we were at the bottom of the bottom of sarasota county. and because of the reading program that our principal implemented into the school, our score sword, they made the highest reading games in sarasota county, the one the particular thing that i remember from that date is how beautiful the day was to. i never forget the september really the entire day was sony. it was a special day actually on that day. she was like getting ready for the proper out fees and everything like you just knew you are going to be famous to my today is the day. i'm going to be the president. and as i, yes you are. as a, do you need me to be there with you? she let me. now mom's. now, you know, i got this. my grandmother pressed or uniforms out extra hard that day. i'm cut my hair so that was a nice little treat. well my grandmothers were very crazy and protected and very loving of me. so in preparation for that reading it, it spring, spray me down with love for a few. ok, i remember we have to wake up extra early and get to school and i just remember pulling up

the for the good morning. sarasota moore have a good morning newtown, its shipboard garage week of the week of september 119. that every time i went to new de accounting, stary, something happened to me, i'm pretty sure was 30 something avenue. where were you on that day to where hours me and my mother was sitting in the kitchen, she would just take some your breakfast and you set and watched it to range between towers 6 blocks away from here. president bush was going to be sitting in the classroom at mit. booker b. read to back those to black school that was excited that you know what seems to be forgotten today was supposed to be about their focus on their hopes and dreams and aspirations of the break. and they got the clips attractive. the 1st day here i'm dedicating this day to the children. were in that classroom reading, president bush, 3. it's about you, the this i see not even remember this picture is crazy. that it, that the see. this is huge. this is a huge moment for me. and the rest of my classmates. so here i am over here in the corner. wow. these are my babies. my student

is in sarasota county as well.ng about bridges that are not passable because of severe flooding. the mayor of sarasota, we heard heard from them and they say that they haven't seen anything like this since they've lived in sarasota for the last more than 20 years. so really when the sun comes up, we're going to see the full picture here of all the damage that was caused throughout the state of florida. and we know it is going to be very extensive seeing the images of storm surge in some communities, very high flooding homes. so it's going to be a very hard situation for many families and these communities throughout florida in all of this is what we're talking about as the hurricane continues its path northward heading in to georgia and all the destruction we could possibly see in that area as well. >> appreciate that update. ivan rodriguez in tallahassee, florida. thank you so much. i want to bring in cnn meteorologist allison chinchar listen, we knew that the number of people without power throughout the hours wo

chief sandra tapfumaney, is the emergency management for the sarasota county.you seeing information for possible viewers who want to know what is going on?— is going on? right now we do have power— is going on? right now we do have power outages - is going on? right now we do have power outages and - have power outages and utilities down in the areas that were impacted by storm surge. it's that water that was pushed up onto shore that has created all of the challenges along the west coast of florida. it's going to take some communities weeks if not months to recover fully. and some possibly even longer than that. i'm in sarah sarah county where we're working as quickly as possible to get utilities restored and things back up and running. will be working with families and businesses as we try to get services and assistance so that they can recover. . ~' assistance so that they can recover. . ~ ., , assistance so that they can recover-— assistance so that they can recover. . ~ ., , ., , recover. talk to us about his federal government - recover. talk to us about

we did reopen the section in sarasota on golf drive with longboat key and that will extend all the way here with anna maria island. massive amounts of sand dumped on the shore, the roads, and the other places there in the barrier island so they had to hold those forefeet feet, five feet of sand and we also had structural damage in portions of the road. our guys went in there and they are fixing that very quickly and we are happy for that to be the case. we are -- we have pods set up now and 33 different pods. we are probably going to be retrenching some of those because fortunately, we put pods in areas that did not get hit as bad like leon county and some of the others but for the areas that are in need of that, we have them in manatee and other counties around this area. we will keep doing that mission as long as it is needed and we are happy to do that mission. before i get to why we are here, because we had a very robust rescue mission as soon as the storm hit, you had police here in manatee, sarasota, hillsboro, all the way through the big band, and then our state guard, fish and

