barbara tripp, the chief officer of tampa fire rescue.reak we will focus on a rather big story which is, of course, the middle east, lots going on in lots to report tonight on develop mitts on that story. so do stay with us. we will be right back. hello there. there's been a lot of cloud and some rain around again today, but over the next couple of days, things are going to look and feel a bit different because it will be turning drier, but it's also getting colder. and we started to see that colder air arriving across northern areas as a northerly wind is picking up, and that northerly wind is going to blow down across the whole of the country and push this rain and drizzle southwards overnight. following that, there will be a few showers — they could be wintry over the tops of the scottish mountains. but with the clearer skies in scotland, we're more likely to have a frost. could be —2 or —3. further south, where there's more cloud, temperatures are going to be held a bit higher, and that cloud still producing some rainfirst thing. that

coast as you see, plenty of traffic on the interstate around tampa joining us right now is chief barbara tripp of tampa fire rescue chief. i appreciate your time and no busy. you are you're still dealing with stuff from helene. how much more dangerous does that make the threat of hurricane milton now? you for having us and it's actually a definitely a threat with this magnitude of this storm tampa the tampa bay area is definitely going to feel hurricane milton. we are just trying to get over as forced to clean up with a lot of degrees and a lot of devastation that a lot of fans emmys held. and we're still in a cleanup process. and what this storm and with all of the wind and the damage we're just trying to make it as safe as possible for the community to be able to deal with milton power evacuation efforts going what are you most concerned about right now? >> i can say the evacuation is going at hate to say going great, but what just good, because law enforcement is going door to door and allowed the evacuation areas which evacuation amb has been declared by the county. and we have here too th

. >>> let's go to tampa, joining us now is barbara tripp, tampa fire chief. thank you for being with us this morning. tampa could very well be in the bull's eye of this monster hurricane. what have you been doing to prepare? >> we have been preparing. this is one of the things that makes public safety so important. we train all year for incidents like this. especially here in the tampa bay area. we have definitely reached out to a lot of different state and federal resources, which have been so helpful. so we have different task force teams that's been deployed. we have the national guards that is standing by willing to help us, we reached out for multiple strike teams, suppression teams. and so we are preparing for this cat 5 storm to hit the state of florida. >> and, chief, i know that you've been just doing extraordinary work. the mayor of tampa warned residents that if you stay in an evacuation area, you very well are going to die. there is still, marissa parra, was saying some time for residents in these evacuation areas to leave. what is your message at

knowledge refuse to evacuate link, boris, we'll check in with him again, joining us now is chief barbara tripp of tampa fire rescue, who is also with us last night. last night, chief tripp. what's your message to people right now in evacuation zones in tampa who have not yet evacuated well, good evening. >> first of all, i'm lot of people have definitely evacuated the area. they have been listened to the local and state rules as far as the different evacuation zones. so i must say that we might have maybe one or two. law enforcement has been going door to door and making communication with all the residents and a lot of what taking heat to it the tampa mayor jane castor told cnn, quote, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die. you agree with her? >> well, i don't think she mean it like that. you're gonna die. she's pretty much stand a chance to view surviving, especially it all depends on what kind of surge come in if you end up drowning. and basically to take yourself at a harm, you don't want to contain to keep yourself in harm's so we seen from hurricane

. >> and with us right now for some more, chief barbara tripp, fire chief of tampa fire and rescue chief. thank you very much for taking the time. these are really the final moments to get the message out. talk to me about what your message is right now for everyone in tampa my message is to make sure everyone pay attention to the local guidelines and to follow the rules. if you're in an evacuation area, please please take key to that and definitely evacuated they have that cone of uncertainty, so if you anywhere into that cone, you must take so i'm seriously, this is one of the major storm said, i've been in florida all my life, tampa, and i've never seen nothing to this magnitude the director of the national hurricane center, we've been shown graphics all morning talking to us about the real concern of storm surge and how high that could be even if it's short, even if tampa doesn't get worst of it, it's still cataclysmic. >> it could be storm lows, storm surge of ten feet, and also, we've heard from the national hurricane center that people could be facing and will be facing 12, 121518

