they're looking at two to three feet of flooding in some parts officials in both pinellas county and hillsborough county are urging folks to stay indoors, especially if they see storm damage because right now there is so much going on that they do not want folks to interfere and they do not want folks to put themselves in danger with these rescue operations and with serving further widespread damage of hurricane milton kaye and boris, that's a little bit of what we've been hearing from officials this morning from an official in venice, florida from official in naples, florida, all along the west coast of florida saying they are really getting out there now oh, to get an assessment of the damage that has brought a lot of it on the west coast, as we know, is is from the waters from just being dumped with rayne. >> i think we didn't they say i think it was clearwater st. pete like a foot and a half came down yeah yeah, absolutely. >> it's something that we had to deal with all night in tampa, the pounding rain tampa got roughly four to six months worth of rain in about a day and you can

ravaged east coast and flooding occurred on west and east coast and strong winds lashed pinellas, manatee and sarasota countiesheavy rainfall 10 to 15 inches observed across tampa bay, nature coast and spreading along north of i-4 corridor toward sanford. isolated pockets of 18 inches observed in pinellas and postal hillsboro and gainesville, along eastern portion and south of i-4 corridor toward sarasota. several rivers reached major flood stage and flooding continues along the st. johns river and water levels forecast to continue rising along northeast rivers and waterways with many forecast remain within or reach mod erate to flood stae over next day or so. 80,000 people were into shelters overnight as the storm hit the state. we will better understand extent of the damage as the day progresses and you have people assessing damage right now. first responders have been working through the night to help people who were in distress. what we can say, the storm was significant, but this was not the worst case scenario, the storm did weaken before landfall and storm surge has not been as s significant as observed

pinellas county is the leading county to respond. businesses have given us more feedback than any county. your neighbors in hillsboro, manatee, sarasota and pascoe, we are hearing from businesses. you can take that damage assessment florida -- survey at floridadisaster.biz. almost everything i am saying today is available at floridadisaster.biz. we have been doing commerce and door-to-door canvassing across the state including in a number of rural and remote communities. if a company cannot or could not get a line right away or could not get to our -- to their phones we have been going door-to-door. we have been doing so in partnership with hope florida, really ourselves and kyiv giving feedback -- dcf giving feedback and then deploying to different communities throughout the state. we will continue to do so. as you have feedback, if you go to floridadisaster.biz, our phone number and email as they, maybe you is -- you are ok or your other business -- or your neighbor needs help, we take action quickly and deploy a team to campuses,

i was several minutes down the coast from him in pinellas county two weeks ago for helenthe.it produced a record storm surge so devastating for the region but not the worst case scenario, this is closer to that theoretical worst-case scenario. 10 or 20 miles where this make landfall on the coast will dictate who sees the worst of that. this is a storm in milton but went through this i will replacement cycle, you get this outer i wall that chokes out the inner one. that' s a process that can briefly weaken the system but the wind field expands. we've seen that with the tropical storm winfield extending 100 miles. that being said this is a high end category 4. it appears another i will replacement cycle could be getting started but this could make a run at category 5 intensity once again as we move forward through the next several hours which i wouldn't get hung up on the top end winds. this is the big concern, hurricane warnings up coast-to-coast now from the golf side all the way to the atlantic. the latest forecast track from the national hurricane center, that is what i was

they are uninhabitable because they lived in pinellas county. what is inspiring, speez people are responding to this hurricane and helping our customers get prepared and helping us get prepared for the next hurricane. they are working throughout this response sxchl our linemen responded to this hurricane and went to louisiana for mutual as assistance. this community helps each other out. when a hurricane approaches florida, woe have linemen from colorado and even as far as canada. we are bringing in thousands. we're at 10,000 and today you'll hear we are bringing more in. these linemen leave their families behind, they miss birthdays and anniversaries, we return that favor. a lot of our linemen have been going nonstop through several hurricanes. they have been impactd and our support staff, when a hurricane like helene comes through, it has had an impact on employees who have lost their homes and they continue to work to ensure customers have lights on. >> todd: you are telling people to turn off their breakers. if everything floods, which is ex

how all the areas of pinellas county are doing.actually spoke to a sheriff's deputy this morning that have blocked off access on a bridge into pinellas county. he reported that there had been some down power lines and that is a major part of the concern, the unseen danger that still lurks underneath floodwaters underneath rubble potentially, we do so as you noted, that some areas are flooded out and rescues are underway, especially in the eastern part of hillsborough county. you mentioned plant city. we understand there's some two to three feet of floodwater in certain areas and aaa senior citizens syllabi had to be evacuated back here in pinellas, part of the concern is with the barrier islands. those places that are at sea level that have the coast on one side and the bay on the other. a lot of debris from hurricane helene was leftover in those areas. they are impossible to access right now. nevertheless, officials are putting up the word to stay indoors. they want folks to stay inside to avoid those unseen dangers as they survey

