• 3 months ago
AccuWeather's Bill Wadell is in Panama City Beach, Florida, where the area is expected to be significantly impacted by Helene, which is expected to make landfall in the state as a major hurricane.
Transcript
00:00Bill, gorgeous this morning at the beach now, but people need to be prepared for big impacts.
00:06Absolutely. Ariella Burney, good morning to you. It is a gorgeous morning here at the beach. People
00:11out enjoying the sun, the calm waters, the extremely warm waters this morning. This is
00:16one of those reasons for concern when the weather is just so nice. Some people let their guard down
00:22thinking the weather is going to be bad sooner and that's just not the case with a storm like this.
00:26The good news guys, the people that I've been talking with out here on the beach and right
00:30along the street this morning, a lot more people are aware of this storm. A lot more people are
00:34talking about it compared to what we saw yesterday and some of the tourists here tell us that they
00:38are cutting their vacations short and heading home early. Now, AccuWeather was the first
00:44source to forecast this track and intensity with hurricane impacts. We put this forecast out first
00:51to warn people of the impacts of this storm because with this homegrown development threat
00:56so close to the United States and still at this point not having a named storm, people need to get
01:01ready. That's why our forecast was out first to warn people that it is time to prepare and we
01:06could tell you the scars from Hurricane Michael nearly six years ago, it's still clear all over
01:11the place including over at Tyndall Air Force Base. More than 400 buildings on the base were
01:15destroyed by Michael. Five billion dollars in construction projects to build back better and
01:21stronger for the next storm. They're underway right now. Now, that work is expected to be
01:25finished by next summer but the storm could delay construction and could potentially push back those
01:31plans. People visiting or living full-time in RVs and campers are being warned to take this storm
01:37threat seriously along the Gulf Coast. RVs and campers can be incredibly dangerous in tropical
01:43storms and hurricanes. The wind can slam against both the side and it can also blow underneath
01:48those campers and we've seen RVs easily flip in hurricane force winds and be torn apart. We saw
01:55some families packing up and rolling out of this campsite in Mexico Beach yesterday. A good idea,
02:00you could see that site is surrounded by water on both sides. Visitors here tell us they can
02:05confirm the buoy reports that water temperatures are just incredibly warm. Oh my lord, let me tell
02:13you, we went out yesterday in the water and was amazed at how the temperature was. I don't know
02:19what it was but it's some of the warmest Gulf water I have ever felt. Those warm waters at the
02:27surface and deep down hundreds of feet below the surface far out in the Gulf, that can act like
02:33rocket fuel helping these storms explode in intensity and we just checked the buoy readings
02:38here in the Panama City Beach, Florida area. Not far from here, some of those readings, Bernie and
02:42Ariella, 83 close to 85 degrees. So close to the coast, that is well above the historical average. So
02:50that's why there is such a concern for the threat of rapid intensification, not just for this storm
02:55but over the next few weeks if we see any more tropical threats. Speaking with Alex Da Silva,
02:59those warm warm waters are so far down that the storm really isn't able to churn up colder water
03:05so we're not seeing temperatures really cool down in the wake of these storms and again some
03:10locals we are taking this storm a bit more seriously. Some visitors tell us they are going
03:14to be packing up and cutting their trip short but when it comes to preparations
03:18we haven't seen much of that yet but that is expected to change later today.

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