40 miles away from key west. So thats when the devastating and inundation of storm surge comes on in here. So lets take a look at the satellite. You can see that. The eye wall regained and reformed itself here overnight and now waking up to a cat 4 hurricane with the potential of this storm paralleling the west coast of florida for miles. So this is not a good situation here in terms of storm surge. Lets head over to the weather graphics and ill show you the latest coordinates. This number updated in the last half hour. Its 40 miles to the south and east of key west. The National Weather service in key west says between 7 00 and 8 00 a. M. , thats when landfall will occur. Already weve seen conditions in the keys go downhill. Most of the keys, if not all of them, are without power right now. That roar, that really scary almost deafening roar of wind will take place in these outer rain bands. We saw a 94 mile per hour rain gust at smith scholl light. Sustained winds around Hurricane Force now. The conditions are getting only worse. This is time to shelter in place now in the keys. This is the worst of the storm coming up here for the next four to five hours as this eye wall continues to cross to the north and then you get to the back side of the eye wall and the water comes in from the south and west. Remember, the water will be coming in from two directions, in the southeast and from the south and west after the eye passes. Then the storm is on to southwestern florida. And well have to watch for some wobbles. Remember how this storm wobbled into cuba, well have to watch for potential wobbles into the southwestern coast of florida. The problem with that, big population areas from marco islands all the way up to the st. Petersburg area and tampa. Latest wind gusts 66 Miles Per Hour at the National WeatherService Office in key west where they are batoning down the hatches and riding out the storm and doing life saving duties there getting information out to the public. 59mileanhour wind gusts and 70mileanhour as far north as ft. Lauderdale. Even in some of the northern rain bands occasionally gusting 40 to 50 Miles Per Hour and this is near the Georgia State line. This storm very expansive and very dangerous. This is something you dont see often, a hurricane warning that extends from key west all the way up to the georgia Florida Border out west of tallahassee. Almost the entire state of florida on this sunday morning is under a hurricane warning. And we have Tropical Storm watches as far north as atlanta. That means that conditions can be experiencing Tropical Storm force winds greater than 39 Miles Per Hour. Gusty winds. Heavy rain bands as far north as georgia. There is the eye wall moving to the north and to the west. Now we will be experiencing storm surge up and down the coast line of florida. That is the next major concern. High tide cycles later this afternoon and this evening. Chris in. Were going to keep checking back in with you. When do we get the next update from the National Hurricane well get a full path at 11 00 a. M. But they are updating each and every hour. Thank you, steve. Appreciate that. Lets turn to ft. Lauderdale. Thats where msnbc is on the ground. Theres a Tornado Warning in effect in Fort Lauderdale . As a matter of fact, it happened to just expire not too long ago, but what we are experiencing right now, 200 miles away from the keys where steve was just talking about, we are now experiencing the strongest gusts of rain and wind that we have seen so far this evening. This is this morning, rather. This is so strong. As a matter of fact, the Florida Police the fire department, rather, they tweeted about the live wires that were being reported out in the streets saying its a very dangerous situation. We dont know how many people are out in the streets. Nobody should be out because of the mandatory evacuation and the curfew. Nobody should be out, but an added danger out there are the live wires that have been reported out there. Power outages have been the Biggest Issue facing this area this morning. We had 64,000 74,000, check that, in brow wards and in miamidade 164,000 outages. Were talking a quarter million outages in the miami area. Power outages were the biggest problem and now were getting the really strong gusts of rain and wind. Well, obviously the situation there looks terrible. Give us a sense of what the progression has been. Because i know youve been there for a while. Well, we have been getting these bands. We have been getting gusts that were pretty strong. It would be very intermittent. We could go 10, 15 minutes without it really dousing us. Just in the last 10 or 15 minutes, everything, weve became more wet than weve ever been before out here. You can lose your balance from it. The visibility is almost nothing. Youve seen sheets of rain going all sorts of directions. Again, were 200 miles north of where steve was saying it is intensifying out there in key west. That should give you a good idea of the strength and the scope of this thing. You be careful out there, phillip. Thank you so much for that. Where the storm originally they thought might hit the hardest is miami. Thats where mariana atensio, whats going on in miami . Reporter chris, im actually in miami beach, this Barrier Island where conditions have really worsened as this category 4 hurricane barrels towards florida. Check out ocean drive, the iconic collins avenue behind me. You can see just how the trees are moving. It looks Something Like out of a horror movie almost. You can see the signage around me. Making our way around here. Today we saw trees that were down. We even saw one person walking in the streets, and that is the problem here in miami is because people since know its not going to be a