but, that tampa bay area is very low lying, pinellas county where i grew up was surrounded by water,peninsula. it's vulnerable to storm surge generally. this is a storm that's going to be hitting some time wednesday night, early thursday morning. the water is already going to be high with the tide. so that's a huge, huge concern. now, it had gotten up to 180 mile-per-hour when it was going towards the yucatan peninsula in the gulf of mexico. that is an incredibly powerful storm it. has weakened since then it. may strengthen today. the forecasts are that it will make landfall weaker than it is today. let's pray that is the case. the surge is going to be a big enough problem. and hopefully the winds are manageable, most of the buildings in florida are going to handle a category 3 storm. so there is a lot going on. and oh, by the way, we just had a category 4 storm impact a lot of people up the west coast of florida. one of the issues that we saw in places like the pinellas county beaches and manatee county beaches was there was a lot of debris. and those local governments have to pick

and this is just one of so many scenes that we've seen throughout pinellas county where you're talking about piles and piles of trash that officials have not been able to clean out. and this is the specific part of the problem in this area. you've got a bay on one side, the war what are there already at level you're going to see about 15 foot storm surge at its highest point in this area on top of that a foot of rain and forecasted winds of up to 125 miles an hour. if you look right over there, that's where the beaches we want to give you a live look at our cnn air drone that captures just how how dangerous it would be to be standing in this area the neighbor who mentioned the dangerous aspect of this trash in these projectiles was a man named matt who said that he wrote out hurricane helene, hear he's not taking any chances. he is getting out, but i have spoken to some neighbors that are still considering staying actually want to go straight to the deputy director of the national hurricane center, jamie rhome, who joins us now, live sir. >> thank you so much for being with us. we just

private sector to support and augment what those local counties are already doing in terms of their shelters. if we do get to a point where pinellas can come hillsborough county, prime shelters are full, you're going to have other options to be able to go to, and those are not simply limited to those counties. you will have shelters in other counties that are little bit further away from the storm surge. and finally the state has identified 14 potential sites for state operated shelters, and we're going to announce four of those sites. these are big, like category five proof warehouse type things that can have thousands of people. i mean, what can they do, , how many thousands to you think? [inaudible] >> we point of the sites they can do 10,000. 10,000. others will do multiple thousands. these are designed to be a shelter of last resort. they are going to be adjacent to some of the evacuation routes. were going to have some in polk county close die for and then were going to some in hillsborough and pasco county, not too far from i-75 north. those will be announced we will start with four. there is a demented more we will do more

petersburg is in pinellas county. those were really at high risk they were at very high risk. >> but the water rescues that are currently happening are not a barrier islands that we're aware of in terms of being able to stage for that knowing that those could happen. do you have a sense of how many how many vehicles or even available for those high-water rescues? >> i don't we have so much help. that's coming in from out-of-state, out of country, even for all types of rescues. and so it is very heartening to see all of the help that we're receiving that we have received after helene just the fact that we've had to go through this two weeks in a row with two back-to-back storms has been quite exhausting and quite you know stressful yeah. >> exhausting, stressful to call it a lot is a gross understatement as you point out though, what is heartening to see all of that help coming in. we know there's a lot of help as well that is staged and ready to move in once it is safe to do so so that will be coming in as well. jenni

that is the same across pinellas county at 7:00 p.m. so that would be when we are telling every buddy to be out by throughout the day and i've seen residents leave. however, they were still folks that i talked to a couple of hours ago that were weighing the potential of staying. i hope for their sake, they are heating the warning and getting out. jennifer porter with the city of clearwater. thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. >> thank you of course brianna, as we go back to you in washington, dc, there's something that just doesn't sit well with having people's personal belongings. >> some of the things that they cherished most i saw old photos on that big pile of trash over their children's toys. there's something tragic and ironic about that stuff. now potentially causing so many headaches and so many problems for these residents that have already endured. a very strong hurricane. now having to deal with another one certainly just drives home. what is heading their way? boris, thank you so much still to come. vice preside

the coast line but threw up so much water that it flooded out thousands of my neighbors across pinellas countyorough county, tampa and st. petersburg. they have their whole lives out on the street corner and we were in response mode just trying to help them survive and get the assistance they need, and then here comes this monster hurricane milton that is just going to up into everything and have even a harsher impact. geoff: more than a million people are under evacuation orders along florida's west coast. there are reports of hours long traffic jams, hotels at capacity, and gas stations that have run out of fuel. what is the status of evacuation in your area? >> the only positive surrounding hurricane milton is we have a little bit of time, we've had a couple of days, and folks were heating the evacuation orders. many of them didn't have homes to stay in so they took this evacuation very seriously. the roads today were not quite as clogged around town. people are scared. we have never had this kind of damage and this 1-2 punch. milton is going to be a triple threat, because it's not just the

