responding. hurricane matthew turning into a category 4 storm. >> this is a beast. winds of 140 miles per hour getting stronger. it would not shock me if it gets even stronger throughout the evening hours. there's the eye as clear as you will ever see. a textbook hurricane at this point. it is tapping all of this warm water down in the central caribbean. we believe it will turn north sometime on sunday. this is my take-away from the newest advisory. first avenue you will, it slowing down. the forecast takes it into maybe call latitude from miami by wednesday afternoon. significantly slower and more in line with what the european is predicting. after that, you see this margin of error. it's huge. some of the models take it up the eastern sea board. others stall it out in the bahamas for three or four days.

sunday. after that, we will have to keep our eyes on it. an update on the local forecast coming up in a couple minutes. >> thank you, denis. zika could have a big impact on snow birds this year year. one group showing a significant flights booked through tampa bay international airport. >> we are live to show you how local businesses are reacting. brenda. >> reporter: well, so far here at whiskey joe's they have had an year. but the numbers we got tell a different story about travelers planning their next vacation in the sunshine state. here at clearwater beach, along wire cspray. especially for the smaller guests. >> make sure that they're covered a lot. >> reporter: jennifer edmunds and her family will not let anything stop their family

while. >> reporter: not even zika. >> we weren't really worried. >> reporter: that is good news for pam who depends on tourists to fill up her pirate cruise ships. >> it affects families and that is the core of our business. >> reporter: fewer crowds may be heading to florida. the survey found that thousands of americans are concerned enough about the virus stop th alliance looked at booked flights through tia through last august to this they found flights dropped by more than 30%. >> our local data is showing the opposite. >> reporter: bob morrison heads the hotel and motel situation and says they have seen record occupancy this year. >> we have seen absolutely no impact in terms of our group or convention or leisure business. >> reporter: despite his outlook, alliance predicts a

florida this winter. only one single customer has backed out because of concerns over zika. as for what this winter brings after 39 years, all she can do is wait. >> so we have our fingers crosses. cross-- crossed. >> reporter: so pharaoh officials report around 73 cases of zika virus around

problem and shows the attempt to keep you from finding out. >> this is what i was afraid of. reliving everything. >> reporter: shannon pots will never let go of mother's guilt. >> maybe i should have gone with someone else. and it wouldn't have happened. >> reporter: six years ago, she agreed to let a naples surgeon repair her son's hernia, only to learn that the doctor also removed a portion of her 19 month old's testicle. >> like it was my faulted -- my fault. i chose that surgeon. >> it is not fair. >> reporter: judy wood will likely never walk again after her attorneys claimed a lakela doctor improperly placed a stint in her artery. >> oh, dear god. >> reporter: they are among the rare but growing number of florida patients victim to so- called wrong site procedures. medical mistakes considered

florida. >> just totally unacceptable. >> reporter: this summer jimmy orr an oncologist made a public plea after the board slapped yet another doctor with a fine for operating on the wrong side of a patient. >> the issues around wrong side surgeries continue to plague the state. >> reporter: we found since 2012, florida has 315 wrong site incidents. >> i think patients have to be concerned about this. >> expects discipline numbers to reach a four-year high. >> we have a problem. >> reporter: a problem we discovered the state doesn't want you to know about. less than half of wrong site incidents end in discipline. no punishment means no public record. >> shouldn't the public know more about these. >> we as consumers have a right to know what the failure rates are. >> reporter: a doctor at the south florida. >> when those things happen, it's important for us to know that they happened.

rather than wondering what is going to happen next. >> reporter: in states like minnesota, washington and texas, consumers can search for wrong site incidents by facility. florida posts nothing more than a quarterly number of incidents in ab skewer place on a -- obscure place on a website. judy and her husband have adapted. he >> i don't want him to think that he is any different than any other child. >> reporter: but the future unknown for these families and the statewide problem some say is barreling down the wrong side of right. >> it's not going to go away from our standpoint. we're not going to say this is okay. >> reporter: stopping wrong site surgeries is to top of mind that the state medical board has created a committee to focus on solving the problem. as for your access to these

tracks the numbers says the reports are confidential under florida law. unless lawmakers change it, details about wrong site surgeries in florida will largely remain secret. i'm investigator katie, taking action for you. >> katie, thank you. a man who set his girlfriend on fire now has the chance to get out of jail. a judge just giving john bobbed for the first time -- the first time today. but it's at $1 million. he has been in jail since july. the trial is now set for january 9th. we are wrapping up week two of the taking action against domestic violence campaign. earlier this year we had a chance to visit with one of the advocates of dv awareness. leslie morgan steiner shared her personal story in tampa. she urged the audience to speak up if they suspect or see abuse.

