Transcripts For KGO This Week With George Stephanopoulos 20170910

Hurricane ever. Massive size. At least 24 hours of danger ahead. Right now Hurricane Irma officially a category 4 with winds clocking in at more than 130 miles an hour. That is the scene in miami. Where a construction crane was blown down by the storm. And those winds not the only danger. Already we have seen tornados reported across florida. That danger will continue throughout the day. The eye wall has passed over the florida keys now leaving dangerous flooding in its wake. You see that right there and irma approaching the mainland with the entire west coast facing deadly walls of water. Naples first in line, then ft. Myers. 10 to 15 foot storm surge possible there and tonight tampa and st. Petersburg. They are as vulnerable to storm surges and will feel irmas full force. Our Abc News Team is deployed across the storm zone and right with me is ginger zee. We just saw the flooding in the keys and the storm has move passed. More storm surge to come. Remember it rotates counterclockwise and youll get a backside that will push more water and theyll see more flooding. Finally we are seeing that northerly turn george. Due north at 9 Miles Per Hour moving toward the southwest florida area. The everglades taking the brunt of everything now. Thankfully nobody living there as far as the storm surge goes. Lets stop there. There is a chance then because the everglades no one living there, it could absorb the strength of the storm. Absolutely. That is a great turn to have any of that energy get sucked into the everglades but it will make its way to where people live. Thats why naples to ft. Myers, this afternoon through tonight, we have it at sunday 8 00 p. M. Still 128 per hour winds with it. And as the category 3 moves north, that bend of florida, moving into georgia, alabama as a Tropical Storm, low pressure system. We have talked about storm surge. Thats a huge concern and where you start to lose property and of course the potential for life because that water, 10 to 15 feet of it can move cars. It can move buildings. Thats why a place like cape coral where we have the storm coming into this afternoon and evening, those places would concern me most. Miami already has a 5. 2 foot storm surge. Gusts there at 82 miles. The storm surge the big, big concern and we have seen the tornados. And the wind field is giant across the entire state. Miami beach has seen that damage. Theyre going to see more. 83 mile per hour wind and going up to 90 by the time we reach this evening. This is a 12hour long period with a potential of hurricane gusts as far as west palm beach. It was 125 in naples and 78 in orlando. We want to go to the keys with the Monroe County administrator on the phone with us. Thank you for joining us. Right now what are you seeing . Do you have a sense of how great the destruction was . Not quite yet, no. Were still getting pretty strong bands. We wont get out until its safe. Well wait a while longer. Were getting some reports here and there and its what we expect. This is a big powerful storm thats causing havoc down here. Were showing pictures of flooding. Lots of flooding . Yeah. We have video from the marathon high school. It looked like all the cars it looked pretty bad. When do you expect youll get out and inspect the damage . Hopefully this afternoon. A bunch of First Responders, theyre so enthusiastic, they cant wait to get out, champing at the bit to get out. We want to make sure theyre safe. Again, it depends on the weather. You have a few more hours to go but you had a lot of warning on this one as well. It seems like that most of the residents in the keys heeded those warnings and got out . Yes. It does. I drove up from key west yesterday and drove down on friday night when it was evident that we were going to see a hit from the lower keys and i think that last minute was a good push from folks leaving. There was a steady flow of cars leaving friday night and yesterday morning going north. Any way to know when people can come back . No. No. Because heres what happens. We have 120 miles connected by 42 bridges. Immediately after the winds subside were going to clear the streets with heavy equipment and then the department of transportation, Florida Department of transportation has to inspect every bridge and theyll do a flyover first thing to see if theres actual damage they can see from the sky. Hopefully tomorrow morning. And then theyre going to get their engineers to get down there and look at the bridges. So you can imagine 42 bridges. Its going to take a while. If there is some damage, theyll repair the bridges which would take a while. Folks have to be patient. We want to make sure everybody is safe. It is a long road ahead. Thanks very much. Want to move to miami where the winds are still whipping right now. Gio benitez is there all morning long. Youre tied in there. Tell us what you see and what you hear right now. Reporter george, ginger was talking about the storm surge. Come with me. Look at that. We are seeing the streets of miami turn into rivers. You see all that water right there. If we take the camera, can we zoom in over