Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN's Continuing Coverage on Hurricane Idalia. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired August 30, 2023 - 03:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[03:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and around the world. I'm Omar Jimenez, live in New York, but we are following breaking news out of Florida.

Hurricane Idalia is barreling toward Florida's Big Bend coast and is expected to make landfall in the coming hours. Forecasters say it will be a once-in-a-lifetime event for the residents of the Gulf Coast.

Idalia is currently a Category 3 storm, forecast to become a Category 4 when it makes landfall. That means maximum sustained winds of at least 130 miles an hour. Authorities warn the storm surge could reach 12 to 16 feet in some areas and will likely not be survivable.

Low-lying areas are already seeing flooding further down Florida's west coast, including Pinellas County. More than seven million people are also under tornado watches. Cedar Key is an island city in the Big Bend area, which could be completely cut off by flooding.

Officials have been going door to door there to make sure residents evacuate, but not everyone is heeding the warnings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): This is crunch time right now. We're going to get hit with a major hurricane. It'll be sometime the eye will arrive on shore sometime tomorrow morning most likely. And it is going to have major impacts. So it's likely to cause a lot of damage. And that's just the reality. So be prepared for that. Be prepared to lose power and just know that there's a lot of folks that are going to be there to help you get back on your feet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: CNN's Gloria Pazmino is in Clearwater Beach, Florida. But first, let's head to the CNN Weather Center and meteorologist Karen Maginnis. What are you seeing as the latest, of course, as it gets ever closer to Florida's coast?

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we just received our 3 A.M. Eastern Time update from the National Hurricane Center. This system, Hurricane Idalia, is now traveling towards the north. The shift occurred maybe a couple of hours ago slightly towards the west, and this changes the dynamics quite a bit.

But overall, what it means is that there's going to be a tremendous amount of storm surge in these very low-lying areas. This is a fairly sparsely populated region of Florida. It has supporting winds right now, 120 miles per hour, just 130 miles an hour makes it a category four hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center has been saying this is going to increase in intensity and become a category four right before landfall because water temperature here is very conducive for further development. So category three now, it's less than 100 miles now away from Cedar Key.

But as I mentioned, this is where we are seeing fishing lodges, lots of recreational activity that takes place here, not like the more densely populated areas around Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Naples, Coral Gables, Florida.

But watch what happens here. We go through time, category four, somewhere in this east central panhandle of Florida, and then right along the border between Georgia and South Carolina, still a category one as we go later on into the afternoon, could be supporting winds of maybe 80 miles an hour, at least that's the forecast.

So all of these regions from Florida to Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina are under states of emergency. Flooding is still a high potential here. You will probably lose power in a lot of these coastal areas.

Look how some of these stronger bands move on shore already. We're seeing a very large tornado watch which goes until 6:00 a.m. across a good portion of western areas of the Florida Peninsula.

Up here in this big bend area it's going to be a monster because this is very low lying areas. I looked at the elevations maybe five feet, maybe 10 feet but the storm surge could be 12 to 16 feet. It is unsurvivable.

If you're caught in something like that, the number one cause of death in a hurricane is the storm surge. But look at what happens when we go into Wednesday heavy storms lashing portions of southeastern Georgia extending into Savannah Brunswick into Hilton Head and maybe into Edisto and Charleston. I'll be back coming up at the bottom of the hour with more details. Omar back to you.

[03:05:07]

JIMENEZ: Karen Maginnis in the CNN Weather Center.

I want to go to Gloria Pazmino in Clearwater, Florida who's been monitoring things from the ground there. Gloria, I mean, we've been seeing?e've seen rain come in. We've seen winds pick up at different hours. What are you seeing right now? GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, in the last hour or so,

it has been all about the wind here in Clearwater. The wind has significantly picked up. The rain has let up for at least the past hour or so. It kind of comes in and out and trickles. But as you heard, we are expecting this hurricane to continue to gather strength and speed as it hovers over the Gulf of Mexico. And it is approaching the west coast of Florida. And it's not far from Cedar Key. I believe we have a live look at what conditions look like there. We're starting to see a lot of the waves incoming into the area.

Now just a little bit about Cedar Key. This is a small community. This is a small area mostly known for its fishing and it is an area that is under mandatory evacuation orders.

