it has no place to go other than -- these storms coming in those particular paths like hermine pretty much all worst case scenario all the time as far as storm surge impact. >> dana: do you feel you have the resources that you need? >> yes. we have a lot of stuff pre-staged. we have things ready to go. we're trying to get the message out to folks to let them know that even though the storm has moved out and winds are subsiding they will still have another 5 to 6 hours of this surge problem going on today and not to go back into the areas or anything until the evacuation orders are lifted. >> dana: john, i hope everything is okay down there for your folks. i know you care a lot about them and we appreciate you being on. we'll no doubt be back in touch with you perhaps within the rest of "america's newsroom." thank you, john mcdonald. >> dana: thank you. >> bret: let's bring in national hurricane center director michael brennan. thank you for being here. let's go through where the storm is now and what you are looking at. >> right now it's moving inland. the center over north florida mo

hermine when it went by was a very strong tropical storm minimal category 1 hurricane.that's the difference that we're trying to tell these people, that you know, when you incorporate a lot more wind with it that increases those numbers. so it's real. it's happening. you know, we can deny it, we can do that. we always tell everybody to run from the surge and hide from the wind. they don't have to go far. you know, just get far enough out of that surge zone, pretty much anything on the east side of u.s. 19, moving in like that would be a safe enough to get out of the surge. >> if they don't get out of the surge and what's expected to be the surge area, will first responders still be able to get to them? >> no. once the winds reach a certain level and then once the tide -- especially cedar key because cedar key has one way in and one way out. it's a state highway that runs through there. once that becomes unpassable, yes, they will not be able to get out there on rescue boats, winds and all that. so once those winds reach that 45-mile-an-hour sustained, they pull all the

with a six-foot storm surge for hurricane hermine?st high in our store, which is about 50 feet from our river. so i remember on for that storm, it was kind of up in the air that if it was going to turn into a hurricane, and we didn't prepare that much at all for hurricane hermine, and so we boarded up the doors that time for that hurricane. but i remember it was going to hit in the middle of the night. similar kind of like how this one is going the hit with the high tide in the middle of the night. but i had my -- my dad is y'all go down there to check to see how high the water level is. i remember seeing it was foot over our little deck right here. man, we better go get my dad up and have him come down here. our house is literally right across the street. we get him up and walk him down here, and it's knee-deep in our store. and the water came in like a flash. >> and that was six feet. that was six feet. they're expecting 10 to 15 feet this time. that could be a lot worse. >> yeah. so if this double of what hurricane hermine was, it'

inside this bar at about hip height, there's a mark where hermine came up to, which is something likee. >> and that's a six foot surge. so if we get eight, ten, 12 foot surge, you're talking water is going to just flood all of these buildings. >> the governor warning people in this part of florida have never seen a storm like idalia. >> you got to go back to the 1800s before you would see a path like this. and so those coastal areas there, you know, have not necessarily been through this before. >> farther south in tampa, officials shoring up critical infrastructure for the second year in a row they've erected this aqua fence around tampa general hospital to hold back any storm surge and to protect the patients inside fort myers beach already flooded. it's the same community devastated by hurricane ian last september. coastal communities are at the highest risk. but inland residents, people as far as georgia and the carolinas also bracing towns in and around gainesville and tallahassee could see destructive winds. >> we could see hurricane force winds as far inland and as far away as

we've had issues in the past during hermine. obviously way back in the 90s we had the no name storm in our area. those things we're prepared for. our county staff already to get out there and survey the area in hernando beach and along the wiki watchy shortly after the waters recede so we can help people start getting ready and cleaning up. that's a big part of it is just the cleanup afterwards. >> and what do you see to residents of your county who are likely going to be wake up to a very different picture than what they saw when they went to sleep? >> our emergency operations team is ready. our sheriffs department, our fire department are ready to be there toe help you. and we will do whatever we can to speed this process up and hopefully get you back into your home as soon as possible. >> well, chairman of hernando county board of commissioners, best of luck to you. i know you have a lot of work ahead of you, but i hope you stay safe. >> thank you, sir. and you be safe as well. >> of course. >>> now as hurricane idalia churns