there louis. Look at that water already in the streets here. Lets look at this. Oh, my gosh. There we go. So we have got a light that just flipped off there. These are by far the most intense winds that we have seen so far. We are hearing lots of popping sounds right now all around us. We dont know whats happening with those windows up there in that skyscraper. I dont know if you can see them but they have been popping open it seems. So we dont know whats going on there. But these areas are a possible danger because were talking about projectiles that could be flying through. So i think george at this point were going to go inside. I think its too dangerous right now. Yeah. Get inside gio. We want to go to amy also in miami. We see how dangerous that situation is. Amy there have also been tornados this morning and police cant get out. Reporter thats right. Police sent out a tweet to everyone in Miamidade County saying stay indoors. We cannot come help you. If you are in trouble. So that is important advice and everyone in this area should know that we all need to be hunkering down. Were in a safe position because i have a concrete wall on either side of me and above me. So im able to show you whats going on behind me. We are seeing significant flooding now on the streets. They have turned into rivers and with the wind its like watching waves going across here. The winds are very powerful. Gusts over 80 Miles Per Hour and we too have been seeing flying debris in the form of palms and metal off of buildings and signs flying across the streets. Tree branches coming down, trees falling on to power lines. I have power lines in the water. We saw it, it sparked. So many Dangerous Things around here in miami at this hour and were expected to continue to be in these types of conditions for another couple hours. You have been out there since before 6 00. This seems as bad as its got . Reporter im sorry . You have been out there since before 6 00. This seems worse than anything you saw before in the earlier hours . Yes. Yes. Its been progressively getting worse every 30 minutes. But this last hour has been a significant uptick in the wind speeds and just the howling and the noise and what were seeing flying through the air. This is as bad as its been all morning. Miami not taking a direct hit. The storm moved to the west. David muir moved to the west as well in naples. David, what we saw in miami, a taste of what youre going to get in naples . Reporter youre right. When you see the streets starting to flood from gio and amy, thats with a 3 to 5 foot storm surge at least at this point. Its a very dangerous situation there. It gives you an idea of why theyre so concerned here in naples. I talked to the mayor and he told us if the 10 to 15 foot storm surge prediction for nape ls as this hurricane moves up the southwest coast of florida. The temperature of the water, the water off the coast is 86, 87 degrees. Thats why the storm is being fueled as it comes up the coast. Question whether or not it makes landfall the naples area or further north, whats not up for debate, we are all in these cities are on the wrong side of this hurricane as they call it, the dirty side, the most powerful once the winds get whipping. The latest forecast show the winds at 100 Miles Per Hour for a period of time with gusts up to 125 Miles Per Hour or more. You saw the extreme warnings for the keys. Im hearing a loud something dropping here. Youre seeing it everywhere. Signs and trees coming down. They put out the warning from the National Weather service this morning. An indication they wanted people to be prepared for tornadolike damage. Well be watching for any signals when that happens, too. This is actually as calm as its been in the last 20 minutes. We are starting to feel the bands. As you know, the time frame is anywhere between 2 00 straight through 8 00 tonight. Its about six hours straight of horrific conditions. That is just a false comfort, that lull right now. A lot of heavy wind still to come. We want to go to matt gutman in naples. Matt youre on the ground . Reporter thats right. They were basically downtown naples. The heart of this town. Mostly of southwest florida as well. It has been whipping through here, rain and wind for the past half an hour. So it is much calmer now. But this is just the first gentle nudge of what Hurricane Irma is going to deliver here. The concerns are the palm trees. Theyre ripping down palms, coconuts are falling down. Its a slightly dangerous situation which is why were going to head to shelter. I want to give you a sense of how evacuated. Plenty of people are still here. And the concern obviously is that storm surge everybody has mentioned. Im going to hop over to give you a sense of what is going on here. Storm surge is going to be about 15 feet. We are at ground level there about 3 feet and folks have erected these steel plates here. They have battened down the hatches, bolted to the walls but thats not going to do anything wun once the water comes up. It will reach the awning blowing through every store in this area here. The damage forecast is going to be extremely extensive george. Naples could get