barbara tripp. thank thank you. will check in with you throughout the next several days. they say for next guest, dr. megan martin is a pediatric emergency physician and st. petersburg, florida. she posted on instagram about she and her kids will be living in the hospital the next few days as she helps with the response >> it's a cot that i keep in my office about it a couple of years ago during the normal times, anybody can sleep on it, but during hurricanes, i call dibs dr. megan martin joins us now from st. petersburg. thanks for taking the time just talk to us. so you're going to be riding out a hurricane in the hospital where you work with your four kids? i think you're gonna be working tomorrow. how are you feeling about everything with about 24 hours until this begins to really hit you know, i'll be honest, i'm nervous. >> we're still in the recovery for helene. this is a pretty big storm. it could wobble and come a little bit closer to our direction. the storm surge could just be devastated stating for this area. so i'm honestly i'm a little nervous, but we're goi

thank you for coming on the program barbara tripp the chief officer of tampa fire rescue. a big job on her hands in the next couple days. we will take a short break and all the others i focus on our other big story, the middle east. lots is going on. lots to report tonight on developments on that story. stay with us. we will be back. announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: get the free pbs app now and stream the best of pbs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woman: a successful business owner sells his company and restores his father's historic jazz club with his son. a raymond james financial advisor get to know you, your passions, and the way you bring people together. life well plned. brett: you know as someone coming out of college it can be very nerve-racking not knowing what to

tampa's fire rescue chief barbara tripp joins us now with an update. > good morning, good morning. >> ainsley: good morning. i know you have been up all night. what's the story there in tampa? y'all were in the cone. we thought it was going to hit. it hit a little south in the sarasota area. what are you experiencing? >> right now we are experiencing a lookout of power outage. we have over half a million residents without power in the hillsborough county. and we are going to go out and start doing an assessment as soon as day break. >> ainsley: okay. what about fires? do you have any reports of fires? >> so, of course we did have to suspend services because of the wind. you know, we had gust winds up to 85 miles per hour. and usually after 40, we stop the services. and during that time we had three house fires and of course in the area that the house fires, it was also flooding. we couldn't take the equipment into area as well. >> ainsley: barbara, what do you do in a situation like this i remember in the last storm helene i talked to someone down in yo

. >> next, i'm going to bring up chief barbara tripp again, s mayor stated, good morning. just want to thank all the first responders who have started responding to calls as the mayor stated because of the when we had to see service for a couple of hours, it was very dangerous for first responders to get out there. but doing that time, we did make a rescue of where a tree fell onto a home and did head injuries to individuals that were transported to the hospital. it's the mayor stated we had over 100 calls that came in. we are responded two calls and within that timeframe, we had a couple of fires that took place within the city of tampa. our crews are out there assessing those fires and making sure that there's no other damage to any other structures and nearby the calls that was coming in, like she said, was down power lines, minor medical calls and a lot of fire alarms. each one of those calls will be evaluated and our crews will respond to those calls. assessment. it's that time to let experts get out and do a damage assessment to the areas before you go out? we don't

you have to be south of the ai to truly get the big surge all right john, let's go to barbara tripp, who's the tampa fire chief. chief. you and i've talked to over the last several days how from your vantage point, how are things right now in tampa well, it's pretty rough here. >> the when it's over 100 miles per hour, you know, we haven't some large wind gusts. >> we actually i had to cease all services because it's actually been too dangerous to put margaret first responders out there on the road. so a lot of residents are without power. so milton is definitely dissonant. tampa time you may be able to get first responders back out there too survey the situation. >> what sort of mile an hour winds do you generally operate it when you get what's house per hour sustained win in a course does have a lot to do with dan. >> and right now, we haven't 100 miles per hour. wind gusts, about 70. we will not put the units out there. anything above 40 of how many people are without power the last time i looked, they said it's probably over 400,000 people without power in the city of tampa time

we're joined by barbara tripp, the fire chief for tampa rescue. good morning to you.his morning, what are the challenges you're facing? >> good morning, yes, we're grateful that no one was injured with that situation. right now, what we're seeing is over half a million people that are out of power. so with that, that is one of the major situations we're having now with the wind gusts that came through last evening, we had to stop service and -- which we started getting over a hundred 911 calls. we're doing an assessment this morning and you can see we have a lot of flooding going on in different areas. we just want people to make sure they don't go out there, the power lines are down, be cautious of the generators and, you know, all that comes with restoring them. >> it's about 7:40 now. sun's up in tampa. i know your crews are out and about. what are they seeing and what are their tasks at hand? >> what they're seeing right now, a lot of downed power lines, trees into homes, we had three structure fires and it presented challenges as far as getting to the homes becau