and sarasota flooded. tampa. the whole area. how massive of a storm is this? >> calling this in the 90th percentile. a lot of times we don't get storms this big. they're rare. major hurricanes before. a lot of times smaller. the size of the storm causing so many life-threatening problems already. we got flash flood warnings up the appalachians. numerous tornado warnings today. even before the high winds and the surge peaks later on this evening. you see the spiraling bands here. the storm is picking up speed. this is going to blitz the coast later tonight. this isn't like your gradual hurricane ramp-up with other storms. this is moving 20 to 30 miles per hour almost like a tornado when the eye comes through in and out in the a hurry and a mess left behind. thinking landfall is later now. now leaning more towards 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. this evening. somewhere between tallahassee and perry florida. don't know yet which of the two towns go directly through the eye and have all the destruction and devastation of the extreme winds. that's still yet to be figured out b

people are going to have to wait for that water to recede sarasota's mayor says that this she bullies thieves, is the worst storm that the city has seen in more than a century. so again, a lot of these communities are going to be waking up to a lot of destruction and devastation and all of this is what we're talking about as helene continues making its way northward. and max here where we are in tallahassee, many students with university campuses also were sheltering in place. we know that they sheltered in place in a conference centers specifically here at florida state university that they said was prepared to handle and withstand these hurricane force winds across leon county where we are more than 1,700 people sheltered here as well tallahassee, it is good news, but we are waiting to see those images are this morning and other areas okay. >> and that's good news, at least. thank you so much, ivan. more than 2 million customers are without power across florida, georgia, and the carolinas. but i think as according to poweroutage.us, an organization that collects live data from the u

i've been in sarasota for 22 years and i've never seen anything like that i'm getting reports of our barrier islands agree three to four feet of water haven't though, more look really, really bad. lot of people i've got to have lost their homes, their cars, just everything yeah. >> i you know, you afraid of what? daylight will bring absolutely. >> absolutely. as i just there's just been nothing like this here and with our barrier islands being completely underwater, it's not going to be good how fragile are those barrier islands give people a sense of what they're like and how exposed well, they're very low of them really are not that big. >> you know, they're not very far across and so and very flat and so a lot of it is sand. so it's easy for things to wash or what we probably have had a lot of our beaches wash away and who knows how many homes possibly have done the same? >> yeah, i covered hurricane sandy and remember damage down to similar areas? there what sort of preparations were you able to put into place ahead of time? and do you have any indication on how they've held up w

city hasta los carros de policÍa quedaron atrapados bajo los escombros, en maple, san petersburgo y sarasotader el hotel que con tanto esfuerzo reconstruyÓ despuÉs del huracÁn idalia. es duro. >> no tengo palabras. reportera: la marea alta superÓ los 11 pies. ¿ya no vas a poder construir? >> creo que no. serÍa creo que imposible. toda la ciudad quedÓ destruida completamente, serÁ como una ciudad fantasma ahora mismo. reportera: acompaÑamos a jorge en su interno para entrar al calle para despedirse de los restos de su hotel, pero le negaron la entrada porque las condiciones aÚn son peligrosas, Él habÍa invertido todos sus ahorros en su pequeÑo hotel. ¿quÉ es lo que mÁs duele? en el sustento de su familia. >> eso, ido a ——todo el el trabajo, la energÍa que pusimos en ello. reportera: ¿quÉ vas a hacer ahora? >> buscar otra fuente de empleo mientras tanto, tal vez podamos otra vez, pero ahora mismo buscar la manera de alimentar la familia primero. despuÉs de ahÍ, que sea, y os quiero. reportera: las autoridades de la florida dijeron que el proceso de reconstrucciÓn serÁ largo, podrÍa costar hast

