraiser -- be at a private fundraiser in st. petersburg and then also travel to sarasota. tickets available on the trump web site. trump is expected to meet with the mexican president today hours before delivering a major immigration speech in phoenix. the mexican president previously compared trump to hitler and mussolini. we'll live stream touch's speech on facebook starting 9:00. four leading democrats are asking the fbi to investigate

if the campaign worked with russia to hack democratic party computers to interfere with the presidential election. some trump aides had worked with the russian political parties according to the democratic party. last night clinton wrapped up her hamptons rallies. you may hear about the e-mails soon. the fbi will be publicly release the department it sent to the jti week possibly as soon as today. the report recommended no charges be filed against her. a number news organizations requested the report be made public. a senior member of isis is dead. the islamic state group announced his death in a rare public statement. it marks the highest profile killing yet of an isis member. isis hasn't revealed the cause of death. extremist group suffered a string of defeats in recent weeks including in the syria northern alleno province --

are presenting their plan to the state today to stop five failing schools from shutting down. boone, kathleen, lake alfred, adare and westwood middle schools are all in jeopardy because of failing grades. the state already rejected the state's first improvement plan for them and now school leaders are hoping to get approval for a new plan. a woman accused of running over and killing a tow truck driver and leaving the scene is headed back to court. police say alison huffman ll howard frankland bridge in february. she as a hearing this morning in tampa. investigators say she admitted to hitting the man, said she was too scared to stop. the chicago police superintendent is formally moving to fire five officers involved in the killing of teen laquan mcdonald. the chicago police board will now decide whether to fire the officers.

that recommended firing 10 officers in all but some of them have either retired or resigned. this video shows officer jason van dyke shooting laquan mcdonald 16 times. he faces first degree murder charges. hundreds of people are expecting to pay final respects to one of the bay area's most beloved catholic leaders. the funeral mass for monsignor lawrence higgins begins 11:30 at st. lawrence catholic church. the parish he founded and led for decades. up in the adjacent piazza and in higgins' hall. you are asked to park at raymond james stadium and take the free shuttle to the church. a national honor given to one firefightary year. today it goes to a polk county first responder. the american legion is naming lieutenant matt brown firefighter of the year. the group will present the prestigious award to him at its

he's longtime member of the lakeland fire department and carried out many heroic acts including helping an officer shot during the pursuit. two central florida theme parks are giving back to first responders by offering free tickets in september. law enforcement officers, paramedics and firefighters can get a free ticket to lego land starting tomorrow. just show id at the ticket window. first responders can also buy four half price tickets for family and friends with them. into meanwhile today's also the last day local first responders can get a free tick september. go to seaworld.com a remind are for all tampa buccaneers fans the final preseason game against washington will be tonight instead of tomorrow night due to the depression in the gulf. kickoff at raymond james stadium scheduled for 8:00 if you're going you may want to bring a poncho, umbrellas not

starting here. pinellas getting crushed with tore rengs rain. st. pete getting hit and along with the heavy rain frequent lightning as well. good time to remind to you download our stormshield app. a weather radio for your mobile device. it sends weather warnings to your cell phone or tablet. available for android and apple. meanwhile stay tuned to abc and traffic reports are coming up. a car on fire with a pregnant woman inside, who the stranger is that managed to

titan doppler radar showing a torrential downpours now and along with that frequent lightning. it's the kind of rain that is blinding, so take it easy out there especially on the roads on this early tower cam here of i-275 near 28 and st. petersburg. topler estimates already an inch of rain falling at the beaches from pasa grill to india rocks and more on the way. slick streets, hazardous driving use caution, a complete look at traffic and weather in a moment. caught on camera at 45: 5:45. a news photographer rescues a pregnant woman from her burning

control and crash into the -- driver lose control and crash into the trees near baton rouge yesterday. the 28-year-old pregnant woman who was driving crawled to the passenger side and that is when photographer patrick perry pulled her out and carried her to the side of the road. he said it was second nature because of his career of recording first responders in action. >> i've watched paramedics and i knew to keep her head still and make further injuries. >> firefighters put out the fire. the pregnant woman was rushed to the hospital. she's now in stable condition and the family says her unborn baby is just fine. 25-year-old man is recovering from a shark attack near new smyrna beach. sam comiscky was serving in an inlet monday, in his board in 5 feet of water, when he put it down and said the shark bit him. he has severe injuries on the

