TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — At a Monday morning update on preparations for Hurricane Dorian, Governor DeSantis urged Floridians living in coastal counties to evacuate.
According to DeSantis, the east coast of Florida is still within the cone of uncertainty and will be impacted by the storm in some capacity.
Right now, Hurricane Dorian has stalled out over the Bahamas and is moving north at about only one mile per hour.
The governor said he's spoken with President Trump and that Florida has the full support of the president and FEMA in the coming days.
Because the storm is moving so slowly, local agencies have been able to make preparations several days in advance. DeSantis said Florida Power and Light, which covers most of the counties facing impacts from Dorian, has 17,000 personnel pre-staged and ready to respond after the first bands of severe weather push through.
72 nursing homes and assisted living facilities along the coast that have been evacuated, and some hospitals have started to move patients.
For those evacuating, gas stations along evacuation routes will remain open, although locations in some evacuations zones will start to close soon.
Suspended tolls have also been expanded around Jacksonville to include the I-295 express lane and the First Coast Expressway.
As of the latest update from the National Hurricane Center, Dorian is a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph. A Hurricane Watch and Storm Surge Watch has been issued for parts of the First Coast, from Flagler Volusia line to Brunswick.
DeSantis gave an update on Dorian yesterday from Tallahassee where he warned Floridians to expect Dorian to be stronger than previous years storms.
At the time, Dorian was a Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph sustained winds.
"To put that in perspective that's significantly stronger than Hurricane Andrew which reached landfall at 165 mph. [And] it's significantly stronger than Hurricane Michael which reached landfall at 160 mph," DeSantis said Sunday.