whether it is pinellas county where we are, or hillsborough county where tampa is. there is pushback first responders were finding. they told me they did not see the same this time. it is a ghost town in those zone a, zone b. the highest risk of flooding and storm surge. the shelters here, they are swelling up. we heard from the florida division of emergency management say 100,000 people are believed to be in the shelters around the state. in fact, where we are right now, hillsborough county, six of the two dozen shelters are at full capacity. but obviously, there is still space and plenty of those shelters and i will tell you right now. when we talk about the importance of taking precautions i want to show you what our situation looks like. we can easily take cover. we are flanked by walls on either side. this is a hotel on this side of us. over here is where we can take shelter if we have to. conditions gets too bad. and these lights here, it wasn't even within maybe the last 30 minutes lawrence. they were starting to flicker. 1.2million people without power in th

right now there are several water main breaks throughout pinellas county. different water systems, some municipal, some county. what they are doing is slowly raising pressure in those lines to figure out exactly where the bricks are at. they will start repairing those breaks one by one. you may start to see some things come out of the hospital industry. we have stabilized the hospital situation. there is one active evacuation of a hospital right now, i don't have the name. we can get back to you through our folks. we have stabilized the water pressure in four out of five hospitals from getting any worse. we will continue to monitor that throughout the day. one active evacuation going on but we have stabilized. water tankers on-site pushing pressure back into the systems. i think the biggest thing to talk about -- the biggest thing right now in that pinellas, saint pete area is the water system. we are working to see how we can support and supplement the cities and county on what resources they need. we have already dispatched logistical folks into the area,

if i am correct, canalis county -- pinellas had 168 polling locations, so quite a few. i think that you asked before how many people work at a polling location. at mine we have 10 on that day. host: thank you for telling us about it. good luck on the upcoming election day. san antonio, texas. how long have you been working at the polls? caller: i hadn't been working at the polls for very long and i'm not sure that i will work this year, but i did work one election. i was called for one another election previous to that, but it wasn't in enough time. it was the night before the election or a to 15 hour day, so i had to pass. host: what do you mean you were called? caller: the election manager -- i registered with an organization called vet the vote, because i wanted to make sure people who were getting older or felt intimidated because the election process had become so politicized, i wanted to make sure that there were enough volunteers. i was part of an organization called witt the vote -- vet the vote and i volunteered in that manner. i got in touch with my local elec

the hardest hit is pinellas county but across the 35 counties we have over 800,000 customers without power. 400,000 of those are in pinellas county that's home to st. petersburg that you were just talking about with the impact to tropicana field. our process is that we are beginning to go out now to conduct damage assessment. we will do this with boots on the grind. we will do it with helicopters and drones. we really need that line of sight to tell us exactly what we're dealing with as far as damage. but we expect that it will range from significant poles down, wire down, a lot of debris from trees. also contending with the debris that remains from helene and flooding and storm surge. in certain places. >> steve: pardon the interruption. you are looking live at a live high water rescue right now in orlando. we think that is from one of our fox affiliates right now. and as you can see, it looks as if they have loaded some people who were on a higher floor of that structure on to that boat. and obviously are going to take them to dry land. >> ainsley: look how much water is there. >>

i want to take you to some of what we saw in treasure island that is outside of pinellas county. we saw people picking up debris, homeowners shoveling their prized belongings and possessions, things once inside of their home are now pieces of trash that could become dangerous and could become lethal projectiles in wind so you don't want them surging in a storm surge. there are efforts around the area to get the debris and secure it so it doesn't become deadly during hurricane helene. one thing i noticed speaking to people on the ground is the fatigue and shock. it was under two weeks ago they were making all of these preparations for helene and here they are again. here is what we heard from one resident. >> just overwhelming. >> yeah. two hurricanes back to back. it will be a war zone. 160-mile-an-hour winds hitting the shore, 12-foot surgery, for me it's come back and rebuild. >> kind of sounds like you're in a state of shock. >> i am. we have been dealing with this for a week now. right? we are still trying to clear out stuff. it's devastating. >> reporter: i am seeing that is

we have deployed major assets to help that yet, last night and pinellas county, there were 300 vehiclese state vehicles but also -- >> dana: are listening to governor ron desantis and we will continue to do so. he is on top of it. another gigantic storm coming their way as a category 3 but it is strengthening and intensifying. we will get you an update on that throughout the day and i think gillian might have on right now. >> gillian: meanwhile, an army of volunteers making a small airport there on base and rescue operations and elk river airport working tirelessly now distributing supplies to areas largely still unreachable by other rescue organizations. and banner elk to give us a lay of the land, what can you tell us? >> good morning, gillian, the only way in and out at the small mountain towns is by aircraft. multiple helicopters and small planes here have been almost a constant cycle of dropping off some key supplies to these hard-hit areas. most of the supplies is coming from the hanger here at this airport. volunteers as you can see working tirelessly throughout the day picking u