As you mentioned at the beginning, law enforcement went door to door earlier today, trying to make sure that people made it out of there. We do know from officials there in the area that there are about 100 people who stayed behind. And that is going to be troubling because at some point it is possible that Cedar Key is cut off from the rest of the mainland. This is a tiny, tiny island there that is going to be in the direct path of that hurricane, Hurricane Idalia continuing to gather strength.

So the situation there is going to be dire. Here, where we are, in Clearwater beach, part of Pinellas County. There's also a mandatory evacuation order and the concern here is the storm surge.

We are about from where I'm standing about a quarter of a mile, I would say to the edge of the beach in that direction. And we watched earlier today as hotel workers here in the area kind of line the area with sandbags trying to prevent that water from coming in. So far it stayed away but if the storm surge does start to move inland to where we are right now, we are expecting to see anywhere from four to seven feet of water moving in this direction. There are other parts of the county here in Pinellas that are already seeing some flooding from that water coming in from the beach.

So the next critical hours will determine whether or not that water starts moving inland, and that is going to potentially cause a lot of problems as Idalia continues its path headed to the western coast of Florida. Omar?

JIMENEZ: Gloria Pazmino, thank you for your updates throughout these past few hours. We'll stay close to you.

Christopher Evan is Citrus County's Director of Emergency Management and joins us live, from Inverness, Florida, a city located southeast of Cedar Key.

So Director, start us off with what are your major concerns right now? What are you monitoring as this hurricane continues to get closer to landfall?

CHRISTOPHER EVAN, CITRUS COUNTY, FLORIDA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR: Good morning. Dangerous storm surge. That is our major concern. JIMENEZ: Yeah, and at this point, you know, we're looking all up and

down the Big Bend area, where in some places it's forecast to be up to 16 feet. I believe it's a little bit lower from where you all are right now, potentially up to 11 feet. It's not much better. But when you talk about concern over storm surge, what are you telling residents? How do you combat that?

EVAN: Evacuate. Get away from that water. We're looking at about 11 feet. However, Levy County is 12 to 16 feet just north of us. And what concerns me is the line is so close that we could see potential of greater than 11 feet for Citrus County.

And we have about 18,000 people who live in zone A, which is along the coast. And we have directed them over the past days to get out and seek shelter away from this dangerous storm.

JIMENEZ: Yeah, yeah, and you know, I was just talking to the sheriff in Levy County not too long ago and he told me that while some people have heated evacuation warnings, they had some issues with folks wanting to leave Cedar Key or getting them to leave Cedar Key despite them being in potentially one of the biggest risk areas. And I'm curious for you in Citrus County, have folks been receptive to these evacuation orders? Have you had difficulties and getting them to, at the very least, move further inland?

[03:09:57]

EVAN: So I'm very concerned from a shelter standpoint, we have less than 200 people in our shelters. Now if you take that 18,000 people along that coast, where did they all go? Are they -- did they heat our early warnings and say go tens of miles rather than hundreds of miles and get away from the coastal area? Or are they staying behind? And that concerns me greatly because in a couple hours we're going to know tragically if they stayed.

JIMENEZ: Yeah, and in a couple hours, again, we're going to have some of those crucial moments of landfall. But one thing I always think about, I've covered many of these hurricanes before, many of them in Florida, and a lot of folks go to bed with one picture of what the day is looking like and wake up to something completely different. I think that's probably what we're going to see here.

Once we do get to those morning hours and landfall has happened, potentially as a category four hurricane, what can you do at that point? And for folks that stayed, what do they do?

EVAN: Well, if they stay behind and we're expecting the impact around 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, or this morning, I should say, where they're going to have to wait until the winds die down and it's safe enough for emergency responders to head out. And at that point, we're going to conduct those critical rescue operations to save those people that need to be rescued.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, it may be clear to some, may not to others, but when this happens, if somebody needs help in the worst of the storm, you're not going to be able to get to them in any form of immediate fashion?

EVAN: That's correct. I mean, it is too dangerous to operate any vehicles, especially emergency vehicles, because fire rescue and EMS, high-profile vehicles, that wind is so dangerous, it risks the crews that get out there, and we don't want to lose the life of them during that period of time.

JIMENEZ: Yeah, yeah. Well, Christopher Evan, director of emergency management in Citrus County, Florida, thank you for your time. Please stay safe. I know you all have a lot to get to. And if you need messages that you need to be getting out, feel free to reach out. I know you've been in touch.

