Storm surge

The agency calling this a, quote, extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.

In addition, areas in the region could see as much as nine feet of storm surge.

Now, because of how quickly it is moving, places as far north as Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York even could be hit by heavy rain from the storm as soon as Sunday.

You can see right now localities from Mobile, Alabama to Pensacola, Panama City, Florida, all in the path of this.

And you can't see it because the sun is down, but over in the Gulf that I'm looking at right now, those waves extremely choppy and the wind direction right now.

Anderson actually pushing that water back, but once the eye goes over us, that wind direction will turn.

And we were going to start seeing that storm surge six feet expected for our area here.

And as we come on the air, Anderson, there is a curfew now in place here in Gulf Shores and in nearby Orange Beach.

Mm-hmm.

And with the storm surge coming up Mobile Bay.

That's probably off the table, but there should be a, a four to seven-foot storm surge, uh, essentially from around Pensacola east, uh, close to Destin probably-

Okay

... with, with that storm surge.

Um-

That's where a lot of Kentuckians vacation, Destin.

However, the fact that those winds came up a little bit just means that the storm is gonna have a little bit more power, you know, coming towards the coast.

So areas that are in those flood-prone areas, places like that, you know, we are expecting a very dangerous storm surge at the coastline of the Emerald Coast.

Do you expect any further strengthening today?

Uh, I think it's pretty unlikely.

Hopefully, it does weaken.

I don't know.

We didn't see the storm getting this strong as it approached the Gulf Coast, and I think if you are listening to us and you're in the Pensacola area, if you have family and friends in the Pensacola area, they better take this thing seriously because you got, you know, as it strengthens, the storm surge becomes a bigger problem.

Uh, and that's what we're seeing.

But even for areas like Mobile Bay, you've got Orange Beach-

Storm surge, all that

... yeah, man, five to seven-foot storm surge, and, and that can cause a lot of difficulties.

And I'm just wondering, do, do the sustained wind gusts, because I saw one model last night, Monroeville, as, as the storm, you know, in this particular model, starts to make its way in the southern part of the state, you're, you're getting 80 mile an hour wind gust in places like Monroeville, 50, 60 in other places as it works its way up.

My, my fear is with the rainfall and with some of these gusts, we're, there's gonna be mass, uh, power outages throughout the state, I would expect.

So if you're just joining us back on Veterans Talk, we were talking about the hurricane, the pending doom, and what's going on.

Um, listen, if you guys are actually in that area of, of the hurricane, I'm telling you, for somebody who's survived or who's been in a, a couple hurricanes, um, and I've seen the impact, especially in the Gulf Coast area, uh, the storm surge is what is, is, was, is really, really scary, is because of the 17-foot storm surge.

And if you have no idea what that's like, imagine when I was in Hurricane Katrina, they had 22-foot storm surges, and while I was walking, I literally saw a boat in a pine tree 22 feet up in the air.

A boat.

And we're not talking about a little, little kayak.

You have to watch out for surge, big time.

This thing's pushing water, no matter what strength it ends up being, on the order of five to seven feet of storm surge from just east of Biloxi through Mobile Bay, Pensacola, uh, and Destin.

Also thinking that some areas, uh, in Alabama and Georgia more inland could actually see sort- uh, tornadoes as a part of this.

Uh, I was curious to see rain in the forecast for us on Friday, and I, I will have to ask, uh, WTMJ 4 Meteorologist Jacob Montesano if this is related to the weather system that is, uh, brewing up in the Gulf.