harder than any other city in florida. Thank you matt gutman. Tom llamas in ft. Myers. Tom. Reporter right now were in the direct wind path of Hurricane Irma. Were looking basically west in ft. Myers. You can see the wind line through those palm trees. You see how theyre moving. Were just getting to know irma right now. Probable storm forced gusts and what its doing to the water here. This is the yacht place with sail boats and other types of vessels for the sea. So far not too bad. Theyre rocking a little bit but when you hear the water coming in [ inaudible ] you hear a lot about storm surge. Same thing will happen in ft. Myers. It will push right well be out of here by then. We can see it inch by inch. [ inaudible ] they are dealing with Power Outages and thats a big issue right now because a lot of times with the hurricanes theres a lot of destruction, a storm surge but weeks without power and sometimes thats worse for a majority of the people. And about a Million People in florida without power. We want to go to st. Petersburg which is expected to get hit hard. These are cities that are incredibly vulnerable. Eva pilgrim. Good morning. Reporter good morning, george. They have enacted a curfew here in st. Petersburg that is to start at 5 00 tonight and will last throughout the duration of the storm. The Police Department here and the Emergency Responders saying if you go out after 40 mile per hour winds arrive here in this area there will not be someone to help you. You can see people walking by here. There are people who are staying here. A lot have started to leave buff not everyone has left at this point. Just a short time ago we saw one of the guys who manages this property going by with a bull horn telling everybody they are going to turn off the power here at noon. Trying to encourage people to get out of this area. Concerned because this area very well could be in a lot of harms way with the water, storm surge, crazy hurricane forced winds. One of the things we have seen, when you drive down the streets in st. Petersburg, not all the windows are boarded up like what you have seen in south florida. They had a lot of time to prepare. This storm shifted gears about 24 hours ago and that has kicked people into high gear as far as deciding if they wanted to stay. Shoring up their properties if they are leaving or if they are staying and in general preparing for a bigger brunt of this storm. George. We sure hope all the people get out. Okay. Eva, thanks. The two senators from florida, bill nelson and marco rubio standing by. Well be right back with them. Announcer this week with George Stephanopoulos brought to you by massmutual. We come into this world needing others. Then we are told its braver to go it alone. That independence is the way to accomplish. But there is another way to live. A way that sees the only path to fulfillment is through others. That our time here can be deep beyond measure. No one who chose interdependence ever found despair. 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I just measured how far away the center of irma is from miami. Its about 90 miles. Its far south and west and now it is moving due north. Anywhere between miami, Fort Lauderdale, boca, west palm, cape coral and ft. Myers youll see the outer band bring extreme winds like 94 mile per hour far away from where the lightning packed eye wall is going to bring the heftiest. Thats whats so unique about the storm, it is both big and intense. And you dont always get that. Andrew was so compact and affected homestead and when you went outside of that wind field it was much weaker. This is not the case with this storm. This wind field is very large, 160 miles across. It is taking over the peninsula of florida. Theres nothing out there that can significantly break it up. The only thing is florida itself and thats whats going to do the damage to it. The friction of the land of florida. As this moves due north, you can see the eye moving,ts where you get naples and the low pressure system. This is what harvey didnt have. Somebody to grab it and kick it out. This is moving much more quickly than harvey did. Lets go to rob marciano in sarasota up the coast. Likely to get hit later this afternoon but you see the wind kicking up there, rob. Reporter yeah, george. We keep getting these squalls and the outer bands and another 8 to 10 hours before the brunt of this storm gets here and were feeling certainly Tropical Storm force gusts blowing in my face. At the moment blowing all this water out. Its actually about three feet below where it normally would be from these reverse storm surge if you will. As it gets closer and rides up the coast, the winds will change and the water will be piling up here as ginger has been describing. And this area is under evacuation and retreating as the storm gets closer. They will be shutting down more bridges that connect the communities and the First Responders will be shelters in place later on when winds get sustained at and over tropical force. They still have shelters open right now and theyre expressing if you have to get to one, do so now in the next two hours because after that its far too