>> janice: depedepends, cedar k surpasses hermine, the storm a lot of people were talking about.here were folks on cedar key and i'm concerned. high tide comes around noon and you have six-foot storm surge that will continue to rise. here is official landfall from national hurricane center. we were here live as the eye came on shore, keaton beach. we have been reinforcing this last few days, wind you can hide from it, you have to run from water. talking about 15 to 16 foot storm surge, that is catastrophic damage. purple here is coldest cloud tops with thunderstorms and we have strongest core of wind right now, 100 mile per hour sustained wind for matter of hours and we have extreme wind warning for counties as backside comes ashore and threat of tropical tornados. several storms within the last 12 to 24 hours, tornado watch from tampa toward charleston will continue as the storm moves north and eastward. cedar key 6.5 feet surpasses hermine and cedar key is going to continue to rise because we have high tide yet to come. historic storm, again, storm surge over topping homes, inu

remember, hermine, back in 2016, was a category 1. that brought six feet of storm surge to cedar key. we are projecting 8 to 12 feet that could inundate that area. sara. >> reporter: again, i can't stress this enough. it looks so beautiful where you are, derek van dam, just a few hundred yards behind me. it is so tempting to come out and to play in that bathtub-like or, as you said, hot tub-like water. but authorities say if you stay too long, you will not have time to get to safety, you will not have time to get out of the way of danger. you can come back to this. it will be here. right now it is a time for those in evacuation zones goat to a safer place and, meantime, do not forget about, by the way, your pets. plenty of places have shelters for pets and people. so you can take your entire family with you. derek van dam, thank you so much for a view from the very warm ocean. we will toss it now back to phil. >> actually, no. no, we're not. we are not going to do that. we are going to pay attention to our executive producer, carolyn,

>> well, hermine was perhaps one of the storms we dealt with most recently that came through. this one has been much like that one. we had one back in 1985, kate. that one was not a hurricane but it did a lot of damage in our community. we learned from that storm how to prepare and get ready for hurricanes in our community and we haven't had that kind of devastation since 1985. >> dana: wow. other sheriffs have told us this morning they feel like the governor of florida has provided them with the resources that they need and requested. is that the same for leon county? >> absolutely. governor desantis has stepped up and made sure this entire state got all the resources they need and that includes us in leon county had we needed those. the governor has done a tremendously good job responding to this hurricane. >> dana: do you have any other messages for people who are maybe in leon county watching us right now and wondering and looking to you for leadership as to what's next? >> well, what we're saying to our citizens is stay in place for right now. as we get out with law enfor

storms hit in different ways, and particularly with the last couple of major storms coming close, hermine and irma, and we saw the storms drain out of tampa bay and people might be used to the idea that we won't see a lot of the storm surging, but what we are trying to emphasize to people is that this storm is not like that, and the forecast has been clear if you are in those areas, you will be seeing the water rising up, and depending upon how high your house is above the ground, you will get water coming into the house at the height of the storm surge. >> josh, it is a complicated decision for people, people who have pets or people who cannot afford a hotel or who don't have friends and family in the region, so for folks who decide to stay, what should they be doing right now there to prepare. >> we hope that people who are in the evacuation zone know that there is free transportation on the public bus system here, and many of the shelters allow pets, and they are pet-friendly shelters, and we also have accommodation for people who have special medical needs or who are electrical depend

a lot of infamous storms, easy, we had tampa bay, hermine, we've been talking about that storm thchl no category 4 has made landfall in this area thchl is historic talking about a 15-foot storm surge for big bend, that never occurred and this is most vulnerable coast line in the u.s. we will be dealing with a hurricane for south georgia and carolinas. this morning and afternoon, your time is running out, if you're preparing for a hurricane for parts of georgia and carolina. this storm will make landfall in next couple hours, lowest pressure point. effect of this storm widespread, heavy rain upward of a foot. 15-foot storm surge, which will be catastrophic. we have potential for weak tornados, we already have rostation and tornado reports last night. no reports right now, but still possible. impact being felt now, landfall possibly between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. georgia and carolinas into thursday and it moves offshore to the atlantic and sits. we'll track the storm for the holiday weekend. some forecast models bring it back to the coast, this is ongoing, we'll forecast, peak storm s

seems unfair to me to support a bee hermine meth company that has a lot of its employees outside of america my companies, small business. >> brian: the regulations got so strong because of the failed regional banks, the ones that survived can't lend money. the rates are so high, small businesses can't get money even to float a payroll. it doesn't seem like this administration knows how to balance a budget or run a dry cleaner or a deli or a restaurant. >> so, look, the fact of the matter is prices have shot up, wages have not. people are feeling the pain. and the answer is bidenomics is really only working in name because of the optical allusion they created by government spending in picking favorites. the number one sector that expanded jobs, brian, in the first half of this year was actually the government itself. that's the same government that's picking favorites in the private sector. if you are in the electric vehicle business or in some sort of climate change business great shower government aid on you. small businesses across the country aren't playing that game can't afford to lobb

just for a point of reference, hermine, they had a storm surge of six feet. people were saying they were walking around the marina parking lots in water to their waist. 10 to 15 storm surge, it would be over our heads. >> so much of this is historic construction, prefab mobile homes, so really the infrastructure of this area is most at risk. you have to hope those die-hards who never leave are minimal this time. >> how used to these strong hailstorms are residents of this region of florida? >> reporter: these are storm hardened folks here. in addition to the one john was talking about a few years back, back in the '90s they had the storm of the century. so you get folk who is have the mentality that if it's not a category 4 or 5, it's not going to get my attention. although those rarely make landfall here it's a local's apathy about these things. but we live in a different world now. every 1 degree fahrenheit of heating in the gulf of mexico means a storm could be 10% stronger. right now it's over 2 degrees above normal. 88 or 89 degree sea surface temperatur

