Top Story with Tom Llamas - Thursday, September 26, 2024

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world.

This is a special edition of Top Story, Hurricane Haleen, live from the Storm Zone. Here's Tom Yamas. And we are live tonight from Tallahassee as catastrophic Hurricane Haleen near his landfall. This ferocious and extremely dangerous storm reaching category four strength moments ago as it takes aim at Florida's Big Ben. This is a nightmare scenario, especially for Tallahassee. This will be one of the strongest storms to slam the capital in modern history. We're taking a live look now at this bridge, which connects Cape Coral to Pine Island. This is south of Tallahassee where we are.

You can see the intense waves slamming into the roadway as winds push waters on shore. This unusually large storm will be highly destructive. The impacts will be felt far beyond Florida, even as far as Tennessee. As we take a different live look here, a different vantage point, this is the Sanibel Causeway right now live, the roadway, which was rebuilt after hurricane. Ian destroyed it, officials saying it expects widespread devastation along the coast and even further inland. We hope all that rebuilding holds up tonight. Helene expected to bring unsurvivable storm search, which could reach as high as 20 feet in some places. This dangerous storm set to unleash tornadoes, flash floods, destructive winds, and power outages that could last for days,

if not weeks. Right now, 40 million Americans are facing some kind of tropical alert. Look at that, with 12 million inside the hurricane cone. Tropical storm force winds extending a sprawling. Get this, 350 miles wide. That's roughly the width of Nevada. This storm will cross state lines, maintaining hurricane strength so those in Georgia and the Carolinas are bracing for what's to come after tonight. Evacuation orders are in place, but those who didn't leave are hunkering down and waiting out the storm. New video showing violent waves pushing into Tampa Bay's Howard Bridge, Florida Highway Patrol, shutting down major bridges and urging people to stay off the roads. Hurricane Force winds

will push ocean waters inland, inundating neighborhoods. The dangerous storm surge at its peak will rise well above a single-story home. Look at that. New video of Sarasota, storm surge blasting the city, turning streets into rivers there. And this is just from the outer bands. And a reminder, this is just the beginning. At this hour, more than 290,000 customers are without power. As the storm moves on shore, those numbers will rise.

And as we near landfall conditions are beginning to rapidly deteriorate, and it's only expected to get worse from here. Tonight, that monster hurricane, Haleen, aiming for Florida's capital, destroying these docks, as Tallahassee braces for catastrophe. This area has not had a major hurricane hit in quite some time, and certainly nobody, in recent memory, has seen a storm of this magnitude that is hit. With a foot of rain and triple-digit winds in the forecast, residents bracing for power outages and floodwaters raging in, authorities urging everyone to get inland fast. Sergeant, you just came over here to tell us something important. What was that news? Well, that evacuation is mandatory, and as you can see, by the water, it's just going to get worse.

So we need to make sure everybody's cleared out of here as quick as possible and as safe as possible. A hurricane so severe, the National Weather Service calls the storm surge potentially unsurvivable. 46 million under flood alerts, 20 million at risk for tornadoes. And Helene's fury could turn trees into weapons. You can have a great home that can withstand a Category 3 storm winds. It's a lot more difficult to withstand a big tree falling on your roofs. As hazardous tides menaced the Big Bend region, some coastal towns could see storm surges 20 feet high. This weekend was supposed to be a big money festival at John Turner's bar.

Instead, it's a disaster. You're obviously taking this thing seriously. What do you think is going to happen? Well, we, you know, prepare for the worst, obviously, and hope for the best and pray for the best. For many, shelters are the only way to stay safe. That's where Naomi Alonzo and her three kids will ride it out. Well, because, you know, we've never been through a hurricane like this big, and we'll just rather be safe than, you know, just in case. Tonight, as the full force of Helene lands on shore, local officials with a final warning.

If you're just bound and determined to stay and not get out of harm's way, go in and take a black magic marker, write your name, your Social Security number, everything on their armor, we can identify you. And one of the big concerns here in Tallahassee, take a look behind me, it is those live oak trees. They are all over the city. They are beautiful. They provide shade, but they're going to be very dangerous tonight because, again, we're talking about Category 4 hurricane with those strong winds north of 130 miles per hour. We hope they stay up, but even the governor here is concerned about those trees because they could get in. the way of rescues and, of course, the recovery as well. For more on Hurricane Helene's track and the timing, NBC News meteorologist Bill Karens

joins me tonight live from New York. So, Bill, walk us through step by step, what you expect tonight, and if there's been any change or any wobbling in the last hour. Yeah, Tom, what's first amazing is that you standing out there in Tallahassee, who's about to go through the eye of a category for a hurricane in five hours, it looks nothing like it. You wouldn't believe me. You'd be like, how is this possible? This storm is unlike any others that we've seen in the Big Ben,

region of Florida. First off, if it maintains Category 4 strength and makes landfall up here in a couple hours, it'll be the first time in our recorded history that's ever happened. That's going back to the mid-1850s is when we have hurricane records from. So that's one portion of the storm. The second, this is one of the fastest moving major hurricanes we've ever had in the Gulf of Mexico. The forward speeds between 20 to 25 miles per hour, that's going to take this energy and push it much further inland than normal. Usually these storms weaken quickly because they're moving slowly at the coast. This is going like double of the forward speed

of many other storms. So that's what makes this storm kind of special and different than others. You can clearly see the eye. The storm has already been as close to Tampa as it's going to get. Water levels are already about four to five foot higher than they should be

from Fort Myers, the Naples, Sarasota, all the way up to Tampa Bay and Clearwater Beach. The surge is already coming in. We're just coming off a low tide, and these water levels are now going to quickly rise as the winds get stronger along the coast, and that water gets pushed up, and as the high tide is coming in as we head towards midnight.