petersburg and sarasota area. the winds are picking up. two to three hours. we've had gusts of 61 in venice, 52 in sarasota. we're starting to get power outages. i have a lot of plots out here. i don't want to miss anything. you can notice where the storm is heading, tallahassee to the north. barely windy at all. it is going to move in in a hurry. we're only 6 hours from those areas getting 120-mile-per-hour wind gusts and right now the wind is almost nothing. this storm is flying 23 miles per hour. that's a very fast forward motion for a major hurricane. and because it's still intensifying, we think it will likely be a category 4 at landfall. the landfall position is going to be just southeast here of tallahassee, in between tallahassee and close to perry, florida. in between. we're not sure which of these two communities is going to go through the eye. maybe both do. maybe one gets the brunt of it, one gets the edge of it. these are the two most likely positions where you have structures destroyed, top halves of homes destroyed, trees do

petersburg, down to sailor sarasota. that's in case we get any shift.torm, not only it's powerful, category 3 before. but this storm is huge. 400 miles across, 400 miles top to bottom. far from center. even like orlando, the disney complex, the universal complex, we could have tropical storm gusts which is enough to knock down trees and give power outages. and far from the center, we're going to have impacts. big storms are very good at moving water. storm surge is a huge area, even areas far from the center, that includes you in tampa bay, sarasota, pinellas county. and flooding issues. georgia is going to get hit hard. a lot of tree damage and flooding, too. this is everything you expect with a major hurricane landfall. that's in less than 60 hours from now. >> how wide and how tall did you say it is? >> 400 miles wide, you know, how long. the wind field. storms, we give them those categories based on what the strongest wind it. we don't have a grade for how wide or big the storm is. this would be a solid aa-plus for size. we don't get a lot of storms

there are towns in the way, but there aren't there aren't cities in the way like tampa or sarasota? so yes, this is the second storm that they've seen this year. and it seems like the third one in two years, look at how much rainfall is still to come. high wind, high rain, pushing up the mountains and still all the way to macon, georgia is in a hurricane warning because they are going to get hurricane conditions. and their hundreds of miles away from where this thing is going to make landfall because it is moving so quickly now, the wind is not going to die off. it's not going to have time to die off and it's going to keep right on going. and mowing all well, those trees that derek was talking about. all those trees are going to be coming down one after the other, even if pitches big branches. abby, we're talking about millions of customers without power by the time this is done seriously, it's a huge swath of geography here that could be affected by these the winds and the rain as you pointed out, chad continues standby for us. we want to go now to franklin county, florida, where t

some people have looked at what we have done at like new college in sarasota. this is a small liberal arts college, publicly funded. i didn't even know what it was night became governor. i remember the speaker of the house and said governor, i want to talk to you about new college. i was like, why we need a new college? no, this place in sarasota. it was like a marxist commune, left of the left, no grades. look, if that's what you want to pursue, you have every right to do that. but not at the taxpayers expense. so i put seven conservatives on the board of trustees. [applause] so i put seven conservatives on the board of trustees, they fired the president, hired a conservative president, they abolished gender studies department. they were the first university in america to eliminate de and i. [applause] and they reframed the mission of the college to be the nation's top publicly funded classical liberal arts college, similar to a hillsdale college. so, when we did that -- even though enrollment was terrible, some of the students wanted to leave, but so many mor

convertirse de un huracán categoría 4 a tormenta tropical, causó estragos en algunas zonas, como en sarasota residentes para evitar esos contratiempos. y otra de las zonas afectadas allí en la florida ha sido el condado pinellas, tal y como vemos en estas imágenes. en ese lugar, el gobernador de la florida, ron desantis, realizó un recorrido para destacar el rol de los rescatistas que desde la madrugada estuvieron trabajando, asistiendo en esta zona. también comentó que tras el paso de eileen ya restablecieron la electricidad a más de uno millón de personas. y vemos esas fuertes imágenes además de daños, ya se están reportando esos muertes, esas muertes debido a este sistema y ha dejado daños catastróficos. así es florida. cada año. obviamente se prepara para este tipo de eventos meteorológicos porque obviamente siempre es impactado por algún huracán, no durante la temporada. así es. y de hecho seguimos el movimiento que aún sigue hacia el norte. ahorita está aproximadamente 50 millas de lo que viene siendo kentucky y lo que pasa es de que en ese movimiento van a seguir esos fuertes vientos,