EVAN: Thank you so much.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

Now, despite evacuation orders, some Floridians are choosing to ride out the storm. We'll hear from one of those Floridians, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSHUA WOSTAL, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY COMMISSIONER: Now, we're advising residents stay home, hunker down, stay off the roads. It's too dangerous to be on the roads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE RHOME, ACTING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: It is an island and the water will completely encase it and cut it off. You might not be able to leave for days. You might not have clean water, electricity. Be able to access your neighbors. If the worst of the storm surge projection materializes, virtually every home on that island could be flooded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: That's a top official at the U.S. National Hurricane Center there warning that Idalia threatens to cut Cedar Key off from Florida. The storm is now 100 miles southwest of the city. You can see Cedar Key right there in the center of the Big Bend. Officials are warning that the area could experience historic storm surges. And though evacuation orders are in place, the city's mayor says many people aren't heeding evacuation warnings. Listen to one resident told CNN about why he's riding out the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL BOBBITT, RIDING OUT IDALIA: Right now you can feel the pressure dropping in your belly. And it feels like the hand of death. And I've never been an alarmist about hurricanes. I always think it's going to be just fine. But I'm concerned about this place that I love so much. We haven't had anything like this since the Great Cedar Key Hurricane of 1896. And I think it's going to be three times as bad as that. So this island that we all love, I have great concerns, will largely not be here as we know it 48 hours from now.

There's just a certain quality of folks that live and make their living here on the water. We're an individualistic type people and there's just a certain amount of folks that just aren't going to leave. And I mean I'm on my high horse preaching about leaving but yet here I sit. So there's just some percentage of the folks in an island community that are going to ride it out with the island. And to the extent that I can try to be as safe as I can and help my neighbors. You know, you gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere in your life and say, this is what matters to me and this is what I care about. And for me, it's Cedar Key and the people that I live with here. So I'm going to do my best to see what I can do to help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now we want to take you to Perry, Florida, which isn't too far from Cedar Key, but it's also where storm chaser Aaron Jayjack is standing by and joins us now by phone. So Aaron, tell us a little bit about what you're seeing where you are. Obviously Perry in the coming hours is expected to be right in the middle of where this hurricane is going to come through.

AARON JAYJACK, STORMCHASER (on the phone): Yeah, so last night I went to bed for a few hours, got a little bit of rest before this major hurricane made landfall with Perry, Florida, one of the few towns in the Big Bend region along the coast. We are about 10 miles inland off the Gulf of Mexico, but last night it was quite still very hot and humid.

I was seeing flashes of lightning in the distance as we had a tornado watch here in effect. And now this morning, I just woke up a little bit ago, but we now have started to get rain. The rain of Hurricane Idalia has started to move into the area. The winds are picking up slightly, but not nothing near where they're going to be in the next seven to eight hours when i expect landfall will happen and we have a lot of landfall category three or four possible hurricane right now it is a category three a major hurricane and can just being a continued going to continue to intensify the couple sure here this morning.

JIMENEZ: And, look, you've been around the block, covering tornadoes, hurricanes, you name it. And I'm just curious for it -- for your take based on the forecast that we've seen to this point. What are you expecting to see in the next coming hours physically on the ground where you are, and how do you intend to react to what you're seeing?

[03:20:10]

JAYJACK (on the phone): Yeah, you know, so we're gonna slowly see the winds begin to pick up, get stronger as each hour passes. Eventually we'll reach those tropical storm strength winds, 35 plus, 45 miles per hour winds, until we get to the hurricane force winds of the outer eyewall of the hurricane approaches land.

We'll get strong winds coming from onshore winds actually coming out of the east, southeast, the east, the cyclone that's rotating until the eyewall comes ashore where those strongest winds are associated right along the eye of the storm. And that's when things are going to get really bad here in the Big Bend region of Florida. We'll start having power outages. Trees will start coming down. There are a lot of trees here along the coast. And in fact, it makes it quite a difficult chase. You know, I've chased a lot of hurricanes, Cat 5 Michael in 2018, Hurricane Ian last year. Both of those hurricanes were in more populated areas.