there's vast majority of pinellas counties without power there was a water main break and so most of south so good chunk south vanilla's is without water at this point but the worst of it has passed us by. the windsor subsiding are still getting a substantial cuts but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel so many people in your community had lost so much just from hurricane helene just really in this moment days ago, less than two weeks, do you think most of the residents in your city evacuated? yes. and honestly, you heard the form or the mayor of fort myers talking about that as well? i think the fact that we had debbie and then fairly close on the heels of debby, we had helene i think that was a real wakeup call for a lot of people. and so i think this time we've had a pretty significant change in the response of people people eating those evacuations and getting out of the way, which is which is hugely helpful for us because of course you don't want to send emergency responders into dangerous situations because someone made a poor choice so i'm i'm i'm expectin

come to pinellas county and enjoy our beaches. they're back. liz: good to see you.s, baystar restaurant group. good luck to you. >>> the u.s. embassy in beirut is calling on any americans who have not left yet the to depart now -- to depart now as the war between israel and hezbollah intensifies. can venture capitalists fix what global governments cannot? we is ask joe lonsdale if the smartest minds in finance and tech can bring about peace to the mideast. he's also the cofounder of palantir. it's a fox business exclusive. ♪ than help you reach your goals. -you can make this work. -we can make this work. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about. growing your business is easy once you know the moves. with godaddy websites plus marketing, you can quickly create a website, and ai will customize it for you. get your business out there and get more customers in here. no sweat... for you anyway. create a beautiful website in minutes with godaddy.

we held a town hall in pinellas county offering solutions.tisan town hall with former congressman david jolly, because that is what people want. they want people with solutions. what is rick scott doing? putting millions of dollars in ads against me. he is extremely dangerous. he's very much aligned with project 2025. he has a plan where he wants to eliminate the affordable care act. i need people to support me in this race. i need people right now to go to debbie for florida. he is putting $10 million against me. this race is tight. we cannot afford another six years of rick scott, not only for florida, but for the future of this country. >> i'm always fascinated because i spent a disproportionate amount of time because i cover these hurricanes, in the state of florida. people across this country have an intimate relationship of climate change because of the way it affects them. if you are 40 years old, 50, 60, or 70 years old in florida, you have seen the affect. here is what rick scott said about climate change. he apparently admits that i

i'm in pinellas county, so a different county from hillsborough. we still have a lot of trash on roads and it will all become projectiles, making the situation out there even more dangerous yeah. well, dr. megan morgan, i wish you the best and i hope you're of your kids and troye, the screen time thanks so much. >> thank you very much. >> all right. >> you take care of still ahead tonight before hurricane milton has even made landfall, the foreign president it's already in for the second time in almost as many weeks politicize the federal response will take a look at that. plus what vice president harris said also night reporting from the new bob woodward book on the long distance relationship between foreign president trump and vladimir putin. that's continued. apparently, will talk to, will hear from what bob woodward is now reporting black people he had an explosive reverberation they after kanye said it, this was a lot of people's faces because it felt like he said the quiet part out loud. that moment will laid the groundwork of black lives mat

and emergency officials really have been concerned about the fact that in pinellas county and in hillsborough county, there just has not been enough time to get all of that debris out. and of course those folks there are expected to get a more direct hit by hurricane milton if that forecast track holds. and so if you've got all of that debris laying out, laying around in neighborhoods, it becomes a safety concern for the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of folks that have been ordered to leave their homes. and for the folks that stayed behind, the last thing they want to deal, of course, is all of that debris, which, again, has yet to be picked up. and you can only imagine what the damage that could cause in a hurricane with these kind of, these kind of winds, guys, all right. >> carlos suarez, for us in fort myers. carlos, terrific work we'll check back in with you shortly. thank you kate. >> and joining us now with the latest on hurricane milton is the director of the national hurricane center michael brennan. michael, thank you so much for joining us. once again. we got your upd

have gotten more complex here in the last two hours again, because the bridges in and out of pinellas county one hillsborough county, manatee county. so this is the sunshine skyway, the gandy, the courtney campbell, these bridges have been closed because of this wind making for a more complex situation. oh, my god, you're still there. yeah hi are you doing okay doing great. >> yeah. you're still still riding this out you are you are drier than i am at this moment. so you haven't changed your mind, right? you're still staying okay daniel all right. please be safe, sir please be safe that officials have for folks because it's not just storm surge, but this heavy, intense winds that could reach up to 100 115 miles per hour making for a very dangerous scenario. boris i'm going to send this back to you there. >> a very very. interesting decision, a potentially fatal decision by lieutenant dan to stay where he is with a storm surge that we're expecting with the rainfall that we're expecting right now. we just got a maximum rainfall. it started at about 2:00 p.m. it is going to go through the eveni