Those two things combine are trouble. So who's going to go through this eye? It's right now about 40, 45 miles wide. This is where we'll see those 120 to maybe 130 mile per hour gust. Now, it's going to make landfall in a very remote area. So I'm hopeful that the gust, the really strong ones, will be where no one lives, so it's nothing to destroy. But once it gets up to that I-10 corridor between Tallahassee here and Lee, and then down to Perry, this is the area of concern.

So these lines, these are our computer lines, still telling us where they think the storm's going to go. The black line is the National Hurricane Center. A difference of 10 to 15 miles is huge. It could be the difference between Tallahassee going through the eye or being on the edge of it. That's the difference between losing all your trees and losing very few trees.

So, I mean, that spread is what we're going to be watching tonight. And as of now, it looks like Tallahassee goes through the dirty backside of the eye, still gusts possible up to maybe $80. 100, but the 120 to 100 mile per hour gusts look more towards Perry. We'll see if there's any wobbles or shifts, but that's the latest thinking. Other gusts, I mean, we're still gusting to 63 in Sarasota. In Miami, we just had a gust to 72 miles per hour, and there's trees down in Miami, 300 miles away from the center of the storm.

So this is the storm surge, and Tom, we'll be watching these numbers as we go throughout this evening. These numbers are going to jump quickly as we go throughout the night. We've never seen water levels higher than about six to eight feet in the ten. Tampa area. Right now, we're at three and a half in clear water, two and a half in Tampa. But these numbers are going to jump, Tom, as we go through the night. This is a storm like we've tracked no other into the Big Bend area of Florida. And the speed at which it's going to go through Georgia and the damage in Georgia is going to be really intensive. And I haven't even begun to

talk about what's probably going to take the most property and lives. And that's going to be the freshwater flooding and all the issues in the mountains of the southern Appalachians. So much to consider when we cover this hurricane tonight. Bill, We have another live camera on some of those giant live oak trees we've been talking about here in Tallahassee. Just as you were talking about the hurricane force winds that may hit Tallahassee and Perry tonight, we got our first serious wind gusts. I would say tropical storm wind gusts. It's not at that hurricane level just yet. I do want to ask you, we have a team in Perry that we're going to check in with in just moments.

When do you think we're starting to, we're going to start to feel those hurricane force winds both here in Tallahassee and then in Perry? For Perry and Tallahassee, 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Because the storm is moving so fast, there's not a gradual buildup. This is going to be like a tornado slamming through. It's going to ramp up in a hurry. It could almost be totally calm, and then all of a sudden, 10 minutes later, you're going to have 100 mile per hour wind gusts. It's going to be that shocking.

So when we get to that point this evening, the National Weather Service is going to issue what we call extreme wind warnings for those areas that are going to go through the eye. That's the equivalent of saying a big tornado is heading your way. You take your family, you get to your safe room, you go to an interior closet, You want to get into a bathtub, you want to put a mattress over the top of you. And that's what's going to be happening as we go from 10 p.m. to about midnight in that area between Tallahassee and Perry.

You know, we're not going to want any of our crews out in that. That's the extreme danger with items flying in the dark all over the place. That's the danger time. And Tom, as quickly as the storm is going to come in between that 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. By about 2 to 4 a.m., it's going to be windy and breezy. The rain may even stop. So this is an in and out, you know, unlike most other. storms, I'm sure you've covered, and many other people have seen.

All right, Bill Cairns, I know you're going to stand by for us throughout the hour and all night for us. We appreciate that. For more in Hurricane Helene's strength as it makes landfall, Jesse Kerr joins us tonight, live from Perry in Florida's Big Ben region. The city hard hit by Hurricane Idalia, now facing its third hurricane in 13 months. Jesse, this is the first time I'm looking down at your live shot here where I'm seeing you. It looks a lot like where we are in Tallahassee, right? We're not that far away yet. We really haven't started to feel the teeth of Hurricane and Hulene just yet. Yeah, this is just a light rain at this point, Tom.

It started to pick up from a misting a drizzle earlier. And as you mentioned, we're only about an hour drive from where you are right now. You talked about those other hurricanes. We had Adalia over a year ago, then Debbie over the summer. I spoke with the sheriff. He says he lived here his entire life in this community,

in this county, in Taylor County. And he says that this storm has him afraid. The others have not. Just speaks to the fact that this is a different kind of storm. And I think one of the things that we are ourselves trying to convey to people who live in these communities, this is not like other storms that have come through here. There's been a restaurant that our team has eaten at here the last two days, and someone who works there, who we've gotten to know as we've been eating here, was leaving earlier. I asked him if he was sticking around or if he was leaving town. He said he was planning to stay because his grandma lives here and did not want to leave.