dangerous as irma gets a little closer to us. Now a bit of a breather but obviously touch and go and things will only get worse as we get into the afternoon and evening. Rob marciano, thanks. Were joined on the phone by senator marco rubio. Senator, thank you for joining us. Thank you. I know you lived in miami most your life. Your city getting hit quite hard right now. Im sitting here at home looking at i have storm category windows. Were about i guess a mile and a half from the airport. I can attest theres been a significant uptick in the wind. The two things im thinking about, the first is the water damage. Once the eye passes, thats where you see the surge situation. Not so much where i live but out east towards the water. Its nasty in miami and southeast florida. Were not getting hit by the eye. It should serve as a cautionary tale to people, you know, its bad here and you guys are getting the direct hit. Thats why i think its really important to the extent people still can and its safe to do so, they really need to move away from storm surge and certainly into a secure location. It seems so tough in miami. Naples will get hit very, very hard and tampa could face the worse situation of all. Thats been the worst Case Scenario because of the topography, the water and the bay. Sort of strong storm from the south pushing the wall of water into the bay. Heavily populated. A lot hof important infrastructure in the region and if you look at the storm surge projections for naples and ft. Myers, theyre horrifying. There should not be a single human being in that area at this point, in the storm surge areas because were talking 8 to 10 feet projection. Thats near certain death. Senator, it seemed like state and local officials and all of you in florida did everything you could to get people out of harms way, to order the evacuations, to prepare as well as you could. But the challenges coming out of this storm are long term. Well, a couple points. Number one, the evacuations. You were evacuating multiple places. Wasnt clear where to evacuate people to. Unlike other storms that target a specific city like andrew did across miami and out into the gulf. This storm was projected to come up the center of the state. There was nowhere in the state that you felt safe in terms of sending people to knowing what was going to happen. The second is these are multiple communities being impacted starting in the florida key, southeast florida, naples, ft. Myers, sarasota, tampa, st. Petersburg, large areas with lots of people impacted and thats not counting some Significant Impact from the storm surge on the southeast coast. I think the volume of the storm, the number of places its hitting, people being impacted is going to be a challenge in terms of overwhelming in the short term system just because of volume. The amount of people and property that needs to be rebuilt. It does seem unlike anything florida has seen before. I dont think anyone has ever seen it anywhere. Youre talking about multiple major metropolitan areas impacted. And the Third Largest state in the country. Im not sure theres a precedent for it. Certainly there hasnt been in my final growing up in florida. We have had bad storms but never something this big, this dangerous in these many places. I know youre in the middle right now. Stay safe. Well be right back. I dont want to lie down. I refuse to lie down. Why suffer . 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In just the last couple of minutes tornado is the new fear. Four tornado watches just popped up including satellite beach, melbourne and one east of tampa. This is as the eye is still almost 100 miles south of tampa. You see how far reaching those extreme lands and tornado threat goes. If youre in jacksonville and orlando and saying not quite yet, its here. This storm has taken over the southern half of florida and moving north. How do you get tornados . When the circulation comes on to land it kicks up spin and can help the thunderstorms do that easily. A lot of times it will be far away from the center because all you need is the two things interacting. Ginger zee thanks. We want to go to tampa, t. J. Holmes has be there all morning long. We heard senator marco rubio say this is the worst Case Scenario for tamp po. Reporter its that scenario but what do you do . Everybody wants to come live, right . And you continue to build and develop. We wouldnt have a disaster here if so many people didnt live here and didnt build here. But thats not the case. Yes, you cant do anything about the topography. All you can do is protect life and property. Again, they have had population spikes over the past several years. We have 700 miles of beautiful coastline. Those beautiful white sand beaches we love to come to. But it puts people at risk. We have a steady rain on us. We dont have any strong winds like rob marciano was talking about but he was speaking about the reverse surge and let me show this to you. We can see across the way. This dumps out into the bay in the distance under the bridges. If you look at the wall there, this water was up at the yellow and the white that you see at the top there. That was just