in dixie, taylor and pinellas county's for today, at the following locations, bridge point church ininellas until 1:00, st. petersburg, horseshoe beach here until 7:00, taylor at the restaurant in perry until 4:00. we have been approved for individual assistance in all the major counties that have been affected by hurricane helene and we are thankful for that. if you want to give charitably to help the storm victims, we ask the florida disaster fund activated, these are tax-deductible donations and it can be used for a variety of ways. we used it after ian to help teachers, to help cops and veterans, to help with home repair, you name it. very flexible, and all of it goes to help storm victims. because we had a very efficient search-and-rescue effort, a robust effort once the storm passed, we saw how helene had made major impacts far inland in many states, not just the state of florida, particularly in the mountainous areas of western north carolina, so we activated and stood up operation blue ridge, that is helping recovery and rescue assistance to the folks in western north carolin

but one thing's for sure catastrophic winds possible from hillsborough county, pinellas county, southward into charlotte lee county, sarasota as well. punta gorda siesta key. these are the areas that need to be paying very close attention. the eye of the storm now becoming visible on radar. this is the key west radar. so really when you see that on radar, it really, really starts to highlight the amount of time that we have available to us because there's radar beams can only stretch so far satellite we're taking it from space radar, we're taking it from a beam from the ground. >> so what we're looking at now is a storm surge warning map. and i want you to take note that we know the obvious here, right? western coastline, the gulf coast of florida under storm surge warnings, but also note what's on the east side. that is also a storm surge warning. this will cross over the peninsula and also bring up the seas and the coastal storm surge on the other side of florida. so devastating next 24 hours really really, truly busy 24 hours ahead for you to meteorologists everywhere, derek, thanks ve

the major bridges that connected pinellas county to the rest around them is typical and normal for a major weather event. it's just not safe to travel on those highways and travel across the bridges. it doesn't mean they are cut off from the rest of the world. it is a peninsula. they can drive around. it's starting to get unsafe. we are already seeing local highway patrol showing photos and videos of flooding starting to gather on some of these streets. we're not even expecting landfall until at least 10, 12 hours from now. we know the time the window starts to shift. we know storm surge, still a major concern in this area. the tampa bay region has so much surface area between the gulf of mexico, tampa bay, the channels, the rivers. there is a lot of concern about what storm surge and flooding can do. but then we also have the wind gust concern. even if we don't get the strongest of winds, if we don't get a direct hit, there's concern about the cranes. al roker just brought this up moments ago. st. petersburg put out a notice yesterday to residents who thought they were in a safe pla

i don't want to call it the needle, but pinellas county may be as far south as anna maria island, but here's what happened at this hour. the 5:00 advisory is now in up to 180 miles per hour. now, there is a hurricane hunter aircraft on the way to make sure. but it was 175 when they last left and the storm hasn't lost any intensity and in fact, it's forecast jake to get to one at five after midnight tonight and then make landfall either as a category four or category three, very close to tampa. when helene hit the area, i know it went north of there but the surge in tampa bay was six to seven feet. the forecast surge in tampa itself is now ten to 15 feet so i've talked to a guy today. is that hey man, i had six feet of water in my house and i went that's not good because six is now going to be ten or 15. so that house may not be there anymore. do this is really really deadly storm that people are going to need to get away if your local county emergency manager says you need to evacuate, now, is the time unlike with a storm, that kind of ii and that kind of turned into fort myers. we ha

focusing in on the catastrophic perfect wind threat, major hurricane force winds are likely across pinellas county into sarasota, southward into lee county, not what we want to see considering the storm fatigue that everybody is dealing with from this will be the second major hurricane strike in the state and less than two weeks now you're looking at the first initial storm surge inundation forecast from the national hurricane center. that's eight to 12 feet for tampa bay. this is significant because if we go back two weeks, less than two weeks, in fact, we set record surge values in tampa bay in the surrounding areas because of major hurricane helene that was well off shore from this location. so we believe that the storm surge approaching with this dangerous trajectory of hurricane milton could eclipse some of the numbers that occurred with helene two weeks ago. it is already raining across the state of florida remember what happened across north carolina that prix or event the precursor to the landfall in hurricane. so the fact that were saturating the ground across florida means that a flash f

i was visiting pinellas county and i have seen people who have lost everything.lves for yet another storm possibly next week in the same area. rick scott voted against funding for fema which is part of that project 2025. they want to dismantle the department of education. they want to get rid of noaa the weather service. they want to -- pass a national abortion ban. and not only that, but criminalize doctors and health care providers for providing the central health care for a woman. i mean, they have a strategy and this is what i think everyone needs to understand. that they have a strategy that has been going on now for many years and of course appointing supreme court justices that were going to overturn roe versus wade. and then having a 900 page document which rick scott presented the introduction to that a couple of years ago, they know what they want to do and rick scott again, wants to become senate majority leader, we have to keep this senate majority. right now the best pickup opportunity right now is it runs through florida. and i'm telling you, florid