I had him call her, and I conveyed to her on the phone with him. This is not like the other storms. I think that's something that hasn't quite settled in, perhaps, for everyone who lives. in these communities. Talk about this being potentially historic. This is something that sticks out from those other storms. Now we're getting a little bit more of a gust here, Tom, and the rain hitting us a little bit harder.

But at this point, still nothing compared to what we are expecting later. And as I look at it on the horizon here, Tom, a lot of signs, a lot of buildings, some debris as well. I just see a bunch of projectiles in the making out here. All right, Jesse Kerr's for us, you and your team, please stay safe. I want to immediately get to Tampa

right now. We finally have our team live and ready there. The conditions there have gotten dangerous, but Marissa Parr is able to be live with us tonight here on Top Story. Marissa, first, what are you experiencing there in Tampa and talk to us about the conditions, how they've changed over the last hour? Hey, Tom, well, we're joining you from the back of a pickup truck bed. I just want to let you know. So we are not in contact with the water, but you can see if you zoom in. I'm going to have my photographer show you what we are looking at. So that's Bayshore Boulevard, if you can believe it.

That stop sign right there is where Bayshore Boulevard is. post to start, but really, this is the Hillsborough Bay spilling over onto the streets. So honestly, there's really no distinction between where the Hillsborough Bay begins and the street ends. So deterioration of conditions happened pretty fast. We were here all day, and it really picked up within the last hour or so. And so this whole region, they have warned about the storm surge. They have warned anywhere between five to eight feet. And we know we've been talking about it for days now those mandatory evacuation orders we were reporting on that yesterday and today we heard some very stern words from the Pinellas County Sheriff this morning he was warning and even saying

you know expressing his frustration that he was not seeing enough people heating those orders and for those who do not know Pinellas County is a peninsula it is flanked by the Gulf of Mexico and bay water on either side so it can get very isolated when there is flooding and storm surge And what he was saying is at a certain point, it's going to get too dangerous for first responders to come and rescue people in their homes. And so we are, as you can see, either approaching that point or at that point now, Tom. We know bridges that connect this county to the outside world are closed. We know that several bridges have closed down. We know that access to those barrier islands are also shut down as of 6 p.m. Tom.

He did say that at a certain point, they're not going to come and rescue you. His advice to people at home who decided to ride out the storm and not evacuate was to climb on top of furniture or get on top of a roof and wait until it's safe for first responders to come. But Tom, if this is any indication, we're expecting more rain. It is not letting up any time soon. And you can see it is already creating havoc in parts of downtown Tampa here, Tom. Yeah, and in some cases, it's been raining for 24 hours.

in parts of Florida. As we look at Hillsborough Bay, take over that neighborhood. Marissa, do you know if people evacuated from that area? Can you tell? I've noticed some lights on there, but that maybe just be emergency lights and or the power that hasn't gone out just yet. I can tell you that there are a lot of people who did not evacuate, Tom. In fact, we were just two streets over. And actually, minutes ago, before I went live with you, I saw people on inner tubes floating down the street. I saw people boogie boarding. I saw people boogie boarding. I saw people, paddle boarding. And so, needless to say, not only did they not evacuate, they were trying to swim in the water. There was young children swimming in the water, and I can't stress this enough

how dangerous that is. You don't know what's in this water. It's not sanitary. We don't know what kind of wildlife is in the water. There could be snakes. We've already seen several different types of wildlife in the water. We weren't sure quite what it was, Tom. But then on top of that, you have sewage that's spilling over. We talk about this all the time. It's truly unsanitary. If you have open cuts, you could get all kinds of infections. So we really do not recommend that, but it is something that we are seeing. So again, not just people not evacuating, but actively playing in the water here, Tom. Marissa Parr, for us, Marissa, please get to a safer ground. You and your team stay safe tonight. We are going to check back with you. I do want to ask our

director, Brett Holie now, to pull up, I think it was Gulfport, Florida right now, near St. Petersburg, I believe. The flooding that's coming in there is pretty dramatic right now. These are live pictures that we're watching as they come in. This is the storm search people we've been telling you about over the last two days. In some parts, they thought it could get up to 15 feet, maybe even 20 feet. That is a lot of water. And again, this hurricane is hitting at night, which is one of the biggest problems because it's going to take time to get to people. And it's going to be unclear just how bad the damage is until the sun comes up. What's incredible here, power still on. As all that water is rising, you can still see power here. It might be generator or might just be

the grid holding up. A big factor in tonight is how long those FPL lines will be able to withstand those category four hurricane winds because usually they can't. We saw line crews out today, repairing lines already. And as we heard from Bill Cairns down in South Florida, they've already lost power. At last check, about 200,000 customers throughout the state of Florida without power right now, as we're watching a lot of water come into that community right there. Southwestern Florida, as we've been mentioned, he has already felt the effects of this storm, including communities that have barely rebuilt from Hurricane Ian. One of those communities, Sanibel Island, which is near Fort Myers,

During Ian, residents there became stranded after the island's bridge to the mainland collapsed. You may remember those very dramatic pictures, including neighbors, Michelle, Weissertowski, and Larry Leventhal, who met in the aftermath of that destructive storm, and they join me now. So, Larry, Michelle, first. How are you guys doing tonight? What are you seen outside your windows? You go. Well, the storm has been not terrible until the last couple of hours we're getting more storm surge into the parking lot. into the storage units down below, into the back. You know, Larry, we've been watching these live shots of, yeah, go ahead. We're very intimately lost power, nearly not as bad as Ian was, but still worse than I think

that we thought it was going to be. Correct. So you guys have already lost power. Are you coming to us live via generator? Are you, you guys weren't using flashlights? How is that working? No, just on the phone. 5G.