to ask you about the tropical storm, your district of course is on the west coast of florida from sarasota to fort myers, how is everyone fearing from the hurricane turn tropical storm. >> in my district it is devastating title search, coastal flooding in if you are living on the beach or near the water we had 5 - 7 feet of storm surge and a lot of that went into people's houses and obviously floods and roads are still flooded and all those sorts of things with a catastrophic wind was where it landed in the big bend area on the state of florida we experience in my district in southwest florida winds of 60 - 70 miles an hour and for us, the storm was the storm surge and caused a tremendous amount of damage. maria: you been pushing the disaster tax relief legislation since ian's land fall two years ago it still stuck in the senate, what can you tells about that. >> we hope it was going to get out this week out of the senate in its past the house with overwhelming bipartisan support and would help any american in the federally declared natural disaster area deduct their expenses from the taxe

i want to bring in coal washco public information officer for sarasota county, florida emergency management. thank you so much for being here with us so as we were just hearing there from allison, it's been passing through florida now coming up here to georgia. so where are you were at its worst? how bad was it sure. >> short and will firsthand. thank you very much for having me on this storm. obviously, it was predicted by the national weather service to really just be a gigantic storm that really was going to bring a lot of wind and a lot of rain. and we're still seeing that as the storm is moving northeast. but once we saw the prediction from the national weather service, we knew that it was time to strap in and we immediately activated our car joint information center, as well as our emergency operations center. and we immediately started staging emergency response equipment, public works and are public look utilities department started making their ways to different spots throughout the county to really prep. they're different operations. there are different procedures and it really ju

your district, of course, is on the west coast of florida, from sarasota to just north of fort myers. how's everyone faring from this hurricane? turned tropical storm? yeah, in my in my district, it is devastating. tidal surge, coastal flooding. if you were living on the beach or near the water, we had 5 to 7ft of storm surge. a lot of that went into people's houses. obviously, floods are still, roads are still flooded. and all of those sorts of things where the catastrophic wind was, was where it landed up in the big bend area of the state of florida. we experienced in my district in southwest florida, winds of about 60 to 70 miles an hour. but for us, this storm was the storm surge that caused a tremendous amount of damage. well, you've been pushing this disaster tax relief legislation since ian's landfall two years ago. it's still stuck in the senate. what can you tell us about that? yeah and we hoped that it was going to get out this week out of the senate. it has passed the house with overwhelming bipartisan support. it would help any american that was in a federally declared nat

officials are pleading with locals to evacuate the entire gulf coast from the panhandle to sarasota as helene's winds could reach 130 miles per hour. >> this is a really big storm. you're going to see impacts up to 250 miles outside the center of the storm. >> reporter: florida's no stranger to hurricanes, but rapid intensification increasing with climate change in recent years has some floridians on edge. >> some people say the whole state of florida can be like a flood zone now if we get enough rain. >> reporter: they're bracing for surge that in some parts could reach 18 feet. tonight, tampa airport announcing it will suspend operations overnight as residents and tourists race to evacuate. >> our hotel is getting evacuated too. just this morning here in downtown this lobby was teeming with people. now it's a ghost town. in tampa not everyone is heeding the warning instead doing anything they can to prepare. >> you are worried? >> oh, yeah, i'm very worried. water, you can't run away from it. it comes on you before you even know it. >> reporter: but with hours until landfall, the tim

experimentando los efectos de este huracan, hemos visto fotografias de calles inundadas en clearwater y en sarasota estan adv advirtiendo que el huracan no es un huracan, sino un fotografias de calles y en sobre los mayores riesgos que enfrenta la poblacion, no solo durante la tormenta, sino despues de que esta pasa. >> dicen que los mayores peligros son manejar sobre las carreteras y que caigan arboles sobre sus casas. >> ademas, la lluvia puede traer inundaciones repentinas, los vientos pueden causar danos catastroficos y hay multiples alertas por tornados. >> asi lo dijo el gobernador de florida, ron desantis. >> eso no eso no significa que no veras impacto no vas a ver impactos significativos. >> hemos tenido 14 alertas de florida, ron desantis. >> we have overnight had 14 different tornado warnings, there's likely to be more of those throughout asociado con uve para que ofrezca transporte gratuito a las personas que se encuentran en condados que estan en estado de emergencia, que son la mayoria de los condados de florida, para que los puedan llevar albergues si necesitan refugio. >> ademas, ha