This is a low population area. This is good for Florida. Not as many people will be impacted. As a storm chaser, it's a little bit more difficult for me. And one of the other problems of a storm chaser with this storm is this is a very small storm. The eye of the storm is only about 10 miles across right now. My goal is to get into that eye of the storm. And when you've got a small eye, it's gonna be quite difficult.

Trees are gonna be coming down, blocking traffic. I may just have to ride it out here in Perry, Florida this morning.

JIMENEZ: Well, and to that point, obviously, look, there's been a lot of calls to it, to evacuate in places all across the region. But you, like me sometimes, I covered Hurricane Michael, I covered Irma, you name it, you go down the list there. What is something that you see while a storm is coming in like this that you hope residents don't see, that you hope that they've gotten far away from? Is there anything that comes to mind that when you see it you're like, wow, that's the reason they're telling people to evacuate?

JAYJACK (on the phone): Well, the biggest concern with these hurricanes and for people needing to evacuate is that storm surge. Storm surge is by far the deadliest part of a hurricane. This one's expected to get up to 15, 16 feet of storm surge.

Here in Perry, Florida, fortunately we're about 46 feet above sea level. So we're not gonna really have that storm surge effect here, but as you get closer to the coast, the elevation goes down to coastal marshes and forest land.

You know, it's gonna be, you can't even hardly see the Gulf of Mexico when you drive along the coast here. There's only a few spots where you can see it. So if you stay along the coast here in the Big Bend region where this hurricane is coming across, this is a deadly storm surge. You're likely not gonna survive 16 foot of storm surge coming across the land along the coast.

But you know, the wind can be dangerous too. There is going to be flying debris, sheet metal. You know, this area does not see a lot of major hurricanes. I think the last one was in the 1800s, perhaps. There was a Category 2 in 1968 that hit around Cedar Key area. So this area is not familiar with these major hurricanes. There's going to be a lot of buildings here that are not built with modern technology to be able to withstand the full force of a cat four hurricane.

So now there's going to be a lot of debris flying around. Power is going to be knocked out. So if you didn't evacuate and you are in the area, you should expect to have no power for the next two to three, maybe four days, maybe for a week. There'll probably be no power here in the hardest areas.

JIMENEZ: Yeah. I mean, look, for as much as we talk about the storm surge, it is forecast to be a category four when it hits, which is still sustained wind speeds up to 156 miles per hour. Not a lot of structures that can take that very easily.

Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack, thank you for joining us. Stay safe and stay in touch.

JAYJACK (on the phone): All right, thank you.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

Coming up for us, we'll have an update on Hurricane Idalia's path live from the CNN Weather Center.

MAGINNIS: And we will have an update on Hurricane Idalia and where it's expected to head and how strong it might be coming up in the CNN Weather Center.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: Hurricane Idalia expected to become and or to be an extremely dangerous category 4 storm and it makes landfall in Florida in the next few hours. NASA is releasing these images showing the sheer magnitude of the hurricane from space.

Idalia is said to be one of the most powerful storms to ever hit that area of Florida's western coast. Some cities are already starting to see the early effects of the hurricane with flooding reported in Pinellas County. But one of the storm's most dangerous effects won't be fully seen for hours after it makes landfall. Forecasters are predicting deadly storm surges as high as 15 feet in some areas. Here's what one official told me earlier about the potential impact of Idalia storm surge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANDY LEMMERMEN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, DIXIE COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: The closest we've ever came to a storm surge like that on our coastal communities was back with Hermine and we got maybe four foot, five foot in some places and we're low laying in our communities down on the coast as Swanny and Horseshoe and Gina and Back during Hermine, 4 foot was devastating. We had a lot of major damage to residents and commercial structures.

So for us with the storm surge of a potential of 16 foot is just total, you know, catastrophic catastrophe and devastation. And there's no way people that stay down there, it can survive that, unless they get the elevated ground above that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:30:04]

JIMENEZ: Let's bring back in meteorologist Karen Maginnis at the CNN Weather Center. Karen, I know you've been tracking the relationship in some cases of the elevation to where this storm is expected to hit. What are you seeing on your end for the overall picture here?

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: What I'm looking at when I take a look at this satellite imagery is there's no dry air intrusion, meaning we're not seeing a slot of dry air making the system weaker or influencing it. It is just sitting in very warm, relatively shallow water, gaining some strength.