We have good 5G service. All right, so the cell phone's still working. That's a good sign. We've been looking at live pictures tonight of the storm surge in different parts of Florida, not too far from where you are. How far are you guys tonight from the water? Oh, our condos are on the golf.

We have golf side condominiums, so we are on the water. We have seen the water come up during the day and recede. and oh there we are okay so that that's a pic that I sent to Rachel earlier today so the water has totally flooded our property has pushed a lot of our landscaping out to the street our storage units downstairs oh there's a log that we'd be so we might be you know underwater or luckily we moved our

cars earlier hopefully a higher grounds but I think that our storage units might be a little bit flooded downstairs. Yeah. Well, we'll probably only have five or six inches in them. Yeah, nothing like Ian, where our cars actually got washed away, but we'll see. Yeah, Ian, we had 13 feet of storm. This is nothing compared. Yeah.

Right, right. But it's also just getting started. Hopefully that holds, and it's not as bad as Ian was. People at home may be watching this, and I grew up in Florida. I grew up in Miami, and they may be asking you, you survived Hurricane Ian. Everything that came with that hurricane, and now you have another hurricane and you stay living by the water. What do you tell people? We live in paradise. We love our life. We wouldn't miss a hurricane for anything. The structure we're in is stable for a hurricane

so we can stay here safely, and we're going to enjoy it. And 99% of the time, it is pure heaven and paradise. So, yolo. I mean, I always say yolo. Yeah, I Yeah, I don't know about Yolo during a hurricane, but I understand what you mean. Please stay safe tonight. I hope you guys have enough resources. You have your groceries and you have everything in check and you have enough power to get through. Thank you. And I hope that for the same, the people up north can survive this because they're going, yes.

They have it much worse than we do. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, and that's where we are. Okay, we want to thank you so much for that. I want to take that live shot again from Gulfport. We've been watching to that flooding that's been coming in. Apparently, my producers have been telling me there was a person that appeared somewhere all the way in the back,

maybe coming out to see what's going on, maybe coming out to save something in his property, unclear right now. I can't make that person out, but if you have a big screen at home, maybe you can. Sometimes, you know, people, especially in Florida, they can be cavalier. They want to test Mother Nature's Fury. It's never a good idea, especially on a cat-floor hurricane like this, especially when you're seeing storm surge like that. I think I can make the person out all the way there in the background. Hopefully emergency, and here's the thing, though, actually, I was going to say, hopefully somebody sees him and can get him out of there. But things are probably too dangerous right now to even rescue them.

They won't put their crews in that type of danger. So hopefully that guy knows what he or she is doing. Joining us now live is Lieutenant Jeffrey Yarbrough with the Wakula County Sheriff's Office. Not too far from we are. It's in the Crawfordville community about 20 miles south of Tallahassee. So first off, I want to ask you, Lieutenant Yarbrough, thank you for joining our live coverage. I know you're busy tonight. most concerned about as nightfall comes and as this hurricane approaches the Tallahassee area?

Well, our primary concern because we're a coastal community, is the storm surge predictions. We're currently predicted to get anywhere from 15 to 20 feet in our county, which is, it could be catastrophic on the coastlines. And we have several rivers that run through our community, and we also expect quite a bit of flooding through those areas as well. the most recent forecast we've got have actually backed off some of the storm surge predictions. And so, you know, that's, we're worried about all aspects of the storm, honestly. But our primary concern for the last 24 hours has been the storm surge. But, you know, now this thing has moved slightly to the east, it looks like.

And so we're also kind of focusing on the wind now, too, because that's obviously going to be an issue for us. Yeah, did people in your community, did they evacuate? I know you have so many low-lying areas there. We were out there earlier to, I actually said earlier this morning, on an area that had to be evacuated. Are you finding people heated the warnings because this is such a massive storm? It looks like people have largely followed the evacuation orders that were issued by the county commission. We went door to door. We had deputies going door to door for the last 24 hours in areas on the coastline, ensuring that,

people left and taking note of those who didn't. We didn't have the ability to do that as much inside of Crawfordville and some of the northern portions of our community. But based off of what we're seeing with activity on the roadways and things like that, it does look like a large portion of the community has evacuated out. All right. Well, we thank you for your time. Please stay safe tonight. I know you guys are going to be busy until the sun comes up. Our live coverage of Hurricane Helene continues. This monster storm reaching category four as it churns closer to landfall, the hurricane will have far-reaching impacts. Georgia and the Carolina is bracing for landslides and flash floods.

We're going to have much more from Tallahassee. Stay with us. And is this the show? All right, welcome back to our continuing coverage of Hurricane Helene. We are here in Tallahassee right now, and you can see these are the live oaks we were telling about. We're just under them right now. The reason why we're here is to kind of show you what the major concern is, at least in the capital of Florida right now.