ago talking about what she saw back in 1993, no-name storm, we all saw it in 2016 with hurricane hermineding right now could potentially be under six feet of water by the time we get to high tied in about five hours from now. >> so it's going to get worse. sheriff, if you can hear me, that's incredible descriptive and helpful, i think, to a lot of people who may want to try to move around in the next few hours. where you are standing could be under even more water in the coming hours? >> absolutely. the national weather service forecasted anywhere between 8 and 11 feet of water where i am standing right now. and we've already seen quite a bit of water intrusion out here. some of the major roads along our coastal area are completely shut down now due to water coming over the roads and making them impassable. we've got some lights that have been knocked out due to water intrusion or a force due to lightning strikes that are moving across our community right now and we've had three tornado watches here in citrus county this morning. we have a long way ahead of us. many hours of frustration

our last incident was back in 2016 with hermine where we had seen some storm surge but nothing of thisn, we had some major destruction to not only homes but, you know, commercial businesses as well. and we're a very, you know, small community that relies heavily on our coastal communities with their shrimping and crabbing and fishing and our timber. and so if the track stays the same and we see the storm surge that they are predicting, it would be very devastating for our little county and the surrounding counties around us. >> so mandy, what do you need residents to know right now? what is your message to them? >> absolutely need them to pay attention and don't take this lightly. we had a lot of people slowly starting to move into dixie county the past couple year which is we love, but for those that may not have been through something like this before, definitely listen to your neighbors that has lived in florida, has been through hurricanes and can give the best advice on what they seen in this area with how storm surge happens especially with the high tides. and we did just order t

. >> brian: think about hermine who are deep thinkers carley shimkus comes to mind. >> carley: jordaneterson is interesting not all politics. one of the things he talks about is marriage and relationship. he has so many interesting thoughts about that. >> ainsley: he said if you live together and not willing to get married, that just tells your partner you might one up. you might find a better partner one day but for now you will do. >> carley: i heard him say that yesterday and it's probably true. >> carley: news to get here. fox news alert. a u.s. army soldier has been killed in an armored vehicle accident in germany. the military has confirmed in this morning. she has been identified as first lieutenant haleyed whoston, 24-year-old texas native was traveling in an armored vehicle when a civilian semi-truck collided with it while merging on the autobahn on monday. no one else was hurt in this incident. 8 delta passengers step in to subdue a male passenger who reportedly assaulted a delta flight attendant. the flight was traveling from atlanta to new orleans yesterday when the unrule

so we're learning no perry county, the last hurricane that impacted taylor was hurricane hermine in 2016 and tropical storm elsa in 2021. did those experiences prepare you gays for what you saw this morning? >> no. the destruction was incredible. just trees and telephone poles snapped in two. power lines everywhere. it just -- you couldn't drive on the roads. as you said earlier, good samaritans came out. i went on the roads. they were court there with chainsaws trying to clear them out. >> gillian: wow. we have to leave it there. dale, thanks for taking time with us. wish you the best the coming days. >> sure. have a great day. >> gillian: thank you. so idalia is making its way through georgia now after battering florida. let's check in with c.b. cotton. she joins us from savannah. hi, c.b. >> hi, gillian. a little more than 100,000 people are now without power in georgia. even though it's been a story of on and off conditions all day a mix of heavy rainfall and strong winds, governor kemp is reminding everyone that dangers are out there, even as the storm weakens. here's the savannah r

but, it seems unfair to me to support a bee hermine meth company that has a lot of its employees outsideand not my companies, small business. i work in small business. and i'm asking myself, what are we doing for them? the 60% of jobs in america? let's wake up, smell the rods, realize they are under tremendous pressure. and they're all our economy. >> brian: we always focus on real estate when it comes to the rates. you are saying it's business. if you can't get a loan. you can't get some money. you are not going to expand or stay in business. that's going to ripple. >> that's the problem. let's say you are selling walmart. a million dollars worth of products to walmart and they are going to pay you in 60 to 90 days. normally go to your bank look i need a receivable i need to find receivable buy more product and sell more product. now the banks are saying i'm sorry because of the collapse of these small regional banks like silicon valley, the regulators are telling us we have to be more liquid. we can't loan you anything. >> brian: i just wish more people in the real world were in washin

