00:00AccuWeather correspondent Allie Reed has been enduring the storm from Pensacola, Florida. Allie.
00:06Right, and we've been talking about those conditions, right?
00:08Not only are we worrying about wind, storm surge, but then you have the rain mixed in too right now.
00:14So you have all those factors, and that leads to things like where we are right now.
00:18The Pensacola Bay Bridge, or as many in this area know it as, the Three Mile Bridge, has now closed.
00:25I want to take to some video too that we were able to show earlier.
00:28We had a number of police, local authorities here closing this down.
00:32Pretty much the only people that are going in or out of this area are utilities crews at this point.
00:38We know that over in Pensacola Beach or the Barrier Islands, they had to shut down utilities earlier.
00:44Now, my photographer Andy and I were able to get over to a press conference earlier.
00:48They wanted to shut down some of the rumors, the emergency management crews, about what was going to be happening
00:54here in this area.
00:55One of the things that they actually spoke about was the fact that they wanted to shut down rumors that
00:59the Bay Bridge, or that Three Mile Bridge, was not going to shut down at 3 o'clock.
01:05Well, funny enough, Pensacola police ended up shutting this bridge down at 2.30.
01:10So something to note there.
01:11We'd like to take some sounds about how we heard from them earlier.
01:15Take a listen to what they had to say.
01:17We had a rumor that we were going to shut bridges down at 3 o'clock.
01:20I had to address that with the room.
01:22We also had rumors that ECUA was going to shut water off at downtown Pensacola at 3 o'clock.
01:27That's not true.
01:28ECUA is only shutting down utilities on Pensacola Beach at 3 o'clock so they can bring the system down
01:33safely so they can get it back up quickly.
01:35But hopefully everybody listening to this has found their safe place.
01:40They're hunkered down.
01:41We're prepped.
01:42We're prepared.
01:43We're ready to go.
01:44But I need the citizens to start winding themselves down.
01:48I need you to stay off the roads.
01:52They are for sure ready.
01:53They understand what conditions are like.
01:55And as we know here on AccuWeather, Floridians, okay, people here in Florida, certainly know what these conditions can be
02:04like when it comes to hurricanes.
02:05Now, interesting enough, you know, a lot of people here are reflecting back to Hurricane Sally and what that was
02:12like.
02:12Conditions in this area during Sally brought really, really significant storm surge here.
02:18That is something we're going to be paying close attention to over the next couple of hours.
02:23Now, the thing that you notice right now is wind gusts.
02:26We're talking anywhere from 70 to 115-mile-an-hour wind gusts, and we certainly, Melissa and Anna, are starting
02:34to see those conditions now.
02:36And I'm sure they'll continue to pick up and maybe even deteriorate over the next couple of hours.
02:42Allie, in the past hour, have you seen people really hunkering down and staying away from things, or have you
02:47seen people trying to get out and see things?
02:50Absolutely. I mean, what was interesting is yesterday, we were like, okay, kind of like business as usual here.
02:56And a lot of times, of course, they always say, okay, well, we've experienced this in the past, and this
03:02is nothing new to us, right?
03:04But then you started to see more of the signs late last night into this morning, emergency management saying, get
03:09inside.
03:10And we started to notice a really quick change earlier this morning, and people were starting to heed the advice
03:17of people in this area.
03:19Certainly, we have not seen anyone out or really near the water at this point.
03:25It's been rather quiet, and I think that's a pretty significant sign that people are listening to the warning signs,
03:32not only here on AccuWeather, but of course, from emergency officials as well.
03:36All right, good to hear that people are taking it seriously.
03:38Allie, we'll keep checking back with you later in the evening.
