historically hit by storms this strength had to wonder about sandbags. had to wonder about boarding up windows and had to weigh like so many other floridians whether or not it was time to evacuate. thankfully it seems like we ve gotten through the worst of the wind gusts and it s going to be up to the emergency crews and emergency response coordinators to start assessing any damage that might exist. jose. thank you so very much. julio, as we come on the air right now, we re getting our news, confirmation of the first fatality. it is someone who lost their life inside a vehicle on i-75 somewhere near the tampa area. but that s the first confirmed fatality that we have. julio, you and i have been here. this is zone a, evacuation area. this and i just want to kind of give you all an indication. julio and i at maybe 5:30 this morning were right there, and that s the canal of king s bay, and this is happening, what, 15,
majority of places in zone a are seeing the flooding. we have seen exactly why those places have been evacuated. that goes not just for here and tampa, we re talking also about the peninsula. now, i want to point out behind me over in that direction tampa general hospital. this is tampa bay s only level one trauma center. that is where people with the most serious of injuries go to. it is supposed to be operational during the hurricane. it is only accessible by those bridges. it is on an island. it s really interesting, they obviously have to put a lot of precautions in place. they have these things called aqua fences to make sure they have upwards of 15 feet of stormwater protection. that is definitely making things eaier for them. it remains to be seen what we ll find later in the day, jose. marissa parra, i thank you so very much. really appreciate it. i want to bring in the mayor of tampa. thank you very much for your time. tampa is not getting hit
county now. one of my colonels that works in the agencies on the west side of the county is sending us photos we are sharing on facebook feed and sending a lot of folks out along u.s. 19 corridor, which is flood zone a in citrus county. a mandatory evacuation zone. while we didn t experience the high winds we would typically get as a storm passes by. the significant nature of this storm that was a category 2 late last night and become a category 3 and worked its way to category 4 a few hours ago before it made landfall up in the big bend area will bring a lot of storm surge potential for us. we re working towards low tide and we ve got very unseasonably high tides right now that have come over parking lots and it s really working its way towards the u.s. 19 corridor. before too long we might see flooding along the flood zone a
eye of the storm and those conditions will change very, very quickly. florida governor ron desantis a short time ago giving a briefing issuing that warning at this point it s time to stay inside and hunker down. joining us now live from tampa is nbc news correspondent marissa parra. good morning. what are you seeing there? reporter: willie, good morning. so, we are currently in what s called zone a, the mandatory evacuation area in tampa and you ll see why in just a moment because if you look over there, this is what happens when a car tries to drive through the evacuated zone. you can see tampa bay has completely washed over onto the road. this is a main road that we saw cars driving through even last night with ease. there were many cars that were driving through here, but obviously this is now the water is taking over a lot of the roads and this is something we have seen throughout the morning as we ourselves have been trying to assess the situation. if you look further down ove
good day, everyone. i m andrea mitchell in washington. following the destructive path of hurricane idalia. the eighth major hurricane to make landfall in the u.s. in six years. take a look at the stunning view of idalia from space courtesy of nasa. we are expecting florida governor ron desantis to give an update in a half hour on all the preparations. we will bring that to you live, of course. joining me now is marissa para in tampa. talk to us about the tampa region and what s happening just north of it. reporter: yeah. good afternoon. we are in what s called zone a. this is the mandatory evacuation area. you can probably tell why, for good reason. you can t even tell the difference between the road here this is bay shore boulevard for those of you familiar with tampa. it s a main thoroughfare. you can see that there s really no difference between this and