most debris was in the pinellas county beaches. ana maria, a lot of debris. sarasota also had a lot of debris on their barrier islands and i guess their contractor kind of left them holding the ball so we have surged over 100 f. vehicles between manati and sarasota working to step in where the contractors left off and we are going to continue doing that until it is no longer safe to do so. we have made a huge dent in this. the more debris we can get picked up, the less damage is going to happen whether it is floating into the gulf of mexico, whether it is projectiles that go into other buildings. we have hundreds of state search and rescue personnel. a total of 26 teams embedded in potential impact states -- impact sites along the west coast to be an immediate rescue operations as soon the storm passes should the need arise. hopefully there is not a need for a lot of rescues but those personnel will be there if they need. we have 5000 national guard letter on duty to that will -- national guard that are on duty. that will expand to 8000 very soon. we have a t

i'm in pinellas county, so a different county from hillsborough. we still have a lot of trash on the roads and it will all become projectiles making the city duration out there even more dangerous. >> yeah. well, dr. megan morgan, i wish you the best and i hope you're up your kids and much. >> thank you very much. all right. >> you take care of still ahead tonight before hurricane milton has even made landfall, the foreign president is already in for the second time in almost as many weeks politicize the federal response will take a look at that, that plus what his prison harris said. also night reporting from the new bob woodward book on the long distance relationship between foreign president trump and vladimir putin. that's continued apparently, will talk to hear from what bob woodward is now reporting and then the next day our world change, murphy has baby coil has cow bones coming out episodes says we're all gets okay to be gay george bush does not care about black people never thought something that i wrote with me to a culture war. you didn'

some of the predictions are saying that pinellas county to the south of us, the entire county is going to be underwater so this is something that i have never seen in my life, and i can tell you that anyone who was born and raised in the tampa bay area has never seen anything like this before people need to get out and your message is just this isn't survivable this, if we have that predicted storm surge, it is not survivable. i can i guess you what that means for the general hospital there in tampa because it's on a bit of an island. there was actually this amazing thing that was used during helene the aquafence as it's known to stop the storm surge and it worked. but but from what i read, it said it can only stop out 15 feet of water. are you worried that may not be enough for this storm? >> i am worried about that, but you know, it worked before that. it's not on a kind of an island hits on an island. >> they were silent. and of course that hospitals close to 100-years-old was built. >> there, wouldn't be built there under current conditions. but that aquafence really save that hosp

so far 215 fatalities confirmed across six different states, from florida's pinellas county to georgia. then there's north carolina, where more than a hundred have died. and search and rescue efforts have taken some miraculous turns. former nascar driver greg biffle using a private helicopter to deliver supplies, spotting a stranded survivor, only because he was hoisting a mirror, also in the mountains. employees of sky fire a.i. firing up their drones and showing us how they work with governments and even private companies to locate the missing. >> aid for local law enforcement to help search and rescue, to help find routes, to better get aid in and out. >> reporter: we take a bird's-eye view of the destruction in burnsville, north carolina an hour outside of asheville. >> there's been a lot of search and rescue in this area. i know it's been very difficult for them to get up here. this is one of the areas that still needs a lot of supplies to get moved in. >> reporter: on this day, choppers, likely medevacs fly overhead as the team shows us roads that have been buckled, broken and ch

. >> reporter: bob fritzinger was moved from a hospital in pinellas county which sits on the gulf to safer ground. >> they were really working, running up and down the halls. >> reporter: jennifer north will ride out the storm inside this shelter with her daughter liliana. >> i don't live too far from here, but my house is quite old, and there's a lot of trees. it's just the two of us. i felt safer being at a community shelter. >> reporter: and the storm is so powerful, you're he not going to take any chances. chances. littl liliana turns 2 on friday. >>> turning now to the race for the white house with less than a month to election day, vice president kamala harris continued her media blitz with a visit to the late show with steve stephen colbert. it is one of several interviews she did yesterday. alice barr joins us now. this interview with colbert last night was a friendly one. >> reporter: it was, frances. good morning to you. colbert brought up the idea that voters prefer someone they want to have a beer with, so he and the vice president continued their talk with some miller hi

they're taking in their chances some of these sailors around here as well in pinellas county one or three shelters have already filled up, but there are 11 more for available for folks. but at this point wherever you are right now, is where you will spend the rest of this hurricane all right. >> cnn's bill weir. thank you so much. we're joined by sarasota police chief for extra shaye right now, achieve the track could still change, but it does look as though milton could come ashore near or just south of sarasota, you have a sense of how many people evacuated and for those people who did stay in their homes homes is it too late for them to go to a county shelter right now yes. >> it's really hard at this point to tell how many evacuated if i was going to base that off the traffic that i see on the street, i think a lot of people evacuated so that's a good thing. >> we're at the point now where we need to really start thinking about hunkering down, right, staying in place. >> because as i sit here, i'm going to cat five building and the cat five window to my left is shaking cars out there