>> it felt like kicking a wall really hard. a good way to describe it or a wall kicked me. i knew what was going on -- a big bull shark biting my foot. >> sam paddled to shore, used a leash on his board as a tourniquet to stop bleeding. he says as soon as he's healed he plans to surf again. we're lit up with very heavy rainfall throughout the morning. this is the pattern today. not going to rain every minute but will rain a lot. it's off and on and when it's on, it's on. very heavy rain now, that's not just an adjective, tore rengs, it means upwards of 1 to 3 inches in the last three hours, torrential. that will cause ponding certainly and potential for flash flooding as well. we have a flood watch for the western part of our area here.

focusing in a little closer, in st. pete now, if you are asleep or were, frequent lightning with thunder ongoing. clearwater and nearby. from 1 to 3 inches and falling in a short. a time. that's the kind of rainfall we're talking about, tropical rains, and that will continue today with the bands as they continue to stream in. more where that came from and it's coming from this, the tropical depression that will become a tropical storm and eventually head to the big bend. again little bit here, watches and warnings have been updated but as far as what we can expect, that really hasn't change much. we've been talking about a heavy rain event, coastal flooding event and potential for some isolated tornadoes as we head through tomorrow. there's the track a little closer up here as we talk about the hurricane watch for the possibility of happy force wind. just don't think that will happen. 65 mile-per-hour winds, that's the forecast there. and it's way away from where we

so we're talking about pasco, hernando and citrus, i think the tropical storm warning is more appropriate for you, you're going to get winds in excess of 40 miles per hour, that will happen as we head through tomorrow and then watches a little further to the interior, probably 30, 40 mile- per-hour winds through tomorrow. so there's a lot of colors, you'll see that on the maps, on social media. keep in mind what we have is heavy rain, coastal flooding potential and of course the gusty winds that will be with us tomorrow. and the winds that are going to push the water foot storm surge potentially here. the latest, i think this is doing a pretty good job. i don't always show the models because i don't agree with them. in this case we're looking good. 3 to 5 inches across the interior. the closer to the coast, 6 to 8 and there will be pockets of 9 plus inches of rainfall, that's why the flood watch has been posted from 2:00 p.m. through friday. remember, this is a prolonged rain event even though our wind event will be tomorrow and them we'll get back into a more typical pattern here. just going to take a while to

weekend. by the way if you have outdoor plans, afternoon storms. more like it saturday and sunday heading into labor day itself with plenty of sun through the early part of the day. three-day stretch, have to watch the roads closely as we've been already seeing problems in pinellas. we have blinding rain coming down now in st. pete. that sideways rain where it's hard to see. i've seen a lot of cars with their flashers on. you're not supposed to do that, just slow down and be careful, you might want to even wait a few minutes before you head out because you can lightning in the cameras, this is st. pete on 275, we've already had four crashes reported on 275. no major lane roadblocks. also checking cameras on the sunshine skyway, a lot of rain coming down, fhp reporting a crash on the skyway in the northbound lanes with some roadblocking. i've been checking several cameras on the bridge. i haven't been able to see the crash but we'll watch it and still showing just 10 minutes

on the sunshine skyway. 5:50. the department of health is investigating where two new cases of the zika virus were transmitted in florida. three cases in total. detected from florida mosquitos. we know that the third one came from miami-dade county. 16 new travel related cases were detected as well, one in polk county. three of the cases involved pregnant women. there is a new recommendation for unborn babies exposed to the zika virus. the cdc suggests testing the newborns' hearing right they are born. studies show some babies with microcephaly and zika are born deaf. millions of dollars going to states to curb opioid abuse. funding will focus on overprescribing painkillest and increasing access to drug treatment. the money will also make sure the antidote is widely available in case people accidentally overdose. these might come in handy. abc action news is keeping you