We're still about two to three hours away from getting serious hurricane winds or at least tropical storm force winds. It is incredibly calm here in the capital of Florida. And there's a little bit of rain, not a lot of wind. Right now, Tampa's getting hammered, but in a few hours, we're going to feel that as well. We're going to go to Tampa, back to Tampa and our team there in a bit. But first, I want to go to Atlanta right now, and Priya Shrether, who can give us an update on what they're expecting and potentially Hurricane Force wins, even in the state of Georgia. Priya.

That's right, Tom. So believe it or not, the weather that we're experiencing right now isn't even Hurricane Helene. This is a separate storm system that we've been experiencing for the last 24 hours. So when Helene comes here, it's only going to make matters worse because the ground here is already extremely saturated. We're expecting the potential for flash floods, but also that extreme wind that you guys were experiencing down in Florida is expected to come up here. 60-mile-per-hour winds. We're talking about potential for tornadoes and even landslides. So the mayor of Atlanta is urging folks to stay at home right now. The Atlanta Metro Public School system has closed down for the past

two days, and they're basically urging all non-essential employees to stay at home today and tomorrow, Tom. See you. Yeah. All right, Priya, we thank you for that. We'll go to George Solis in Asheville, North Carolina right now. And George, talk to me about what you're seeing in North Carolina, what they're going to be hit with over there. Hey, good evening, Tom, good to be with you. This is sort of the appetizer before the main course, if you will, It makes money. It's not going to work. Moving up into the Carolinas in the western part of the state right now, we're already at thousand-year flood status. And that is just, as Priya mentioned, from that stalled system that

is here dumping buckets of rain, inches of rain. That's only expected to get worse as Helene makes its way here. Granted, not expected to be a hurricane when it is here, but this western part of the state already hammered by the rain that has been relentless here. We're going to have wind. We're going to have flooding events. The governor, of course, declaring a state of a knowing what's ahead. There's also local states of emergency that have been declared to get those resources in place. Resources from up north already in position to stage for those water rescues that are inevitable. And we have seen some flooding here on the roads. As you can see behind me, some folks trying to drive through it, some walking through it, what you're not supposed to do

during this. And this is only expected to get much worse as the hours progress, as Helene's remnants make its way here into the Carolinas. Of course, there are no mandatory evacuations, but there are voluntary ones in place. This area not used to getting a lot of hurricanes, Tom. So you can imagine a lot of people still not sure what to do at this point, but the urgency and the recommendation from officials couldn't be clearer. Stay home, weather this storm, take it seriously, as Helene makes its way here into the Carolinas, Tom. Yeah, I've been to Asheville many times. I can't imagine what they're going through or thinking about this and the infrastructure they may or may not have in place to deal with the hurricane

It's usually that area right there does not get hit with hurricanes, but it just shows sort of how strange and bizarre this hurricane is going to be. Okay, George, we thank you for all your reporting. We're going to take a quick break when we come back more of what's happening across the state of Florida with Hurricane Helene. You're watching a special edition of Top Story, live in Tallahassee. Tallahassee, Florida. The Category 4 storm growing more and more dangerous. NBC news meteorologist Bill Cairns joins us live once again for more on the timing. And if anything has shifted or changed, Bill, let us know what you're seeing there on the radar. So now we're about four hours away from landfall. And for the first time, the actual core, what we'd call the core, the center of the storm

where the strongest winds are, is about to approach land and move on shore. The first area will be here in Cedar Key and then up the coastline here. So the storm itself is roughly about 100 miles due south where I think the landfall point's going to be. That's about 30, 35 miles southeast of Tallahassee and almost due south here, Perry. This is the eyewall. That's what we'll be tracking. Remember, landfall will be called not when the eyewall, this outer ring reaches the coast. It's when the actual center of the storm crosses the coast.

So that's roughly going to be between 11 p.m. and midnight this evening here as we go throughout the possibly maybe, you know, category four still at landfall, then a slow weakening after that. I want to talk about some of the other problems that we have with the storm because we have more life-threatening threats than just the wind and the surge. The rain is huge. This high risk has been pouring all day long. The storm hasn't even gotten here yet, and the rain is really going to pick up in intensity in areas that the rivers are already full. The ground is saturated. There's nowhere for the water to go.

It's just going to quickly pool. We can still see an additional five to 10 inches of rain on top of some locations that have already picked up 10 inches of rain somewhere. Well, he should get about 20. inches of rain out of this. And then tomorrow, that whole rain shield heads through areas of Tennessee with isolated cases of flooding. Because of this, we got about 43 million people under flood watches that go from Memphis to Roanoke all the way down to Miami. We have numerous flash flood warnings in update of South Carolina, north of Charlotte here. This forecast has gotten worse around the Greensboro, Winston-Salem area, heading up towards Greenville, South Carolina.