a few hours ago. That reverse surge is real. This water being pulled out essentially into the bay and it is going to come rushing back. Were several, several hours we were supposed to be getting hit hard here. Thats eight hours possibly and were seeing that. The message here from the emergency officials is no longer get out, theyre moving towards stay put. In the next 30 minutes there should be nobody on the road. By noon you should be where youre going to be and you need to hunker down. The same message were hearing in several cities, emergency officials have discretion, when its 40 to 50 mile an hour winds whether or not theyll help you if you need it. Once it hits 50 miles an hour sustained winds, they are told we will not go out period, point blank and you are going to be on your own. George, one other thing to give you an idea of whats happening here in tampa and how they have never seen anything like this, again, category 3 storm last time one hit here was in 1921. Mayor took quoting mike tyson in saying everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face, well were about to get punched in the face and we will see what type of plan that tampa has because this is the worst Case Scenario for this bay area. T. J. Thanks. The mayor is joining us by phone. Thanks very much. You said it yourself, you have put all the plans in place. The big question is can it survive the storm . George, i never thought i would be quoting mike tyson but i think its appropriate. We work all year round to prepare for this even though we have taken a direct hit since over 90 years. We train hard. We practice hard. We practice during the week as if it were game day. I think were ready but obviously until you get into this situation youre never going to know. Im sure well find glitches, im sure therell be things we can do better but right now i got hundreds of people ready to go help their fellow citizens. Were tampa strong george. Tampa strong after it passes through but you have a warning out there right now, once the winds top 40 miles an hour your police, First Responders will not go in those streets . We will not. I will not put those men and women at risk. Folks, if theyre in a situation they need to find shelter because we cannot come and get you if the winds are sustained at 40 Miles Per Hour. Its just not going to happen. Well come and get you as soon as the winds die down but in that period of time ive got to keep my officers and firefighters safe. So you have got the concern of wind. You have got the concern of downed trees and power lines the concern of storm surge. Its all going to pass through several hours from now and a big job in the wake of all that. It is indeed. It is the biggest thing we have ever faced. This is not a situation that anybody would want to have to experience. But i think it will take the measure of this community. These are good people who are going to look after each other, rise to the occasion. They are going to survive. Were going to be okay. But we are going to get our glimpse of what the rath of Mother Nature looks like in a few hours. Mayor buckhorn good luck with all that. Thanks for joining us this morning. Want to go to the red cross right now. Jim is in miami with the red cross. Jim, give us a sense of the numbers of people across the state that the red cross is sheltering. George, last night we had 127,000 people in combined shelters. Those are red cross and municipality shelters and 480 total shelters are open. And are those shelters do you have everything you need, the volunteers you need, the supplies you need . Yeah. I was in a number of them yesterday and one was a pet friendly shelter. The people seemed positive. Confident. Were taking very good care of them right now. You guys are coming out of harvey so much work done by the red cross. And the need was so great across houston. Any Lessons Learned that youre applying in florida . Well, you know, we have done such a great job i think in the county and state and the local municipalities together. We have coordinated our efforts. No one group can do it alone. When you Work Together great things can happen and thats been the case here in florida. What are your greatest needs . A lot of people at home, we learned this during Hurricane Harvey, looking at this, their hearts go out to everybody and theyre thinking about ways they can help. Whats the best way . George, this brings out the absolute best in our people. But the best way to help right now would be to make a financial contribution to the American Red Cross and its really easy to do. Go online to redcross. Org. Ss. Or. Or text the number irma to for an automatic 10 contribution. The red cross doing great work both in texas and florida. Well be right back. 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That is the scene in miami, florida right now. You see the palm trees whipping 100 mile an hour winds right now in miami. Thats not the worst of it in the state. More than a million without power in florida as irma continues to move up the coast. Want to talk to peter brown, a commander with the u. S. Coast guard. Commander brown, thank you for joining us. You are in orlando but staging a response for the entire region. Thats correct, george. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain how the entire coast guard not just my command in the 7th district is preparing for the storm. My command is normally located in miami but over the past few days we relocated our people and assets out of the storms path, out of miami and the keys and tampa, st. Pete area. And along with the rest of the coast guard we repositioned those assets outside of the storms path in places in alabama, georgia, South Carolina and north carolina. Helicopters, boats, coast guard cutters and people across the country ready to respond to our top priority, saving lives and reopening the ports of south florida. Right now youre prepared to deploy across the region. You have already had to work on the situation in puerto rico and south. Thats right. My district is also responsible for coast guard operations in puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands and those response operation have been going on for several days. We have been able to reopen the ports in san juan and several others and working to get the ports in st. Thomas and st. John open again. We have allowed ferry traffic to resume, a critical way to get Emergency Responders into those islands. And what a challenge to respond to harvey and now irma. Well, many of the same assets and people who responded to harvey have now repositioned to be ready to respond to Hurricane Irma. Although the storms are different and their threats are a bit different well take the Lessons Learned from our recent experience with Hurricane Harvey and apply it to responding to Hurricane Irma. Commander, do you have any sense of when youll be able to start with the rescue Recovery Efforts down south in key west and later miami . Thats a particular challenge for this storm. The size, the intensity and the track of Hurricane Irma threaten the entire state of florida and so our assets are primarily positioned out of the state now and well have to fly them, drive them the whole length of the state of florida to get to the keys. So our response wont be as fast as we would like but it remains my top priority. We also need to get back to our operational bases, our air station in miami, our air station in clearwater and our cutter home ports to return to operations for them. Do you have everything you need . All the Operational Assets of the coast guard are positioned to respond to this and in addition, all of the support aspects of the coast guard, extra people and extra Logistical Support have been made available and coordination with feema and the state of florida have been outstanding. Well be right back. Maria is an incredible mom. When it comes to helping her daughter, shopping for groceries, unclogging the sink, setting updentist appointments and planning birthday parties, nobody does it better. Shes also in a rock band. Look at her shred. But when it comes to mortgages, shes less confident. Fortunately for maria, theres Rocket Mortgage by quicken loans. Its simple, so she can understand the details and be sure shes getting the right mortgage. Apply simply. Understand fully. Mortgage confidently. woman theres a moment of truth. Etes, and now with victoza®, a better moment of proof. 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Flonase sensimist allergy relief uses unique Mistpro Technology and helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Rethink your allergy relief. Flonase sensimist. That is the scene in miami right now. Look at those winds. Thats not even the worst the state is going to face. Well talk more about the fallout and the impact with our chief economic correspondent Rebecca Jarvis and matthew dowd. Also fema administrator from 2009 to 2017. Rebecca we heard senator rubio said florida has never seen anything like this. When a state gets hit so hard, the economic fallout immense. And the human devastation our number one focus but long term this economic consequence is going to be grave. Its going to be massive. If the estimates hold as they stand today, irma will be the most expensive storm in history. Estimated at 200 billion in damage and when you couple that with Hurricane Harvey its a onetwo punch. Hurricane harvey could be the second most costly in history. Those assessments still coming in. That would put both of them more expensive than hurricane katrina. As we have been hearing in the field all day long, this is a highly dense, highly populated area where the storms path is heading. So you have got 8 1 2 Million Properties in the path of this storm. You have millions of people now without power. You have gas outages. This is a kind of thing thats going to take a long time to clean up from. Like the human cost, there is so high. What happens with the economy, youre taking money out of the economy but also rebuilding will pump it back up. Exactly. In general what happens in a hurricane as you have the near term long but the longer term gain but when you look at the storms back to back many believe youre going to wait to see rebound until early next year. Theres been a big boom in a lot of the areas, especially along