waves already rising in the sarasota tampa area, the effects causing flooding and damage to roads. a state of emergency is in effect for in 61 of the state's 67 counties. fema officials forecast at least nine states will see an impact from hurricane helene. kerry has been keeping her eye on that and what's going on. of course, here in the bay area as well. yes. we've been talking a lot about the impacts of hurricane helene and the fact that it's already flooding due in part from the storm surge and also the high tide. so it's causing a lot of the high water to continue to rise even as the rain is just getting going. but you can see the impact of this stretching all across georgia, as well as other parts of the southeast. and this is once again before this hurricane makes landfall. so as we go into the next few hours, we will see this possibly intensify and continue to make its way closer to the florida panhandle. and it's expected to make landfall later on this evening and into the day tomorrow. so as we continue to watch this once again, a major impact there with the wind speeds n

lot of water for those low lying areas. 4 to 8ft around tampa bay, causing big problems down to sarasota. >> helene's progression could be one of the fastest on record. it's expected to grow from a tropical storm into a major hurricane in just 60 hours. another storm, john, hit mexico this week, also growing into a category three hurricane in a matter of hours, thanks in part to the warmer than usual waters in the gulf fueling these storm. back in florida, a state of emergency has been declared in more than 60 counties as halloween approaches, make sure that you are executing your hurricane preparedness plan. >> your gas tanks, filled water, nonperishable food that will last you, particularly when you have power outages. >> the governor of georgia has also declared an emergency ahead of the storm. >> now to the presidential race and the investigation into gunshots at a kamala harris campaign office. it comes as the vice president makes a controversial promise on abortion rights. former president trump, meanwhile, is defending his economic plan, which is facing criticism from some republi

he was like no, this place in sarasota. you tell me about it. it was like a marxist commune, left of the left, no grades, all this stuff. look, if that's what you want to pursue, you have every right to do that, but not at the taxpayers expense. so i put seven conservatives on the board of trustees. so i put seven conservatives on the board of trustees. they fired the president, hired a conservative president. they abolished the gender studies department. they were the first university in america to eliminate d, e and i -- >> [ applause ] >> and they reframed the mission about the college to be the nation's top publicly funded classical liberal arts college, similar to like a hillsdale college. so when we did that, there were some -- even though the enrollment was terrible, some of the students wanted to leave but so many more wanted to apply to. some of the faculty wanted to leave. honestly they should have. they were not good fits from there so the media would be like there is a brain drain because some professors are leaving. let me tell you

down to sarasota. and then, talk about the wind and timing. so, the wind will start to pick up, especially thursday. thursday night, when we see landfall. on this model, perry has a 120-mile-per-hour gust. then this thing cruises overnight, by 7:00 a.m. it's in western north carolina, with a 70-mile-per-hour gust at asheville. not just the winds that will knock down power lines and trees all the way up into southern appalachia, but that significant risk of flash flooding, greenville, south carolina in there, too. david? >> david: ginger zee, you'll have the latest on "gma" first thing in the morning. thank you. >>> in the meantime, to the emergency unfolding outside cincinnati, as i mentioned at this hour. the toxic and flammable chemical leak from a train in ohio. authorities just before we came on the air here tonight saying that are now concerned over the potential for an explosion in the hours ahead. they are hosing -- hoses dousing the train. thousands of families have been urged to leave the areas. homes and schools evacuated. and reside

including charlotte, citrus, dixie, franklin, hernando, hillsborough, jefferson, manatee, pasco, sarasota, taylor and others. we've been approved for public assistance for those counties and more and also have hazard mitigation grant programs. you are eligible. the counties in the state of florida to apply for those grants. now today we're pleased the make the following announcement. as you see, there is damage to homes but also damages to businesses and so you look at roy's restaurant. very important part of the community. very important restaurant here for so many folks. that got hammered by the storm. they are not able to operate out of the restaurant right now and they will need major rebuilding. linda wicker, the owner, has vowed to rebuild. in the meantime they wanted to figure out what options they have to stay afloat. they wanted to utilize a food truck that has been donated to them to be able to host restaurant operations from that site. i know a lot of people will rally. i know a lot of our first responders will eat there and spend a lot of money there. so it could be very good.