sandbag locations around the bay area. times and places on our app and abcactionnews.com. >> this is what you'll need them for. tropical depression 9 already soaking the bay area now. ivan is keeping an eye on the system to let us know where

if you want to work in a grocery store you have a pretty good shot. >> aldi and walmart are hiring. aldi is looking for 75 new positions at the sebring location. and walmart is hiring in sarasota. there are 20 openings there. that hiring event will take place at career source suncoast from 12:30 to 4:30. publix is expected to make a major charity announcement today. in connection with national hunger month. the chain says its it's never done before. and believes it will impact six states and a big impact in the bay area. coming up at 6:00 -- we're looking ahead to tight races in november. after you picked your potential political matchups in the primaries. looking ahead to the closest battles in the general election. >> heavy downpours continue at this hour, in fact torrential with blinding rain. buckets of lightning as well across downtown st. pete. lifting north in close association with our tropical depression.

coming up in the next hour. in a few minutes. >> we have slick roads, we've already seen four crashes on 275 through st. pete. i'll show you where those are

the final hours before the storm, your last chance to come and pick up free sandbags to protect your property and your home from high floodwaters. i'm lindsay logue, i'll run down everything you need to

it's 5:47. a busy wednesday morning. thank you for joining us on abc. >> we're two and-a-half hours away from an update from governor rick scott on the storm but we're already feeling the effects now. >> rain is likely to make your morning commute more difficult. janelle has details but we start with ivan and whether the storm is strengthening. >> that doesn't matter at this point. the rain on top of us what we've been talking about. torrential downpours at this hour, pinellas big time. but that rain spread further east now with manatee and sarasota counties as well. eastern hillsborough getting in, it's just going to fill in throughout the day. it will be on and off, heavy at times and again pockets of lightning here, frequent lightning in fact with this particular wave that moves in through st. pete now and then further up north into clearwater. you're hearing that thunder, no question there. all the bridges are going to be involved, interstates, skyway looks pretty wet now and look at this, just in the last three hours which is why we've been talking about flood potential, these tropical rains have the potential of 1 to 3 inches in

has happened in the last three hours. when we went on the air there was light rain and then it really got going. you see the band break there and then more rain. that is all coming from the tropical moisture associated with, yes, our tropical depression number 9, 35 mile- per-hour winds at its center. sometimes with tropical storms you get strongest winds along the bands, so we watch the bands the next 24, 36 hours as they begin to move. in as far as the track, not anything significant from 11:00 if you were up late last night, but basically big bend as a strong tropical storm with 65 mile-per-hour winds. you wonder why do you have a hurricane watch? this can be fickle. if you go from 65 to 75 you got a hurricane and the national hurricane center wants everyone to be prepared for the worst but what we're thinking now 40 to 50 mile-per-hour winds more likely as this continues to head north and east. and we have watches and warnings that just continue at this time all over the place. i'll be updating that.

has potentially been expanded, i'll be back with two minutes and clarify that but basically the deal is heavy rain, upwards of 9 inches, in fact some pockets a foot of rainfall not out of the question, that is we have the flood watch. begins today at 2:00, continues through friday and the weather service putting in 8 to 12 inches of potential rainfall here. we'll get to the 7-day forecast but tell you what, at least temperatures being kept back. that's the last thing we worry about. it's been raining buckets. it's still doing pinellas and -- i can even see it on the cameras. we're talking behind talking blinding rain. use caution. you can't really see the road with the rain. this is 275 through st. pete. already had four crashes reported on the interstate through pinellas county. so nothing causing any major delays out there but again just a sign that the roads are wet and you want to use caution when you're heading out.