the west coast of florida, tampa, cape coral, ft. Myers, a huge amount of new building and all is now in the risk. Matt dowd, you were advising the white house during hurricane katrina. George bush pretty Seamless Team work between state workers and the local government. Unfortunately the lessons always learned seem to be in the aftermath of tragedies and people forget after hurricane t katrina, hurricane rita came. Mother nature isnt par san to this. I think the biggest difference is the local leaders, state and local officials that show up in a much different way in a much more forewarned way and have an expectation that the federal government are respond. We saw President Trump emphasizing his support for the site and local leaders. I think if you look at this and President Trump has had difficulty, this is probably the best week of his presidency. Hes shown up, been responsive. Hes been there and come to the table with all the things he needs to do. I think you have to give President Trump a very good grade in the mirdst and how he responded to this. Theres going to be a challenge for the entire political system. No one knows how the government will deal with this. Its going to be exceedingly costly and i think what the president did on the debt ceiling and the funding so far is the direction the American Public wants him to go. Lets bring in craig who ran fema from 2009 to 2017. Over saw the response to Hurricane Matthew and sand day. Do you see the lessons learn from that experience being applied here . Lets talk about the rebuilding. You the taxpayer are going to be paying for this. We need to make sure we dont build it back the way it was. We got to build it better, stronger, more resilient. This is our opportunity to get caught up on older construction and areas that havent seen hurricanes like we saw in miami. We need to insist we build it back stronger. We cannot repeat this every time a storm hits. And as you point out, miami did do that after hurricane andrew in 1992. What does that mean not only for the rest of florida right now but also houston . What kind of Different Things do they need to do . Build higher, build stronger. It isnt that we cant build but too often we are oftentimes were in the debate that it probably wont happen again, its never that bad and we dont build the way we should be building and that puts a human toll for people that have nowhere safe to go, they have to leave their homes. But more importantly we continue to shift this risk to the taxpayers. We need to get ahead of this and build our homes and our communities stronger and more resilient. Were going to put a lot of federal dollars here. Congress needs to insist we dont build it back to the old standards. Seems like theres 24 more hours of danger ahead. Your biggest worry . Well, life threat here all the way across the state, high winds, tornados, flooding and storm surge and as they told you down in tampa, its too late. Get to your safe spot. Stay there. This storm is going to cause a lot of damage over large areas. Dont go out in this storm. Stay home and then immediately after this storm, if youre safe check on your neighbors but dont try to get out and drive around or leave your safe areas. Its very dangerous after the storm. In florida we have seen as many fatalities after the storm from accidents than we have from the storm itself. Getting through the storm is step one. Step two is the immediate aftermath and staying safe. Let the emergency crews get in there and stabilize and remove the hazards before you try to get out. Thanks very much. We want to go to fema he headquarte headquarters. David kerley is there. They have deployed fema across the region. Reporter they have. They have been busy. At this point here at the fee ma Response Center the question is where will they be sending the material. Theyre adjusting their plans. Remember we thought miami was going to get hit hard. Now its looking like tampa st. Pete. But over the last few days trucks of material have been moving south. Staged over the border of florida, georgia, alabama as well. Utility trucks have been coming from the north, south and west and closer to this area. As soon as the storm passes they can move in. Now the state of florida has a lot of material and consumables already on site and ready to go. Fema is the backup. They brought in and prepared more than 10 million liters of water, meals, tarps, everybody standing by. Where is it going to have to go . Which area is the hardest hit . They are watching the storm like the rest of us. And they are coming off Hurricane Harvey as well. Whats moral like there . Its good. They talk about having to pull a lot of people out of houston into this area to try and help in florida as well. They do work shifts. Theyre working 12 on, 12 off. Morale is good. Im not going to say they arent tired george. I bet they are. Thanks very much. Well be right back. It was bad but now there you see the scene in miami. The rain coming down. The roads mostly empty although that car is out there right now. Water now filling the streets. Im back with ginger zee. Again were getting some sense of the magnitude of the rainfall. The magnitude of the rainfall already 7 inches in Fort Lauderdale reported and you can see the outer bands. The hefty lightning too. They bring rain in the one to two inch range per hour. Were going to get lots and lots of rain. Just to give you an idea, we have gotten some of the gutss in, 94 the official at Miami International, 82 for Fort Lauderdale. 