before moving into southeastern states like georgia. joining us now from tampa, nbc news thomas roberts, give us if you can a quick assessment as the storm moved over tampa, what it has left in its wake in that city. reporter: still remains a lot unknown about this, we have noticed in the last several minutes, the return of heavy winds and a little light rain. we have this period of calm for sustained 15, 20 minutes of peace and quiet. we have rauched the return of the hills borough river. the water is taken out of tampa bay and this river, using it in its system. we know the effects of this storm will be historic. we don t know the true scope of it yet. in looking over the eoc in pinellas county in clearwater,
it is not the horsepower that it was earlier in the day, but again, it will knock out power and it will still throw a lot of debris around. anderson, we re not going have harvey again. it will be retired. we re not going to have an irma again. these names will be retired and it s the first time to have back-to-back hurricane names retired since rita and stan 12 years ago. these are formidable storms in the days ahead and this is re-writing the record books. i want to go back to ryan young in clearwater not far from here. just as we were talking about with chief forward of the fire department in tampa, there are so many houses built around the tampa bay. construction in this area, in the bay area has exploded over the last couple of years and you see the cranes behind me there, and there s been so much development here in tampa, and also in clearwater and also in
is coming and what it s doing to the bay, it absolutely brings another set of conditions that we really have to be prepared for. i wish the best to you and your firefighters. thank you so much. i appreciate it. i want to go to ryan young now standing by in clearwater, florida. ryan, how is it there? guess what? the winds have picked up tremendously and mostly people trying to make the decision of whether they ll leave or not because they re not sure if it will be the winds or the water. we know this area floods and we want to wait it out in our homes because we re scared about the aftermath. at this point you can just hear how the wind is pounding us. that s got a great one-two punch here. we ve seen some signs already whipping down. if you look at this direction, you can see the rain blowing sideways and it s making us stand in this area and we ve been told by the st. pete police
our actions and the 50 freshmen who signed on to this commitment to civility and we veal a lot of co-sponsors i think as it relates to the national day of civility, which we ve designated to be july 12th, really that comes from the bible out of the book of matthew where it talks about doing unto others as you would have done unto you. that s the idea here. mike and i are not going to agree on everything but we ll treat each other with respect and we ll d be kind and decent to one another. one of the things i heard over and over in my district during my campaign last year in st. petersburg, in clearwater, florida, was, charlie, if you win, make sure you go up there and work together. you may not agree on everything but be decent to one another, be americans first and to your party second or third. that s what we re trying to do. i applaud that. with respect comes honesty and integrity. congressman johnson, i want to share a bit of sound for you. earlier this week president trump spoke
your time. we appreciate it. now a developing story in the southeast. the remnants of tropical storm erika are slamming florida and the carolinas with heavy rains, flash flooding, thunderstorms and life threatening rip currents. nbc s sarah dallof in clearwater, florida. sarah, we are told that national guard on stand by. it is that serious? reporter: yeah. about 8,000 members of the national guard, luke, in case conditions get really bad. it s kind of hard to believe right now, though, looking at clearwater beach and the conditions out here. we have sunl out there. we have people playing in the on the beach and swimming in the water. about a half hour ago we had a thunderstorm roll through the area bringing moderate rain and some pretty severe lightning and storms expected to roll in and out of the area throughout the day. we have a flood watch into the early evening. the tampa area, already experiencing one of the wettest augusts on record. the ground is saturated.