You're going to get a lot more rain than you thought previously a day or two ago. And as far as the winds go. This swath is where we're going to see extreme wind damage. The massive power outages that can last weeks is wherever that landfall position is. It's still looking to me like Tallahassee is on the left side of the eye, quote unquote, the weaker side. The dirty, stronger side looks to be more towards Perry, Florida. So the wind damage may be a little more extreme in Perry than Tallahassee. I know a lot of people are worried about this. 200,000 people call Tallahassee home. When we add all the students from the universities there, it's over a quarter of a million people. So there's a lot of interest in who actually goes through that eye as we head throughout the rest of this evening.

And then we'll take those strong winds into Georgia. As of the latest observations and the latest track, it does look like the highest winds will be east of Atlanta. So that means more trees down outside of the metro area. So that may be good news for people worried about losing power in Atlanta. We'll fine tune that throughout the night, but that's what you're going to wake up to in the morning. power added swath and it has shifted a little bit here more towards atlanta east if you're atlanta west you have a better chance of keeping power through this storm and from tallahassee west you have a better chance of keeping power with this storm our friends in panama city you're on what

be called the dry side of this storm still windy still gusty but the odds of you losing power or less and then the final piece of this puzzle is we have tornado watches that go all the way from lake ok chobie northwards in the south carolina we have one two three active tornado warnings and tom we've already had about four tornado reports today. A bunch of them were early this morning right around Hilton Head Island. All right, Bill Cairns for us as we track this storm moment by moment. Bill, we thank you for that. Joining Top Story Live tonight is John McDonald. He's director of Levy County Emergency Management. He's in Bronson, Florida tonight, about 130 miles southeast of Tallahassee. John, we thank you for talking to us tonight. I know you're a little bit further

inland there. What are you seeing right now? We're starting to have a, uh, that The Gulf of Mexico is getting a little angry up here. We're going to start having some surge. The surge is going to start rolling in here in about an hour. I mean, it's already beating the seawalls out there in Cedar Key and all that, but it's starting to get a little bit of overtopping. But the actual surge portion will probably start here in about an hour, and it'll run through probably till about the majority of it should be done by about midnight.

But the problem is the onshore flow will start once the storm passes, and that surge is going to stay in there and just stay built up. It's going to take a while for it to disperse. So we're estimating that we could potentially have some surge issues before it all goes away upwards out until maybe noon tomorrow. And then conditions right now too dangerous for your teams to get out there if they need to rescue anybody. You need to clear out a tree?

Yeah, we're at that stage now out there. We did have some. We take emergency vehicles off the road at 40 mile an hour. It's just some of those, you know, some of these ambulances and fire trucks are just too top heavy and all that. So you get to some of those higher guts than that. But when the sustained winds hit 40 mile an hour, we pull them off. I mean, we do what we can do. But we're not going to put responders in harm's way and all that.

But we've had some we've had some gusts upwards of 60, you know, 55, somewhere around in there. But we've already reached that sustained 40-mile platform out there in Cedar Key. Inland, we're still good. It's just out there on that immediate coast. everything west of 19 is where we're having those issues right now. I'm going to ask our controlment to tell me what the live shot we're looking at down there in the bottom left is, what part of Florida that is because it's getting hammered right now. And John, I don't know if you can see our coverage tonight, but it definitely parts,

not too far from where you are, a little, that's Pine Island, okay, a little further south than where you are right now, really feeling the effects of Hurricane Helena at this point. John, what is concerning you most about the storm? because, like we said, we think, I think you're a little more inland. Is it the storm surge or the hurricane force wins? It's, you know, the EOCs in Bronson, you know, it's a well-inland. We don't build EOCs in surge, I mean, the storm zones. We try not to anyways.

But it's about Cedar Key is literally from our office here. It's about, it's about 40 miles, roughly, they're about. But Pine Island, that's why I said, we're going to start seeing our surge. And some of our stuff start coming in here in about an hour. that's about, you know, that seems pretty about, pretty accurate on the location where you're seeing down there in Pine Island. But the biggest thing we're concerned with is this surge. I've worked here in this organization for 21 years. These are the highest surge numbers I've ever seen. Yeah. No, they're scary. And like the National Hurricane Center said,

they are, quote, unsurvivable. Okay, John McDonald, director of Levy County Emergency Management. We thank you so much. Our coverage from the storm zone continues. Hurricane Haleen barreling towards Florida's Big Bend, dramatic images as storm search begins to inundate communities. This as just the beginning of what's expected to be a catastrophic storm rolls into Florida. Much more from Tallahassee when we return. We are back now with our special coverage of Hurricane Helene looking at live pictures now. Check out this storm search coming in to Gulfport, Florida right now. This is outside of a casino, I'm being told.

You can see how high that water is in comparison. to those buildings just behind it. Again, somewhat incredible, the lights are still on because there are a power outages, massive power outages throughout the state. The last number I got is somewhere around 300,000 without power. Where we are in Tallahassee, the lights are still on here, but again, the conditions haven't been that bad so far. The rain has picked up at time. There have been some wind gusts, but so far it has been very quiet here. It's going to pick up later as the night gets, as we get more and more into the night from what we've been told by our meteorologist. Join us now is Lane Griffith, the graduate student at Florida State University, exactly where we are here,

who is sheltering in an office building tonight on campus in Tallahassee. She's one of about 700 students riding out the storm on campus, according to the university. And she's been documenting her experience on TikTok from evacuating her apartment to sheltering in her office on FSU's campus. So, Lane, my first question to you is, it's not too bad right now in Tallahasse. It's going to get bad tonight. How was the experience at FSU sort of getting you to shelter? and this hurricane sort of formed so quickly that it took a lot of people by surprise. Yeah, so it's been quite the adventure.