We are seeing it will probably become a category four, but we see wind reports here out of Clearwater, St. Pete, Tampa, Naples, Cedar Key. They're 45 to about 60 miles per hour. That doesn't really speak of the whole story.

It's a storm surge, deadly. The number one deadly aspect of a hurricane, a category four with a storm surge of 8 feet, 10 feet, 12, 15 feet is unimaginable. This should probably make landfall probably around 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning.

My colleague meteorologist Alison Chinchar will be here at the top of the hour to continue to update you throughout the day.

Here we go, and then by Wednesday evening, could it still possibly be at hurricane strength in South Georgia or right along the border with South Carolina and Georgia? Certainly can and the projection is that it will, under a state of emergency North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida as you can well imagine.

But there could be severe flooding in these low lying areas. It's all low lying areas. I've checked the elevation of numerous cities across the panhandle in the Big Bend area. Well we go through time and here we see some of those bands still moving on shore for Tampa Gainesville still affecting St. Mark's, Apalachicola, Tallahassee, Gainesville.

We will see widespread trees down already, some 40,000 customers without power across Florida. That number is going to go exponentially. Well, as I mentioned, we'll have another update at the top of the hour from the National Hurricane Center and Alison Chinchar will be here to update you.

JIMENEZ: Karen Maginnis, thank you so much, as always.

Now, south of Cedar Key, Florida is Weeki Wachee and that's where we find John Allocco, chairman of Hernando County Board of Commissioners. So, John, lay out the picture for us. What are you seeing on your end right now, and what are you most concerned with as we approach this potentially catastrophic hurricane making landfall?

JOHN ALLOCCO, CHAIRMAN, HERNANDO COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS: Well, what we're seeing right now is fortunately we've had many high percentage of our community has heated the evacuation orders and they have left the areas where we expect to have storm surge, certainly concerned of the storm surge and how severe it will be.

But right now, the information we're getting is that it's we have not had the amount of surge we expected yet. We expected still to come up, especially as we hit our next king tide, which will be about 12 hours from now.

Our shelters have been slowly ticking up through the night just because people, you know, have decided that they didn't want to deal with the storm itself. And they've slowly made their way up there. I believe we're about 260 across the county, which is a low number considering how many people have evacuated. But again, grateful though that we have those open special needs shelter, pet shelter, and in general population shelters being used.

JIMENEZ: And you know, along those lines for shelters, we were talking to an official out of Citrus County, you know, not too far from where you all are. And one thing that he talked about was that the number of people in their shelters was low, but that also meant that potentially there could be a lot of people still out there. And I'm curious when you see that low number of people in your shelters, is that a number that you expect to rise or what does that number tell you at this stage?

ALLOCCO: Well, prior to it getting dark, we were told between our National Guard and our Sheriff's Department that about 80 percent of the beach areas or the waterfront areas had already evacuated, and that was probably eight o'clock-ish last night. So that just tells me that people listened, they left early, and they found their way to probably family and friends rather than sitting in a shelter. We've encouraged that all along the way, use this shelter as your last resort, but definitely evacuate.

[03:35:00]

JIMENEZ: And look, I don't want to get too ahead of things because obviously the hurricane hasn't even made landfall, but for many Floridians, they, or someone they know, has been affected by hurricanes of these magnitude, or at the very least has had to, has had their lives affected by these things. And so once we get past the initial high winds, the initial effects of this, what types of supplies, what types of things are people going to need as the area tries to get back to some semblance of normalcy?

ALLOCCO: Well obviously we'll be ready for debris removal. That's a big part of getting the waterfront areas cleaned up. We're ready for that. We've had issues in the past during Hermine. Obviously way back in the 90s we had the no-name storm in our area. Those things were prepared for our county staff already to get out there and survey the area in Hernando Beach and along the Weeki Wachee, Arapica shortly after the waters recede so that we can survey the damage and then just help people start getting ready and cleaning up. That's a big part of it is just the cleanup afterwards.

JIMENEZ: Yeah. And what do you say to residents of your county who are likely going to be waking up to a very different picture than what they saw when they went to sleep?

ALLOCCO: Our emergency operations team is ready. Our sheriff's department, our fire department are ready to be there to help you. And we will do whatever we can to speed this process up and hopefully get you back into your home as soon as possible.