she actually went one step further, explaining how two friends did that for her. >> so much easier than people think. just talk about t you can say this is awkward and hard to talk about. but i survived domestic violence. or my mother or father or another relative abused me as a kid. or you can even say, you know what, i'm worried about you. something is not quite right. that's what happened to me and helped me is that i had two people in my life who were concerned abou i'm sure they felt awkward and afraid of getting into something that wasn't their business necessarily but they were brave and they both said to me, i'm worried about you and i love you and i need to know that you're okay. >> she also says it's important to believe the person if they confide in you that they are a victim of abuse. the next step is to encourage the person to get help from professionals at the local domestic violence centers. we have all of the dv centers

go to abcactionnews.com/dv. also we invite you to tune in to our annual taking action against domestic violence special airing on wednesday, october 12th at 7:00 p.m. new this year, we're devoting the entire hour to celebrating local everyday heroes who have gone the extra mile towards helping dv survivors. all right. a lot of people hitting the roads right now getting the weekend started. i want you to take a look at i- 4 eastbound. this is at mcinto r have been talking about since 4:15 this afternoon has been moved off to the side of the road. but still only one lane of traffic is getting by right now. you can imagine the backup headache happening in the area. again, this is happening in dover. but with all of the other weekend plans you may have, we have abc action news traffic reporter janelle martinez who is breaking down the other events for you. >> hi, everyone. if you live in clearwater or you're headed to clearwater

along with the super boat race. this is going to cause a closure to drew street. the extension closed from osceola to cleveland. that closure will last through sunday at 6:00 p.m. you can take myrtle as your alternate there. in south tampa, construction on macdill causing some headaches in the south tampa area. macdill closed in both directions throughout the weekend and all next week. this is just north of bay to bay. so your alternate, use from or going on. you could use heinz or dale mabry. and we have construction happening in polk county. i-4 closed in the overnight hours right at state road 3559. this is starting sunday and will last through thursday, again, just during the overnight hours. for more on these and other projects follow me on twitter@tampa bay traffic. >> janelle, thank you.

purse snatcher. police just capturing the thief. the new case that he is connected to that put a baby's line in danger. protecting our police officers tonight. the grass roots effort getting underway that aims to save

>> new developments tonight in a crime we have shown you. you have seen this crazy video surrounding the shocking video we showed you last evening the purse thief has been arrested in the video. authorities are now connecting him to a second crime. investigators say he stole an suv with a baby weekend. authorities did recover the vehicle and that child. and tonight we have an update on on this situation. authorities charging a 14-year- old south carolina boy with killing his own father and injuring three people at an elementary school. that teen appearing in court to face murder and attempted murder charges. he is accused of killing his dad at their home and driving to the nearby school and shooting two students and a teacher.

and suffering from brain damage. it's hard to hear. unfortunately active shooter situations like that are becoming too uncommon. a nonprofit in polk county is trying to make sure that police officers are prepared for it to happen here. ryan raiche takes you inside their life-saving mission. >> reporter: just this week, it happens again. an active shooter opening fire south carolina. >> it's definitely scary. >> reporter: this summer, the worst shooting in u.s. history just down the road at the pulse nightclub in orlando. two scenarios where men and women in uniform are running towards the gunfire while everyone else is trying to escape it. >> it's a lot different than it used to be. >> reporter: ashton helps run the gun shop in lakeland and comes from a family of police officers. her dad works for the polk county sheriff's office and her husband is with lpd.

security until now. >> reporter: she turned that concern into action. forming a brand-new nonprofit called shield the badges. it has one goal in mind, raise more than $65,000 to guy an active shooter vest for every member of lpd. >> enhanced level of ballistic protection to what the officers already wear. >> reporter: the chief says that the heavy duty vest is something that officers would carry in their cars. any time they roll up on an active shooter investigation, they wou smaller bullet proof vest. this one costs $500 and will stop high caliber rifle rounds. >> every morning that the police officers wake up and kiss their spouse good-bye, they don't know if that's the last time that they will see them. that is daunting. >> reporter: at a sometime that law enforcement seems to be a target themselves. ryan raiche, abc action news. >> and the group shield the

fundraising events in the coming days. we have all of the information on abcactionnews.com. new laws are going into effect when you wake up tomorrow morning. the most serious includes a change to threats involving guns. the new partly created because of school threats. now you face a felony for bomb threats or shootings. another change will help stop people from taking advantage of food stamps. now the most accurate weather team in florida, abc action weather. >> good afternoon, everybody. we're going to start with a live shot from aruba. this is as matthew on the perimeter of aruba mind you still kicking up some serious surf. you see the waves there. the winds are howling. and they're talking about tropical storm force winds. closer to the center it is a category 4 hurricane. we will be talking where it's headed over the next five,

coming up in a minute. let's talk about your evening plans. isolated showers and storms popping up across hillsborough county, zephyr hills, right on north of 301 in hillsborough county. straight down to downtown. and then over to west chase a few showers trying to pop up over the last couple of hips minutes as well. otherwise heavy storms in highlands county and hardee. coverage primarily most of it is south o coming in thanks to the cool front that will fizzle out before giving all of us a little taste of fall. at least the northern counties, citrus and hernando get some. temperatures in the mid-80s right now. we topped out at 89. 90 in sarasota. tampa had a shower in last hour. still reporting rain at 83 degrees. the dew point is 76.

