Hurricane Idalia Makes Landfall on Florida's West Coast as a Dangerous Category 3 Storm

TIME

Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s west coast as a catastrophic Category 3 storm on Wednesday and unleashed life-threatening storm surges and rainfall across an area that has never before received such pummeling.

Transcript

00:00 Hurricane Idalia is now a category four storm.

00:05 That means sustained winds in excess of 130 miles per hour.

00:10 The hurricane will make landfall within the next two hours

00:14 in and around Taylor County

00:15 in the Big Bend region of Florida.

00:18 The National Hurricane Center expects storm surge

00:21 to reach up to 16 feet in some areas of the Big Bend region.

00:27 That level of storm surge is life-threatening.

00:31 Do not go outside in the midst of this storm.

00:34 If it's calm where you are,

00:36 it may be because you are in the eye of the storm

00:39 and those conditions will change very, very quickly.

00:42 So wherever you are, hunker down

00:45 and don't take anything for granted here.

00:48 This is a very, very powerful storm.

00:50 As soon as it's safe to do so,

00:53 when the winds die down to a sufficient level,

00:56 search and rescue efforts will begin.

00:59 We have eight urban search and rescue teams

01:02 staged ready to go,

01:04 33 ambulance strike teams, 5,500 National Guardsmen.

01:09 We also have the Coast Guard on standby

01:13 should that be necessary.

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Transcript

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