Page 3 - Florida Area News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

that destruction left behind in just three cities in florida. and clued in fort myers. we will go there in just a moment and now coming to be known as ground zero. satellite images showing areas there before and after the storm. survivors continuing to speak out about what they have endured. >> i sheltered in a closet until part of the roof came off. and then the wind came in there so that i just went behind the bed. and stay there. >> nothing about gratitude that we are here and for all that the people out there do. >> i will never ever not evacuate again. >> the power of that storm...

you have trees that are down, you have a lot of hazards right now. we do anticipate a lot of the water will subside in some of the barrier islands and some of the coasts but some of those inland places of rivers and these inlets, you are likely to have standing water there throughout all of today and even in the days ahead, so that is a hazard and just please be aware that that is something that if you have weathered the storm to this point, going on doing and getting involved in that is totally not worth it and we want to minimise any harm to anybody as a result of what we are seein...

Conditions here are changing really minute to minute. it was raining hard about an hour ago. when we last spoke to a stop now. it's very windy. storm surge is going to be the primary thing that we are watching for. expecting to see anywhere from 47 feet of storm surge. coming in. that's going to be catastrophic for the area. a large amount of water. dangerous levels of water. as a result the area has been put under a mandatory evacuation order. not everyone has heeded the waters. i've spoken people who are local, telling me they would ride this out. just writing it out. hoping for the best, bu...

Time it is -- officials are warning of people still under direct path of the storm to drop everything, and evacuate before it is too late. telling residents, it will be impossible for majority workers to reach them when disaster strikes one storm chaser in florida describes what he is seeing so far. >> this is going to be a catastrophic wind event, similar to hurricane -- which was a -- chase that storm also, so you are going to have a 30 mile wide approximately 30 mile wide damage path of catastrophic damage here all the way back to northwestern jacksonville, it will be a hurricane, a strong ...

This could happen within the next 4 to 6 hours. we are anticipating this making landfall. but landfall is not the specific thing that we are most concerned about. it's the storm surge. storm surge kills more people than anything else you will see power outages. see trees down. you'll see structures damaged. this is a low-lying area this area, i've talked about this. the wildlife management areas, estuaries, beautiful springs there. it's gorgeous. not highly populated notley tampa like gainesville, i like tallahassee. but the impacts are still being felt. there is a tornado watch, recently just...