already we ve seen power outages across south florida. more than half a million without power. this is a powerful, destructive storm and we ll keep you updated throughout the day on it as it makes landfall. here in st. petersburg, we re on the north end of the storm. it s going to be moving up into our area the next couple hours. we ll keep you updated. back to you. martha: thanks, max. we heard from governor desantis saying some people left the tampa area and went to fort myers to be safe. and then it swung more towards fort myers, which we re watching play out right now. you can see how fast it s moving and how i enormous it is. makes it hard to get out of the way of it. steve harrigan has been handling decades of hurricane coverage for us. steve, right now you re in placeda, florida, northwest of
the message now is, remind people that danger is not over. unfortunately in florida, we have seen many people die from carbon monoxide poisoning because they ran a generator in a car port, electrocutions from downed power lines. they were getting injured, falling off roofs. if you are somewhere safe. just a, home stay off the road. don t try and see what s going. on first, of all you don t want to get in the way. you want to get the power turned back on, the risk of injuries is still very high. people need to take it slow, be careful. if you are somehow safe, stay there. listen to local officials. hurricane coverage, what is scary and may motivate.
10 minutes yet, i read certain lines he said in his apology. i was i am mpressed the fact th someone is willing to look at what they have done and you know i can get better at this and i want to have different points of views and we live in an age to walk in other people s shoes to have different points of view. i think joe rogan said untrue things about me in hurricane coverage years ago, i appreciate the fact that he s willing to reflect and do more research. he talked about being better informed which is important. right, some of the things he was talking about is different opinions and some of the stuff is facts. requires fact-checker, they can hire that and say this is not things that are inaccurate. he s tough on sanjay gupta.
other people to take physical action and not just vocal action. and that can create some momentum. now, it sure looks like, at least in washington, that the authorities are prepared and i will say that the dhs intelligence office has done a good job, both on august 13th with the previous advisory and with the most recent bulletin of making state, local, tribal and territorial officials aware of the dynamics so that they can be prepared wherever these things happen, be it state capitals, portland, or washington, d.c. chris, obviously, they re prepared and on high alert because of what we saw january 6th. but one of my producers came up and said, if this is not what is expected, what s the impact moving forward? and using the analogy of, you know, hurricane coverage, which we ve done for so long. if a forecaster says it s going to be a category 2 and you get ready for a category 2, but you get hit by a tropical storm, are you less likely to take all the precautions the next time they s
around-the-clock effort they ve been focused on for many days despite many other high-profile issues that have taken the president s time. but it is an all-hands-on-deck effort for the federal government. fema is the lead agency but cedric richards, former congressman, has been appointed to run point on the hurricane coverage. he is trying to streamline or address some of the various serious issues we are seeing in the gulf coast and north in the northeast as well, and the president involved as well. take a listen. my message to everyone affected is we re all in this together. the nation is here to help. that s the message i have been making clear to the mayors, governors, energy and utility leaders in the region who my administration has been working closely with over the past few days. reporter: i think the recognition inside the white house from both the president and his top advisers is the onus