he's called the wizard of sarasota. >> he was literally the man behind the door. >> narrator: arthurel conjures a $330 million hedge fund that's all hocus-pocus. >> he was the number-one subject in the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars. >> nadel is charged with running what's been described as a mini-madoff scheme. >> narrator: in the blink of an eye, nadel disappears without a trace, leaving clients without their life savings. >> you just question, how are you gonna make it -- how are you gonna make it happen? [ sniffles ]

such as a confidence for the models, hurricane watches for the big bend junta cedar key, tampa, sarasotal expected thursday into friday, meanwhile "fox weather" flashback trivia question this morning here it is on 2051 under what hurricane made landfall in louisiana as an intense cyclone on record in the gulf of mexico was it wilma, dennis, rita or ofelia, we will have the answer coming up at the end of the 7:0. maria: we will look for that, had "fox weather" for simulcast every weekday from 5 - 6 exam eastern right before "mornings ahead stay right there. we'll be right♪some back. and retirement savings. voya provides tools that help you make the right investment and benefit choices. so you can reach today's financial goals and look forward to a more confident future. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected. ♪ oh in a valley, where the mountains glow ♪ ♪ are the hardest-working folks ♪ ♪ that you ever could know ♪ ♪ now the farmers work the land ♪ ♪ and the land is the home ♪ ♪ the home is the families ♪ ♪ and the families need care ♪ ♪ when care is close ♪ ♪ we all can grow..

watches up from tallahassee, sarasota, bradenton, tampa, cedar key, crystal river. why? because you push the water against southwest florida and you have trouble. we see it every single storm. four to eight feet can do a lot of damage on those little beaches especially west of tampa bay. 10 to 15 feet, you're talking about wall of water. that's by thursday night. that's when we see the worst of the surge. but into friday, we're going to watch significant flash flood threats all the way up into southern appalachian and the wind damage will go right through georgia, too. >> robin: thank you for keeping an eye on it. all right, ginger. now the escalation in the middle east where the fighting has intensified between israel and hezbollah. let's go back to our chief foreign correspondent ian pannell who is on the scene in beirut. good morning, ian. >> reporter: good morning, robin. we just witnessed one of the deadliest days in lebanon in decades. israel has been relentlessly pounding lebanon, killing over 500 people including women and children, and wounding more than 1,

advisory from port saint joe down toward tampa and sarasota.e or there to the right or the left is going onto mean different impacts for different folks. there is our best estimation right now as we go through time. right now this is a category 3 hurricane, major hurricane. making landfall thursday afternoon, thursday evening. not a lot of time to prepare for this. but, you know, florida is always prepared for hurricane season so we will continue to keep you up to date. ainsley, over to you. >> ainsley: yeah, keeping our neighbors safe down there. thank you so much, janice. >> janice: of course. >> ainsley: more tech from ai chatth chatbot. why why should i vote for kamala harris says harris is a trailblazer. hope for under represented communities. why should i vote for donald trump it points out concerns with his character saying some label him as bore irish, selfish, crude and lazy. this isn't the first time ai devices have appeared to be political. remember this one? >> alexa, why should i vote for donald trump? >> i cannot provide content t