line, including the saint johns river. 10 to 15ft peak storm surge is forecast for the pasco pinellas county line all the way down into the area where you have manatee and sarasota. 5 to 10 peak storm surge is forecast from yankeetown southward and then from englewood southward to bonita beach, including charlotte harbor so that almost entire west coast of the florida peninsula has the potential to have really, really significant storm surge and when you're talking about 10 to 15ft, that's obviously major. but we saw what even four feet did with hurricane helene and some of these communities and so so this is something that's really really significant. there's hurricane warning in effect for levy marion hernando, orange, pasco, pinellas hillsborough, polk, osceola, manatee hardee, highlands, sarasota desoto, charlotte and lee counties, and then tropical storm warning in coastal franklin coastal wakulla, coastal jefferson, taylor, suwannee, lafayette dixie, gilchrist, western columbia western alachua, okeechobee glades, hendry, collier monroe, including the florida keys and the dry tortugas.

there's power outage against around much of pinellas county a downtown in the lights around here miraculously are still on while 2 million other floridians are out of power. and a lot of the surrounding neighborhoods here around the trump field, you can see the pockets of darkness around there and so the price tag of this storm, you can't even imagine ian was the most expensive in state history from a couple of years ago this one with the combination of helene you don't know how to add these things up anymore. the way these storms run together, victor field had a special significance to this storm response. explain that because it's not just you know i mean utilized facility this latent the season for the mlb. talk about what it was supposed to offer and if it still useful to local authorities exactly in the most immediate, you're absolutely right in the most immediate concern is there are 10,000 cots set up on the field of the trop that was going to be a staging area place for first responders to rest and stage people, lineman coming around to fix the power. >> maybe some refugees from the s

. >> let's go now to tampa, florida where pinellas county commission chair kathleen peters joins us now. kathleen, what are you bracing for as the sun starts to come up? >> well, it's mostly assessing damage. we have 410,000 people without power here. many, many power lines down trees down, as you expected. of course, you've reported about tropicana field our biggest issue, i think right now is in st. petersburg. they've had a main waterline burst which is affecting five hospitals, 22 als, and 799 dialysis center's. so we're doing everything we can to bring resources in to move those patients. if we have to move them and ensure that we have additional dialysis centers available for people that need those services. >> what have you been looking at in terms of needing to rescue people throughout the night as this has unfolded report at this time. >> i did get the report that they were not allowing emergency crews at some point when the winds were over 100 miles an hour to be going out for rescues but i apologize, i don't have those numbers yet. i don't think the rescued numbers were as hi

called home for just over a year, destroyed by floodwaters in one of the hardest hit areas of pinellas county the water was about to hear it was in some places over three feet or there's a lot of life that this place, once housed and now it's it's gutted. this home has gone all of my things are gone and ruined but i had people and i had loved and i have my life rallies. story is one we encountered throughout st. petersburg days after helene's close to seven foot storm surge left parts of the city underwater sara shafers long embrace of a friend inside her muddied living room, captured how such a simple act in such a trying time can mean the world any drop a kindnesses really appreciated, you know, just anything even if you don't know what to say, just just say something, you know, we all have our stories. this is our because i think we're all really thankful to be alive in neighboring tampa over three feet of water swept through julie curry's bakery bacon babes it's waterlogged, entrance, bright and pain gives weight to a dark in soaked kitchen filled with tens of thousands of dollars in dama

so i'm deeply concerned about this very powerful storm coming into the tampa bay region, pinellas county. all of that, the second am really concerned about jim is this is not happening in a vacuum. there are five other states that have emergencies going on from hurricane helene, north carolina, south carolina, georgia, tennessee, and obviously the cleanup that is still going on in florida, there's going to be a resource issue. there is absolutely going to be a resource issue we sought in when we had harvey irma and maria, we had a resource issue to respond and we're going to see that same resource issue and that we're going to need resources to come all the way from the west coast to help these communities respond, recover, and rebuild. but right now i'm really worried about loss of life absolutely. >> it does look like a powerful storm that's heading towards the tampa bay. you're absolutely right. and that is a densely populated areas and they were all going have to keep our eyes on congressman jared moskowitz. thanks very much for your time. appreciate it thank you all right. coming up