This is big, and we are hanging out here on campus. I had paid very close attention to what was going on since Monday. I went to Sam's Club on Tuesday and got all my supplies. But a lot of students decided yesterday was the day to leave, and I had made my plan to stay sheltered in place on campus. So there's been a lot of movement within the last couple of hours here with people deciding to leave at the last second, too. Yeah, so, I mean, you have, I think, about more than 30,000 students at FSU, right? So many students, I mean, so many people that live in Tallahassee are college students.

Did people get out? Are they staying? What exactly are they doing? Because so many live in the dorms here? So, yeah, I believe that most of the students that I'm. friends with, have chosen to either leave or shelter in place. FSU is providing shelter for FSU students at the Civic Center. So I'm very grateful for FSU being so correspondent with us and making sure that everybody gets taken care of, including our lovely animals here over at the EOAS building. Right next door, we have the National Weather Service in the NOAA building,

so we're doing good. Yeah, and when you say they're taking care of you guys, obviously providing shelter and giving you guys food and making sure you're going to be good for the next couple days? I believe that the Civic Center is able to provide those resources for students. As of here, we have access to showers, and there is some degree of backup power on campus. As far as I'm aware, the building that I am in, our power is underground. So we are the ones that are less likely to lose power early on, but it is the surrounding areas in Tallahassee that are already starting to experience outages

So we're keeping an eye very close on what's going on and we're going to be away through the night watching this through the window and All of our cars are up safe. We are luckily in a place where storm surge won't affect us, but this wind will take as you guys were talking about earlier these live oaks straight out of the ground at the water the ground is very saturated right now from the rain that we've been getting very recently. So that's my fear here is all these live oaks that will be going down. Lane Griffith, I hope you have a safe night. It's going to be a little bit wild tonight, but it looks like you're in good hands there. I hope you and your cat ride it out okay.

We are live tonight from Tallahassee as Hurricane Helene nears landfall. Helene could be the strongest storm to ever slam Florida's Big Ben region. But right now Tampa is getting slammed by the outer bands. The mayor of Tampa joins us next. We are back now with our special coverage of Hurricane Helene live from Tallahassee tonight. The Category 4 storm barreling towards Florida's Big Ben, but right now Tampa is getting hit hard by the hurricane's outer bands. Joining us live is Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.

Mayor, thank you so much for joining Top Story. Can you tell us what the latest in Tampa is tonight and what you're hearing from your teams spread out around the city? Right, right. Right, right now, Hurricane Helene is about 120 miles or so off our west coast, passing the Tampa Bay region heading north, as you're aware. So we are having those lower bands are coming around that are pulling the water into Tampa Bay. And so we are seeing flooding that we expect to increase. We're looking at five to eight feet storm surge. And our saving grace at this point is the fact that we hit low tide an hour or so ago, and the tide is slowly coming back in.

So it's fortunate for us, but we are going to see extensive flooding in our area. Have about 40,000 residences that are without power right now. Our electric company is working to bring all of those back into service, and we have our first responders out there on the roadways trying to keep everyone safe. Everyone's pretty much heated the warning to stay off of the roads. All of our bridges are closed at this point, and so we are just basically sheltering in place with our community to ride out these outer bans. Mayor, you know, we had talked about the hospital there and that aqua fence that was set up

to protect the hospital from the storm surge. Have you got any reports on how that's doing? Yes, it's worked. The word that I have received is that it has worked very, very well. We had the previous hurricane that we had come through. It kept a couple of feet away from the hospital. So we'll see how well that performs. Actually, I'm on the airport board here for Tampa International Airport, and they have purchased that aqua fence as well. And they've erected that around. the office building out at the Tampa Airport. So very interesting concept, pretty easy to erect, and if it works, it's really going to be a game changer for that storm surge. And then, Mayor, what are your concerns as we get later into the night? Here in Tallahassee, we really haven't felt any of the hurricane just yet.

I know you're feeling the brunt of it right now. Are things going to get worse where you are, or do you think you're at the peak right now? Things are going to get worse. We're in the peak, I believe, with the wind. We're having around 50 miles an hour, sometimes faster, sometimes slower of wind gusts that are coming through, some pretty heavy rain. But it's really going to be those outer bands as Helene goes past the Tampa Bay area that are going to pull that water into our bay. And tonight won't be the end of it. We'll also have it high tide tomorrow. We'll have flood. as well. So that is our biggest concern. We've been seeing some incredible pictures out of Tampa that we've been rolling during our interview, and it's video of water washing over some of the bridges there in Tampa. You mentioned that the bridges are now closed. We saw a vehicle drive by. Again, this is earlier, this is video I believe we shot earlier in the night. I'm still trying to figure that

out. But it looks so strong right now. The storm surge that is coming in. Do you have any idea if it's going to reach that five to 10 foot marker. Have your emergency officials been able to gauge it yet, or is it still too early? No, it's, you know, it's an estimation. And, you know, everybody has said from five to eight feet, and that's a huge difference. Three feet of water makes all the difference

for a number of structures in our community. Again, having that low tide and only having one tide today, usually we have two tides, having that one very slow-moving tide, and it's just now on the rise, I really feel is going to be beneficial for our area. But again, we are going to see flooding. Our community is saturated from the unprecedented rain events that we've been having for a couple of months. So there's really no place for a lot of this water to go right now. So we are, unfortunately, going to see some expensive flooding.