he said this places in sarasota. i was like, tell me about it. it is a marxist commune. left of the left. if that is what you will to pursue, you have every right to do that. i put seven conservatives on the board of trustees -- >> [ applause ]. >> they fired the president, hired a conservative president. they abolished the gender studies department. they were the first university in america to eliminate d eni and they reframed the mission of the college to be the nation's top publicly funded classical liberal arts college that works like a hillsdale college. when we did that, even though the enrollment was terrible, some of the students wanted to leave but so many more wanted to apply. some of the faculty wanted to leave. honestly, they should have. the media would be like, some professors are leaving. if marxist oppressors are leaving the state of florida, that is good for the state of florida. that is not bad. the larger issue is, conservatives worked hard on k- 12. we have universal school choice. hopefully georgia will get there someday but it is good, it is importa

but if it moves a little east, we're talking about parts of cuba and it could end up tampa, sarasota, whole area. >> yeah, this is so critical the where this center forms. all the computer models are guessing where the center is going to form. they show us a track and that's what the hurricane center is looking at. where it forms down here in the next 6 shift this entire thing over to the west coast of florida. and then we're bringing in millions of people and the potential for economic catastrophe. that's what we're hoping to avoid. in these situations, we know we're going to get a strong storm and ruin a certain number of people's lives. we just don't know how many at this point. we'll break that down. >> thank you so much. we'll keep monitoring this. >>> we're also following breaking news. just moments ago the fbi released a new report showing the national crime rate decreased in 2023. ken dilanian is with us this morning. good morning. break down what this report says. >> good morning, jose. this report is entitled "crime in the nation." it decreased 3% last year, korgs the fbi. m

i've been in sarasota for 22 years and i've never seen anything like that heavy rain bringing historic flooding, forcing water rescues. a holy cow that storm surge the whole lower level of my home is still with water. i ended up hopping on to one of my little kayaks to float around in my living room. this has been just a heck of a storm surge. it's wiped out all my neighbors. i see just the destruction going on down the road boats thrown about, power lines down homes and businesses, destroyed some of its outside, some of its in here. this is by far the worst i've ever had. >> and even amidst the flooding, massive fires, rescuers pass a burning home you're using their resources instead to search for survivors. >> boyd's devastating i've never seen something like this. >> i have known people that lived there 20 years. i said they've never seen anything like it after slashing florida helene pushed north battering georgia, and the carolinas also leaving life-threatening flooding in atlanta. >> communities, left underwater as helene held its strength as a hurricane until halfway through the

a lot of water for those low lying areas. 4 to 8ft around tampa bay causes big problems down to sarasota>> helene's progression could be one of the fastest on record. it's expected to grow from a tropical storm into a major hurricane in just 60 hours. another storm john, hit mexico this week, also growing into a category three hurricane in a matter of hours, thanks in part to the warmer than usual waters in the gulf fueling these storm. back in florida, a state of emergency has been declared in more than 60 counties. as helene approaches, make sure that that you are executing your hurricane preparedness plan. >> your gas tanks filled, water nonperishable food that will last you, particularly when you have power outages. >> the governor of georgia has also declared an emergency ahead of this storm. rhiannon ally, abc news, new york. >> and i'm gloria rodriguez with a traffic alert for you this morning. the metering lights are on right now at the bay bridge toll plaza. you can see a live look right here. traffic is still not too heavy at this time right now, but just keep that in mind. met

that's why we've got hurricane watches up from sarasota, bradenton, tampa, all the way around the bend to tallahassee. so crystal river in there, steinhatchee all the places we've seen hit. we have a lot of precedence, unfortunately, to know what this is going to look like, a lot of piling of water all the way down to even key west, which is why you see tropical storm watches. i'll time out the rest of it, because georgia and western south carolina and north carolina also have to pay attention. and then the escalation of attacks in the middle east. israel launched hundreds of airstrikes into lebanon, with hezbollah retaliating. we are live in the region with the latest and top national security official, john kirby is going to join us live. plus, robin's exclusive with president zelensky and ukraine's first lady. it is their first joint interview since the war started. he will talk about his, quote, victory plan and a lot more and then show me the money goes to cincinnati helping football fans find lost cash. we're going to show you how you can do it too. and oscar winner kate winslet

