Page 4 - Storm One News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Concerns. driving around you're already starting to see debris. you're starting to see those trees topple. because this storm has a sort of ridge, it's a river of fast-moving water, especially when you're talking about wind gusts of 40 and 50 miles per hour, and that's why we're going to start to get the effects of that storm here in this area about an hour south of panama city where it's likely to make landfall from one to four p.m. today. i want you to look at this water behind me. that is st. joseph bay, and further on out is the gulf of mexico. the storm is going to come in through there. ...

It would become a category 5 storm. this is the storm that is barreling down now on the florida panhandle. already some 24,000 customerspo the hurricane is two hours away from landfall. i am joined by the lieutenant general russell honore who led the response to hurricanes katrina and rrita. unlike the hurricane a few weeks ago, th ago, this is a rapidly moving storm, and how do you prepare when a storm intensifies as quickly as this one has? >> well, you do the best you can to keeping the people in place, and once the storm winds start to affect the coast. and then you try to go inland as muc...

>> craig, take a look at this. this eye is about anywhere from 10 to 20 miles wide, and these are these barrier islands. this storm literally has the capability, the possibility of changing the geography of the coast of florida. we could be talking about some of these barrier islands actually disappearing under this storm. and of course, you can see as it comes in, we always have to worry, especially to the east of the eye for tornados. we have a wide swath of tornado watches from panama city up into albany, georgia, valdosta, all the way down just to the northwest of tampa, florida. here's wh...

Next six hours. >> we are staying on top of that. we're staying on top of it for our big picture. carol kathy spray painting calm down, michael. mexico beach is a family town outside her daughter's business. she is one of the many people boarding up windows right now, laying out sandbags to prepare for the storm. we're thinking of those folks along the coast. that does it for us this hour. let me turn it over to my colleague craig melvin who has much more on the hurricane barrelling towards florida right now. thank you. good morning, craig melvin here. msnbc headquarters in new york with our...

Businesses here in the downtown, they're boarded up. they've sandsandbagged. the back of the hotel was a little further inland, and once the rain, the wind rather, starts to pick up here as the storm officially makes landfall in the next few hours, we plan to ride it out there. as you can see, the water here is really starting to get rough, and the water's really starting to kick in to the downtown, potentially damaging all of the businesses in this historic area, craig. >> gabe, be safe and make sure the crew's safe as well. just west of gabe, nbc's mariana atencio in port st. joe, florida....