Mayor Castor, we appreciate your time. I know this is a very busy and stressful time for you, so we appreciate you informing our viewers. For the latest on Hurricane Helene's track and the timing, NBC News meteorologist Bill Karens joins us live from New York. Bill, get our viewers up to speed on what we're seeing. Yeah, I'm going to talk more about the Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Tampa area,

after just talking to the mayor there. So we're watching the storm surge numbers. And right now, Oldport in Tampa is up there about three and a half feet. So that's three and a half feet higher than kind of where the water should be. And that's why we're seeing the pictures with the bridges and things like that. It's not the five to eight feet that was possible. But that was if it happened at high tide. High tide is not until after midnight tonight.

We hope by then that the water levels will begin to drop. So when we're looking at Tampa Bay here, here's Oldport. East Bay is about 3.7 feet. And because we're at low tide, which is about a foot, two feet lower than normal, we actually have water that's about five feet higher than it should be if it wasn't for Helene. So Halene has pushed a five foot wall of water all along the west. coast of Florida, and that's why you're seeing those pictures. Clearwater Beach right now is up there about four feet. So here's the eye of the storm, and this storm is moving fast. That's why we're

going to get this lampfall pretty quickly here. And you notice the Tampa area, some heavy rain mands mostly from Tampa towards Pinellas County here, Clearwater Beach, towards the coast, and down the St. Petersburg. There's not a lot behind this. In about two hours from now, most of the rain may be over with in the Tampa area. So it's in and it's out. It'll still be windy, and because that wind direction is from the southeast, it's still pushing that water into this Tampa Bay. So that's why it's going to take a long time for this water to receive, and with high tide coming after midnight, the water levels are not going to drop for at least another six or seven hours, and they could even go up more. But as the storm goes further inland,

we hope that as the winds die down, it'll improve. As far as your concern, you know, just some light rain right now up around Tallahassee and also Perry, the heavy core of the storm is just arriving in Cedar Key, and right along the coastal areas. Now, there's no populations here. That's why I don't have any towns labeled in here. You don't get it to the populated areas to get about 10 to 20 miles inland, and you can just now see the eye on the bottom of the screen.

So as we go through the next couple hours, Tom, we will see the core of the hurricane moving towards the coast. We still expect the landfall between about 11 p.m. and midnight, and the worst of the winds and the strength of the winds. If you're going to go through, like, the heart of it, from Perry all the way to Tallahassee, that's going to be right around midnight. tonight. Yeah, taking time to get up here. And so much more left ahead for this area. Okay,

Bill Cairns, we thank you for that. NBC's Kathy Park joins me now from Tallahassee. And Kathy, the interesting thing here is that, you know, as we cover the storm, and this is never perfect, right? You think the storm may make landfill at one point. It may be much later, and that's what's happening with Hurricane Helene. We thought it might be somewhere close to seven. Now we just heard Bill Carrens. We could be feeling it somewhere around 11 o'clock at night. It's eerily calm in Tallahassee tonight, Kathy. Tommy, you're absolutely right. I feel like we're getting teased a little bit

because there was one point, maybe about an hour ago when we were getting these heavy bands of rain, but now it looks like it's pulled back. But I know things will really start to ramp up over the next several hours. I know throughout the evening, Tom, you've been talking about the wind damage,

the possibility, the extensive wind damage here in Tallahassee. Roughly 55% of the city is under tree canopy. So that really is a big concern, especially when you have 100 mile-per-hour winds moving through here at a pretty quick clip. And it stays in this area for an extended period of time. So officials are worried about those down trees, the debris, the power lines, and, of course, the power outages. We do know that officials have been preparing for several days. They are leaning on mutual aid from literally across the country.

Earlier today, Tom, we had a chance to visit with some of the folks who are hunkering down, staying in place at emergency shelter. And really the sentiment is they decided to leave their homes because they say they just didn't want a chance. They didn't want to risk being at home. They have weathered a lot of storms in this area. But when you're talking about a cat three, now a cat four, it just made them a little too nervous. And the main rule at these shelters that have opened up is now that you're in them in these shelters, you can't leave during the height of the storm, obviously for safety reasons. But obviously, they'll have a generator, they'll have power that they can turn to. So it's a safe place.

They feel secure in this facility. But Tom, you also mentioned earlier today that this is a big college community, and shelters are also opened at nearby FSU and Florida A&M. Tom? Yeah, yeah, you worry now that people waiting so long for this storm that they don't venture out and try to see the storm or Mother Nature. Kathy Park, we're going to be staying with you all night. We appreciate you and your team for being out there.

That does it for this hour and the special edition of Top Story tonight. I'm Tom Yamis, reporting from Tallahassee, Florida. You can find the latest on Hurricane Haleen on NBC News Now and NBCNews.com throughout the evening. Our special coverage continues. Keep it locked right here.