120 was recorded in the keys. Those winds did come along with the eye wall that you can see with the lightning attached right there. That now moving north at nine Miles Per Hour closing in quickly on naples. Thats why well see in the next few hours the potential to make landfall between there and cape coral and ft. Myers as it goes up the west coast, it will by tomorrow morning at 8 00 a. M. Been around cedar key and monday 8 00 p. M. Right along the Alabama State line into georgia. Thats what im talking about, the rainfall rates and the rainfall extending as far as north as atlanta. You can see six to even eight inches of rain in those metros. Were talking about a Tropical Storm. Theyll come along with a significant amount of moisture and gusty winds. All across the southeast. Thanks very much ginger. The wind already kicking up in ft. Myers. Tom llamas is there. Reporter george, yeah, the wind just really changed in the last 30 minutes. It started to get so strong. The rain is whipping us in the face. You can see behind me that stop sign. I dont know how much longer its going to last. You can see the wind line perfectly from east to weshere. Were in front of the marina. Lets take a look at the palm trees and you can see perfectly Hurricane Irmas winds are going east to west and blowing that palm tree like that. This is the strongest george that we have felt since i started talking to you at 6 00 this morning. Its just going to get worse and only starting here in ft. Myers. We still have ten hours to go of brutal hurricane winds. Well be out here for every second of it. We want to make sure you stay safe. We want to check in with amy robach in miami. We saw the winds have gotten so strong and the streets starting to fill. Reporter its incredible, george. Yes, the power of the winds just keep getting stronger and stronger and louder. We are hearing things flying. Metal moving. I can hear the sounds of clanking. You mentioned the flooding. It has gotten worse in the past hour. Things like parking lots, roadways are completely under water right now as the rain whips along with these winds and then the winds come up and pull off of the water and throw more water in the air. Its dramatic right now. This is the worst its been throughout the morning and seems like its getting worse and we have the bands unrelenting. We used to have moments where it died down now were in ferocious winds the entire time. No break. We still see some people walking out which is absolutely it is no condition for people to be taking pictures or take in the view of this or to say oh, wow i want to feel this wind, it is strong and powerful and we know it can be deadly, george. Thank you amy. The worst danger yet to come. In the next ten hours, like tom was saying hes feeling it now but will be feeling it for ten hours. This is the first season we have seen two category 4 landfalls, harvey and now irma in the united states. So this is now unprecedented season even though matt was making a great point earlier that you did have katrina, reeta and wilma. Those warnings are up for a reason. Look at the gust expected in naples at 112. Ft. Myers is at 56 and miami still in the 80s. It will be hours and hours of that washer like feeling. 105 in the middle of the state of oak choeb by and 66 orlando and 92 tampa. The flood watches extend all the way to north georgia. The extent and expansion of this storm does not stop at the peninsula of florida, southwest, South Carolina and also eastern alabama in there. The region is so big, the region of destruction. A lot of times we talk about storms being a massive storm and i often say hold on guys, lets hold on, its relatively small. This is massive in size and in intensity. Those things do not always come together but in irmas case it does. Which is why well stay on this all day long. Well take a minute break right now and then come back and expecting to hear from the governor of Florida Press conference in just a minute. You can follow the breaking news with our abc news app and well have continuing coverage all day long. A special edition of world news tonight with david muir and a special on this hurricane. So much destructive force. Abc news will be with you every step of the way. Test. This is an abc news special report. Hurricane irma. Now reporting, George Stephanopoulos. Good day. That Hurricane Irma is big. It is strong. It is deadly. The storm has reduced much of the caribbean to rubble and claimed at least three lives in florida. Its the most serious threat in a generation. Abc news has been with you all morning and will be with you all day long on its devastating impact. We want to take a live look at the storm right now. The hurricane is bringing whipping rains across south florida, sending a crane toppling onto a building in miami. And it caused a