i've been in sarasota for 22 years and i've never seen anything like that heavy rain bringing historic flooding, forcing water rescue a holy cow, that storm surge the whole lower level of my home is told with water, i ended up hopping on to one of my little kayaks to float around in my living room. >> this has been just a heck of a storm surge. it's wiped out all my neighbors. i see just the destruction going off down the road votes thrown about power collins, down homes and businesses, destroyed some of its outside, some of its in here. >> this is by far the worst i've ever been an even amidst the flooding, massive fires, rescuers pass a burning home using their resources instead to search for survivors boy, it's devastating. i've never seen something like this. i've known people that lived there 20 years. i said they've never seen anything like it after slashing florida, helene pushed north battering georgia, and the carolinas also leaving life-threatening flooding in atlanta. >> communities, left underwater as helene held its strength as a hurricane until halfway through the state o

i've been in sarasota for 22 years and i've never seen anything like heavy rain bringing historic flooding, forcing water rescues. >> a holy cow, that storm surge the whole lower level of my home is told with water, i ended up hopping on to one of my little kayaks to float around in my living room. this has been just a heck of a storm surge. it's wife all my neighbors. i see just the destruction going on down the road, down many roads, boats run a ground power lines down homes and businesses destroyed some of its outside, some of its in here. this is by far the worst i've ever had and some ablaze amidst the flooding rescuers pass a burning home using their resources instead to search for survivors boy, it's devastating i've never seen something like this. >> i've known people that lived there 20 years. i said they've never seen anything like it after slashing florida helene push north battering georgia, and the carolinas, also leaving life-threatening flooding in atlanta, communities left underwater as helene held its strength as a hurricane until halfway through the state of georgia. this

south of tampa bay, sarasota area, all the way around, life threatening storm surge forecast.down to the tip of florida, you could have dangerous storm surge. so that's all going to happen tonight. so we're just in the early stages of this. >> john: we talk about what might happen in the metro areas of tallahassee and atlanta after the storm makes land fall. but what about a lot of those little coastal towns, you know, apalachee may be a little too far west but definitely saint mark's some other coastal towns there right there on the sand. what's going to happen to them? >> reporter: yeah, well, they've really gotten it the last few years right? earlier this year we had debby which wasn't terribly strong last year edalia down to tampa cedar key which has been there forever but this would exceed those storm surges that we've seen in recent history. you have to go all the way back to 1896 in cedar key for a big hurricane. so this is unprecedented. for the tallahassee area, we're talking about 1842 since a hurricane of this nature has come right off the gulf into tallahassee, whi

and sarasota, florida. and let her know that we are okay also concerns what having to clean drinking water for their four-year-old daughter, for their family, rafael romo, in asheville. >> that is what life is like there right now. thank you for that report and it's not just of course, the day-to-day that we are looking at in other areas, local business owners also say that that their livelihoods and tyler entire livelihoods have literally been swept away as a result of this storm aaron quevedo is owns the bomb salon on depot street and joins me now and errol, let me just first say, i'm so sorry for what you and your neighbors have been through. we'll make sure it gets the attention that it deserves as you're recovering from this but can you just tell us what happened to your salon because i understand it was actually under water as a result of this storm >> so the entire most of the entire salon was underwater. we had about five feet of water that came up into the building it completely destroyed everythin

the sarasota, florida based company said it will also permanently discontinue production of its liverwurstthe product that was linked to the deaths of at least nine people and hospitalizations of more than 50 people in 18 states. force had expressed great regret and deep apologies for the outbreak. in a statement on its website. hiv and aids has disproportionately affected the bay area. now, an event that raises money for treatments is coming to an end. ktvu jana katsuyama spoke with organizers of the aids life cycle about why they're ending this more than 30 year tradition. >> the aids lifecycle ride has brought thousands of bicyclists together every year for an epic seven day, 545 mile ride from san francisco to los angeles. >> met so many beautiful, wonderful people during the process. it was life changing. >> jason keeper says he rode for the first time this year and said he was devastated when he heard that next year will be the last. >> it was heartbreaking. i think they should reconsider it. i hope they reconsider it. i think we need to respond by raising the most money ever. if we