Shhhhh....you're messing up the conspiracy theories!

It has nothing to do with the amount of devastation anywhere...you live on the coast, you take your chances with that.

My comment has to do with media people, like TWC, over-hyping these things like Chicken Little running around screaming that the sky is falling. When you're on TV, you're ratings-driven, and when you're ratings driven, you have to hype even the lesser stuff. The damage I see on TV right now is some flooding, and some wind damage commensurate with a cat 1 or 2 storm...trust me, what they're showing right now isn't anything close to cat 4 damage. A bunch of people in PC are in contact with people elsewhere, and are posting pics and videos to show that it wasn't as bad as the hype suggested. So, the media got the ratings from hyping this one up, just like they did when they hyped the wind damage from Harvey...on the one hand, maybe the hype is necessary to make people listen about the potential dangers, but on the other hand, eventually that doesn't work, either. Quote from 2 different people I've been in contact with in Panama City this morning, that don't know each other... "...we don't pay any attention to TWC anymore, they're always full of sh!t."

Hope they closed I-10, cause the storm is getting close to crossing it now. Anyone driving there is gonna be trouble.

I agree that TWC will play it up to get more viewers and it kinda pisses me off because some people spend what little they have to evacuate based off "reports". I guess we will see after this is over if the damage is cat 4 damage or cat 1.

I'm sure Mexico Beach will look like Cat4 damage. We will probably be seeing the early reports within the next hour or so as the EMA folks can start assessing the area.

You Tube has a couple vid out of Mexico Beach posted in last few minutes. Not good!

Lots of people are starting to lose power around dothan

That wasn't even near him. What a puss.

Yup. Now it looks like Dothan is going to get Hurricane conditions within the next hour so. Ya'll hunker down over there.

What's left of it is completely under water

Twitter Video - can't embed

The Weather Channel doesn't categorize the hurricanes.

I've heard, alot of times they start cutting power before the storm gets their. Because it doesn't do as much damage.

As predicted, the Flood Advisory's/Warnings are starting to pop up all over SE Alabama. My rain guage is reading 3.4" here in Luverne.

Dothan is going to get a lot of damage.

Y'all obviously didn't play football back in the day. No sissy facemasks...

We have just pulled crews until all passes.
There are several trees down and outages.
We will be out when conditions are safe and will be here until power is back on.

Starting to see trees down across the city.

Also there are videos of Mexico beach on Facebook that looks pretty significant flooding!

I’m gonna say it because I don’t give a rip what you think about me—-but you need to shut up and save what little respect some people might have for you on here. There’s been significant damage and it’s consistent with a Cat 4.

Couple of things here:

— TWC meterologists are geeks about weather, just like almost all meterologists whether it's at Tinytown, Mississippi, or Kansas or Oregon. They get into meterology because they love it and typically have for years. So I get that they want to chase tornadoes or go to hurricanes. I don't begrudge them of their passion.

— TWC started out with good folks and good intent, I think, with people who love what they do delivering weather info and stories about what creates tornadoes or hurricanes or info about things like wind shear and winter features. Back in the early days you could get weather and some good info, a little stupid banter on the set, and that was about it.

And then TWC got purchased by Big Conglomerate.

That means ratings, advertising and "LIVE FROM THE STORM!" reports. Jim Cantore started it and now is a running joke, right? The old "If Cantore shows up, you're in trouble!" is now one of those "Meh, ok" things. And with the ratings, advertising AND increase in technology, the weather folks now have more equipment, radar, things to show on the air and such. So they're going to use them along with "old technology" like the basic anemometer used at airports. INstead of getting wind readings at the airport we now have wind readings going up 4,500 feet or more.

And when those two aren't the same, people say "Eh, liars. Fake news. Go away. Unreliable." It's still reliable. It's not fake. The wind actually may have been 150 mph on outer bands or 25 miles from the eye or 4,500 feet up.

But because people are skeptical and because people are tired of the adrenaline-fueled CantoreWannabes standing in a storm sounding almost excited about a roof being ripped off or flooding in a city, they dismiss them.

I do it, too. It's why I don't watch TWC at lenght during big storms. I might watch to see the report and then turn it away. I'd rather watch local weather, use my common sense, and then make plans accordingly.

I don't dismiss their passion or accuracy, though.

Hope people got out of those houses it won't be good if they didnt