of pasco. as we said we hit 89. it's actually now 87. today it dropped down another tick. we are headed in the right direction for the first day of october tomorrow. the northern counties and most of the southeast will be feeling pleasant air, not so much for us. it's not all that unusual for early october to see temperatures like this in the upper 80s. like i said, normal high 87 for the end of september and beginning of october. so the front has made it in. the showers move in from the west. the front picks up moisture ahead of it. southwest flow brings it across the street and moves everything east. there's the drier air. that's the orange color. you can see where the front is. back to the northwest, that's the drier refreshing air up in the panhandle. down across our viewing area, we're going to see the heat and humidity and a few isolated showers and thunderstorms. this evening, you will be

drop of rain. the heaviest showers will be around i-75 and to the east, drier along the coast. on saturday morning, still pretty quiet. we start to transition into a westerly flow this weekend so the rains come back towards the beach. just another typical summer day. instead of low 90s, we will be in the upper 80s to about 90 degrees. what happens with matthew will have a huge impac wednesday. forecast highs on saturday, not too bad. upper 80s. upper 80s to near 90 degrees, where we should be. drier and more please not up north. muggier down south where temperatures could be near 90 in sarasota and st. pete. there it is, category 4 hurricane matthew. textbook stuff. tess getting stronger. recon will fly into it right now. we will get new data. it could go higher than a 4. it's possible it could become a

jamaica over the east side of the island sometime on monday afternoon. now, everything has slowed down in terms of the forecast. you notice even by wednesday afternoon, not even quite even to florida yet. the margin of error is this gray area. try not to focus on the lines. you see there's the potential that southeast florida could deal with this. most of the spaghetti models are keeping this away from florida. it is not set in we will be cup dating on facebook, 24/7 as always. if anything changes and it can, we will have it for you. i don't expect the west coast of florida to be the usual. if it's anyone it with be the southeastern side. rain chances about 30% through the weekend. 40% to 50% by later on next week depending on what matthew does. nice weekend both days.

workers played withlittle children that now has on

>> you may not believe this next story. police just citing a kentucky day care worker for playing a strange game with children. >> yeah. they called it smack for a snack. and investigators say two male staff members start this had thing. basically the children only got a snack if they allowed the men to hit them on the leg or hand with a stick. at least two students had noticeable bruising. police cited one staff member with second degree assault. the day care has since fired them. now here is wendy ryan with a look at what is new at 6:00. >> thank you, paul. a lawsuit stemming from a

you. the reason that one florida woman says it went too far and why a police officer will not be on the job any time soon. conned into renting this foreclosed home. what is next for a family of four living here? parents asking hillsborough county to keep a beloved secretary here at the elementary school. the reason that the county is moving her. next. competition is fierce in clearwater. the race huge for more than just racers. mouth dropping amount of money

y246wy yy6y >> live from the station taking action for you, this is abc action news. >> conned by an ad on craigslist. all new tonight at 6:00, a tampa family says they are now living on boroughed time. good evening i'm jamison uhler. >> and i'm thanks for joining us. finding affordable housing is hard but even worse when you have to sift through fake ads and con artists who take your hard earned money. >> i have been crying for a few days. >> reporter: that's the day that she found this notice on her front door, posted by city mortgage telling her she had until thursday to get out. the problem, her name wasn't on

knows it came crashing down. >> i'm here now packing me stuff. don't know where to go. >> reporter: she is from tallahassee. she and her three children moved to tampa for a new start. >> i whole new start of life? they lived in a hotel for two months looking for an affordable place to rent. she found this home on craze list, called the number and toured the house. >> i loved it. gave me the money i gave him my money and i have been here since march the 1st. >> reporter: she paid $4,500 for a deposit and six months rent. the landlord known as james sampson acted like a landlord too, fixing leaks. >> he planted the flowers in front of the house. >> reporter: that changed on wednesday when she called. the number is disconnected. the address doesn't exist. she has been to court twice this week, filing two emergency motions to stay on the property for a little bit longer. both denied. she called the bank too. asking to rent the home for a