JIMENEZ: Well, John Allocco, chairman of Hernando County Board of Commissioners, best of luck to you. I know you all have a lot of work ahead of you, but I hope you stay safe.

ALLOCCO: Thank you, sir, and be safe as well.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

Now as Hurricane Idalia turns toward landfall on Florida's coast, it's growing more powerful and meteorologists fear climate change has a lot to do with it. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: A massive wall of storm clouds blots out the sky on Florida's western coast Tuesday evening, heralding the oncoming danger of Hurricane Idalia. This was the scene shortly before 6 p.m. in Tacoma's beach, about 70 miles south of Tampa.

Since then, Idalia has strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane, and it's forecast to grow to a monster Category 4, as it makes landfall in the coming hours on Florida's Big Bend coastal region. Officials warn Hurricane Idalia is expected to be the first major Hurricane in category three or stronger to hit the Big Bend region, bringing once in a lifetime levels of destruction.

The National Weather Service says the storm has the makings of an unprecedented event for this part of Florida. There are no major hurricanes in the historical data set going back to 1851 that have tracked directly into this region.

The federal government has emergency teams and resources on the ground positioned in areas likely to be affected by the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEANNE CRISWELL, FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: FEMA's disaster relief fund, which as of this morning has a balance of $3.4 billion. So today I am directing the implementation of immediate needs funding. This means that FEMA will prioritize available funding for critical response efforts to Idalia, the Maui fires, and any other extreme weather events that may come our way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: What's stunning is meteorologists, what's stunning to meteorologists I should say, is how quickly Hurricane Idalia is intensifying. The reason? The Gulf of Mexico is extraordinarily warm and it's absorbing energy. Water temperatures have risen to 100 degrees this summer off parts of Florida and many scientists say climate change has a lot to do with it.

CNN's Bill Weir explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: One of the scariest units of measurement that I've learned covering this beat, the climate beat is Hiroshima's per second. That is the amount of extra energy absorbed by our oceans. A few years ago, it was five Hiroshima-sized explosions per second every second of every day being absorbed. Now it's around 10 due to the heat trapping pollution that comes from, from burning fossil fuels. And it's sort of the way you, if you were to heat up a bathtub of lukewarm water with a tea kettle, it would take a while, it would stay lukewarm until it no longer is. And it feels like the summer of 2023, we saw these numbers where people went, wow, this is off the charts faster than we anticipated.

And it just creates more storm energy. It's more energy for these hurricanes, it's steroids, whatever metaphor you want to use. One degree of warming, Fahrenheit, can lead to a 10 percent greater intensity of the storm. There's other factors involved, wind shear and El Nino and all that stuff.

But, this is coming at a time when you've got a lot of folks who know these waters, who have known the hurricanes of years past, and are sort of setting their risk management around the world that really no longer exists. One guy is Mike Baker, a captain here who's ferried presidents out on fishing trips down here. He knows these waters better than most. He's deciding to stay, and I asked him why.

(on-camera): Talk about the decision to stay when something like this seems so obvious.

MIKE BAKER, STEINHATCHEE RESIDENT: You know, it started like back in Hurricane Donna as a kid. I can remember our parents took us to the mainland up in the homestead. And we came back and our home had been rummaged from other people, you know, the looters. They took everything, not to mention the amount of time you're away from your home.

[03:45:05]

You have no idea what it's going to look like or if you have a home when you're there.

WEIR (on-camera): Yeah.

BAKER: You know, all it would take for me to just go two hours from here and come back and trees or power lines be across the road and I can't get here. That to me is more harmful than riding the storm.

WEIR (on-camera): This of course is a state about civil liberties. You know, part of the appeal for a lot of people who's moving here is that no one's going to tell you what to do. Well, now you've got authorities telling you what to do. That is, get out of these low- lying areas for your own sake. Nobody's coming back to help you until it's too late.

The cautionary tale from a year ago, less than a year ago, Hurricane Ian. And when it hit Lee County, most of the dust came from storm surge. That is just not survivable if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: Bill Weir, thank you.

Storm surges are one of the most dangerous parts of hurricanes, and we're expecting to see some massive surges from Idalia in the hours ahead. The latest on that threat next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: In just a matter of hours, Hurricane Idalia is due to make landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast. The storm is packing a punch already, carrying winds up to 120 miles per hour, and it's continuing to intensify as it approaches Florida's Big Bend.