most debris was in the pinellas county beaches. ana maria, a lot of debris. sarasota also had a lot of debris on their barrier islands and i guess their contractor kind of left them holding the ball so we have surged over 100 f. vehicles between manati and sarasota working to step in where the contractors left off and we are going to continue doing that until it is no longer safe to do so. we have made a huge dent in this. the more debris we can get picked up, the less damage is going to happen whether it is floating into the gulf of mexico, whether it is projectiles that go into other buildings. we have hundreds of state search and rescue personnel. a total of 26 teams embedded in potential impact states -- impact sites along the west coast to be an immediate rescue operations as soon the storm passes should the need arise. hopefully there is not a need for a lot of rescues but those personnel will be there if they need. we have 5000 national guard letter on duty to that will -- national guard that are on duty. that will expand to 8000 very soon. we have a t

who knows what first light is going to reveal here in pinellas county phil, can you show us that crane again in the area because to thinking about, as you mentioned, the balance of this storm for it to be able to do that type of damage that alone the tropicana field, but show us that crane area again, what you're seeing a shot wow what we're seeing being on there, but it's sort of if you can imagine right but if you can imagine this crane was mounted to the side of this tower. that's under construction to the right of your screen there, collapsing to the left and onto the building across the street hopefully nobody is down here and endanger anyone but just as an indication of the force of these winds phil just seeing the power of this storm are looking at a sign, obviously is still in nature that is just flapping in the wind as if it was paper in some respects, you've got the destruction, you're describing. we see the force the way and we even heard you sort of have your body mood from the sheer force of what we're seeing out there, anderson was talking about the temperature having dro

, but i do want to point out, we checked and this was not actually in the evacuation zone for pinellas county, so really a wake-up call for folks that were living here there was a bus that came through just a short while ago, a couple of buses that came through to, escort residents out so they do have a shelter that they can go to, obviously to take in them there pads and some of their belongings. but this is just one slice of what we've seen from hurricane milton all along the florida gulf coast here in pinellas county. obviously clearwater, one of the hardest hit areas. but as you go further south, you get closer to the sarasota and some of those areas. we've seen in intense flooding there and storm surge as well. pamela? >> yeah. and it's interesting, we've seen several examples were folks who were not of the evacuation zones. we're really frightened awake up until the night since the water coming up. isabella, isabel rosales, also where she is same situation. boris sanchez. thanks so much for the latest there. we'll check back in with you later. and my next guest has been working around t

and obviously it was not prudent to return back to pinellas county. >> milton is the third hurricane to hit florida this year. never before has three hurricanes made landfall in the state in one season. and you can follow our coverage of hurricane milton and its path of destruction along the gulf coast and beyond. just download the fox local app, available on all streaming platforms. >> tonight, a group of bay area fraternity brothers held a virtual fundraiser in support of vice presidential candidate kamala harris. the event was co-hosted by the silicon valley chapter of alpha phi alpha fraternity. ktvu is lamonica peters tells us the event was meant to highlight the support of black men for harris in the race for the white house. >> the san jose silicon valley alphas co-hosted a virtual fundraiser to support kamala harris's run for president. alpha phi alpha is the oldest black fraternity in the country, and donations will be collected through the alpha pac. chappie jones, former vice mayor of san jose, helped organize the event. >> everything i've heard, everything that's been tol

they will focus on hillsborough and pinellas counties while hundreds of homes and buildings have been flooded, they'll be dealing with that and they will help in removing hazardous debris and downed trees. >> weather time here. let's get a live look outside from walnut creek. what has been a nice start to the workweek done with the red flag warning. the fog is back near the coast. all is well. yeah. and chief meteorologist lawrence karnow is back. so lawrence, maybe even a little teeny bit of rain. yeah. maybe a few showers coming our way with would be nice to see. i'll show you that more in a moment. but right now. >> yeah, we're looking at that fog rolling back its kind of breathing, a sigh of relief have to get through those red flag warnings. those can be very, very scary. and we're not done with that just yet for the season. >> until we get real significant storm rolling in here right now. i just don't see it out the door right now, though, you can see that fog pushing inside the bay. that is a very welcome sight. after a dry weekend with those offshore winds now are getting that

across pinellas county, communities are getting ready. in this st.ersburg neighborhood, more than 80% of homes were flooded by helene's historic storm surge. what does your neighborhood look like right now? >> it looks like a war zone. i mean, it's really sad. people have lost everything. you can see their memories sitting on the side of the road. and it's just -- it's decimated. >> reporter: officials are worried debris, loose pieces of wood and metal, could clog storm drains and turn into dangerous projectiles when milton makes landfall. here in north redington beach, entire homes were engulfed by the ocean during hurricane helene. now residents like john davis are worried about what's next. >> well, i hope it's not going to directly hit here. that's my hope. >> reporter: but if it does? >> if it does, i think it's going to have devastating effects. >> reporter: not long ago, we heard sirens going off, meaning that everyone here needs to get out now. we are under a hurricane warning, a storm surge warning. and here, under a mandatory evacuation ord