i mean, listen, yeah, hurricane hermine came in a similar path, that was a category 1 storm.en that wind is not just the wind damage onshore that we're going to see, it's the water. all of that water being pushed on. listen, so what we can do is what we've been doing, which is we've been changing how we talk about these events before they happen by warning people that more deaths happen based on storm surge. it's not the wind that kills people. it's the water that winds up killing more people, and so talking about that in advance is extremely important, and now trying to warn people, obviously, that the water levels are still very high. it doesn't go down as quick as it comes up, and so staying inside is extremely important if there is storm surge area. also, you know, the rain, it's still raining in a lot of areas, so even though the sun is up, the storm is passing through, now is not the time to go out and venture if you don't have to. listen, i want to thank all the emergency management personnel, the state emergency management director kevin guthrie, those swift water res

seven years ago we had hermine in 2016, and the tidal surge was really bad. it got into the restaurant waist high. so we've been down this road before. we do realize the seriousness of this, and all of our employees are out of town and safe. >> which is very good news. so you have dealt with this before, waist high water from storm surge before. now we're looking at, you heard that 8 to 12 feet warning. it looks like it may be higher, 10 to 15 feet if the worst of this hits cedar key. what do you think that would look like going through cedar key, through your restaurant, what is that going to look like? >> well the big problem of the infrastructure of cedar key is really old, and a lot of wood, a lot of older structures. may have some issues standing up to the high winds and of course this tidal surge that we're really fearing right now. >> right now levee county is under mandatory evacuation orders. to sounds like the folks who work at your restaurant have heeded that. do you feel like most residents of cedar key have heeded that? do you know anyone who's r

the closest thing we came to any possible storm surge was back in 2016, with hermine, and that storm surge was maybe four or five foot. and so when we started prepping for this last week, and throughout the weekend, we realized this was going to be a lot more intense and we needed to ramp up and we started pushing out this as much information as we can to make our citizens aware. we even had multiple meetings with the county manager and the stakeholders to impress on our citizens how important it was to evacuate. and we ended up having a lot of great success with that. and we were actually surprised at the amount of people that did evacuate for a small little town. however there was a small group of people in each community that was just really, you know, dead set on we're staying and that's our major concern now is just seeing how many people truly did stay and the destruction that it caused. we're kind of waiting to make the push. >> the storm may be making its way out of your community. but the hard work for you and your team is still ahead. mandy, thank you very much. we hope you

hurricane hermine, the category 1 several years ago, produced six feet of storm surge there. so we're expecting up to 16 16 feet, just incredible, um, you know, amount of storm surge and water we're expecting. >> ian: yeah, matt, we're staring at a live picture of the poorly-placed cadillac there on cedarky key up in -- cedar key up in levy county. from north to south, the national weather service office has got to be a couple hundred miles you're forecasting, sarasota, you've got a much lower surge but for the northern counties, this is practically a worst-case scenario for surge. >> oh, absolutely. you couldn't have said it be better. worst-case scenario for surge across the big bend area, leavy, citrus and dixie counties as well. in fact, i got a report from one of our forecasters, sarasota is still getting wind, gusts up to 60 or 70 miles per hour. that's the highest wind gusts we've seen from a land-based site so far. so the wind is there as well. like you said, a low-end or category 4 hurricane now is forecast to make landfall across the big bend, nature coast area earl

hurricane center should be coming up at the top of the hour here >> ian: yeah, this we had hurricane hermine in 60 ended florida's long hurricane drought, somehow they went 05 to 2016 without a hurricane making land fall. >> jane: hurricane scenes can be funky sometimes it can be new orleans texas that takes the hit year after year but how erie is it that now we have idalia that replaces irma six years ago and then ian named last year. the "i" named storms. >> the "i" storms retired faster than any other. but even and irma were storms that cut into southwest florida. irma a bit off to the south and that put places like tampa bay and the regions we're looking at here where we're expecting the worst storm surge with a bit of "verse. >> jane: reverse. >> ian: back with irma andlesser extent ian tampa bay to empty out. >> jane: exactly, this time around we're not expecting that curve south of tampa bay and that puts like tampa bay clear water region especially up in big bend into a much more dangerous position. here's the wind speeds, we have gusts right now but we have an offshore wind. >> ian:

>> we have experienced storms in the past, and in 2016 we had hermine, and our community has experiencee educate the public on disaster preparedness, and we work throughout the year and not just for hurricanes, but any disasters that can strike our community. rush back into the neighborhoods and assess the damage. they want to see what's left. they want to see how bad it is. what is your message to those >> was know when these storms hit and they pass, folks want to rush back into their neighborhoods and assess the damage and they want to see what is left and how bad it is. what is your message to those folks, as this storm starts to move into georgia and the carolinas? >> yeah, so again, tallahassee, we are a regional hub. there could be folks that left, and coastal communities are in the shelter here, and follow the directions of your local emergency management, and particularly in places where they have had the storm surge and wait for the all-clear message so you know it's safe to get back on the roads, and be there roads washed out or power lines on the ground that could be energiz