Forecasters warn that this will be a storm to remember. Coastal regions could experience storm surges up to 16 feet, which officials say will be unsurvivable in some areas. More now on the big concern here, the storm surge. It's known as storm-generated water over and above the predicted tides. Our Randi Kaye puts this anticipated surge in historical perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNKNOWN: This is what it's like in downtown New Orleans right now.

UNKNOWN: It's hard to estimate how much water that is.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina barreled into the Louisiana coast. The storm was a powerful category 3 hurricane when it made landfall with winds near 127 miles per hour.

But what made Katrina so deadly wasn't so much the wind as the water.

UNKNOWN: I tried swimming to a higher ground, but there was no high ground.

KAYE (voice-over): According to the National Hurricane Center, storm surge flooding measured 10 to 28 feet above normal tide levels.

The storm surge that poured into Lake Pontchartrain breached the levee system, flooding most of New Orleans. Catastrophic flooding spread for miles inland, destroying residential neighborhoods.

UNKNOWN: It came in so fast. It was from one inch to about 10 feet in a matter of 10 minutes.

KAYE (voice-over): Nearly 1,400 people perished during the hurricane and the floods that followed. Most of them drown. Katrina is a prime example of how deadly a storm surge can be.

In 2008, Hurricane Ike made landfall as it swept over Galveston Island on the Texas coast. It was a category two storm with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour. Much of the area saw devastating storm surges of 15 to 20 feet above normal tide levels.

UNKNOWN: The ocean came through the house. It literally came through the house. There's sludge and snakes and you name it.

KAYE (voice-over): Years earlier in 1995, Hurricane Opal made landfall near Pensacola Beach, Florida, as a Category 3 storm. Again, the story was the storm surge.

UNKNOWN: Totally gone. We didn't do anything but lock the door on our way out.

KAYE (voice-over): With Opal, the storm surge spanned about 120 miles from Pensacola Beach to Mexico Beach. That surge, combined with breaking waves, soaked portions of the Florida Panhandles coast with water as deep as 10 to 20 feet. The maximum storm tide, which combined storm surge and regular astronomical tides, was 24 feet, recorded near Fort Walton Beach.

Hurricane Hugo made landfall as a category four storm in September 1989, just north of Charleston, South Carolina. Records show sustained winds reaching 120 miles per hour in some areas. And the storm surge? It soaked the South Carolina coast, with maximum storm tides of 20 feet observed in some areas.

UNKNOWN: The wind is picking up so dramatically.

UNKNOWN: There was no water and then the eye hit. And when the eye hit, it was just, it just started, it was just like filling up a bathtub. There was no wave, there was no nothing. It just like, like in about 10 minutes.

KAYE (voice-over): Decades ago in 1969, it was Camille, a category five hurricane that made landfall along the Mississippi coast. The winds were so fierce, they destroyed all the wind recording instruments in the area.

UNKNOWN: What now? That'll (inaudible) I got to close (inaudible). KAYE (voice-over): The winds at the coast were estimated to be about 200 miles per hour. And with those winds came water, lots of it. A storm tide of 24.6 feet occurred at Pass Christian, Mississippi, according to officials.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: And tonight's supermoon will enhance tides, which is expected to worsen Idalia's storm surge. A supermoon is a full moon that's closer to Earth than normal, so this week's supermoon will be nearly 18,000 miles closer to Earth than usual. The moon's gravity has a stronger effect on gulfs and oceans. Forecasters say the projected storm surge of up to 15 feet already takes into account the supermoon's influence on tides.

Now as Hurricane Idalia makes landfall in Florida, look now at some of the strongest hurricanes that hit the state. Hurricane Ian was one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit Florida, killing 144 people and causing $112 billion in damage.

[03:55:01]

Hurricane Michael in 2018 was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Panhandle. 16 people died and it caused $25 billion in damage.

Irma was a category four hurricane when it struck the Florida Keys, killing 10 and costing $50 billion in property damage.

Many people in Florida still remember Hurricane Andrew back in 1992, the powerful category five storm killed 23 and was the third most intense hurricane on record to hit the U.S.

I'm Omar Jimenez, in New York. Thank you for joining me. Our breaking news coverage of Hurricane Idalia continues on "CNN This Morning," next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)