direct hit, thats when people start to let their guard down. In this Barrier Island, it is a mandatory Evacuation Order because, again, the deadly storm surge that Governor Scott was talking about, you can get up to 15 feet of storm surge in coastal areas like miami beach when this hurricane comes to florida. Because were talking about a storm thats so wide, youre going to feel it everywhere. Youre seeing that here in miami beach this morning. Chris . Marianna, thank you so much. You can see how windy its gotten. Let me turn to david frehlich, Communications Director of naples, florida. Good to hear from you. This was not supposed to hit from you as hard but that westward shift meant you are directly in irmas path. Are you ready . Good morning. Yes, we are. We are as prepared as we can well, as anyone can prepare for Something Like this, i guess. But i can tell you that oddly enough a couple of weeks ago we had actually had sort of a mini mock simulation of this whole type of thing. Certainly we didnt plan for Something Like this, but all of our teams from the county really worked on a smaller scale of Something Like this and all of our people here are prepared to help if the storm comes through. Do you have a good sense at this point, david, of how many people actually left the city, how many people are in shelters and how many may be hunkering down in dangers way . The first part, unfortunately the storms that went through houston really was a wakeup call for florida, certainly the folks in naples. When all of this started and you could see that it was starting to move a little bit closer, even though we didnt think it was going to get over here, many, many, many people left and that was a great thing for us. And we have 27 shelters, which is an amazing thing, that are open today and a lot of them are filled up. We still have some room. But i can tell you they are not going to turn anybody away. They are going to if they have to squeeze people in, thats what they are doing. This is such a catastrophic storm. They need people to be inside. That is the biggest and most Important Message any of us can send to anybody who is out right now, better get inside. Yeah. We were watching those shelters fill up yesterday in the nearby city of astera. They had 7500 beds in the arena there. Other shelters were said to be filling up fast. Are you hearing directly from the shelters . How are they doing . How are they holding up . Theyre doing pretty well. As a matter of fact, i met last night with the superintendent of schools here, which many of the schools are being used as shelters, and she had personally gone around and seen many of them and it was she said it was an amazing thing how people were actually being very cooperative. I know that sounds a little odd but people were nice and understanding of the whole situation because they know that everybody has to get into this inside and theyre going to make it happen. Has 911 been getting zmauls do you kn calls . Do you know if there are people that couldnt get out, elderly, disabled that you have a concern with . I can tell you obviously 911 has been called. There are certain phone lines that have been set up for this type of thing and weve taken many, many calls, as you said, from the elderly. Not sure what they could do and what they should do, and as far as i can tell you, the majority of them that i know, i cant speak personally for everything, but they have gotten where they needed to be, which is an amazing thing. I also would share with you its not just the older people. I spoke with someone just the other night, she was 21 years old and she has two kids and she was living in a very, very bad situation where the home that she was in is not good conditions. She was just scared. She just needed to talk to somebody, and she got to a shelter. Im very happy about that. So what is your major concern right now . First of all, tell me, david, where are you . Where is the Operations Center for naples . What are you freepd do the minute you get the all clear . Well, theres two actually Operations Centers in the sense that theres Collier County and naples is in Collier County. Collier county has a huge, huge eoc with some of the top people that you could ever want in this situation and then the city of naples actually has just moved, we moved it over yesterday from the Police Department which has the eoc in it, we moved it over to the hyatt hotel because it was a brandnew hotel, got everything, all the equipment that we needed to get up on to a second level floor and that way we can run everything and see everything that we need to do from from that location. At what point well, i assume, maybe thats it, that youre there already, but if people do need help, are you still able to send folks out to help them or are we at the point where whoever is there and decided not to leave their homes, is on their own . What happens is when it starts getting to be Tropical Storm winds, this type of thing that, you know, they have to be careful in sending First Responders out because obviously if its too dangerous for them and something happens to them, then we start losing their personnel to help other people so its sort of a tough situation. Like i said, once it gets into Tropical Storm winds, they cant send anybody else. Its just not safe. David fralick, i know this is a tough time for everyone in and around naples. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all. Were keeping a close eye. Good luck to you. Thank you so much. Hurricane irma, of course, is picking up steam. Its a category 4 storm barrelling its way towards the florida keys. In downtown miami, we saw this a short time ago. Winds are picking up. This is from brickell bay drive. You can see the water flowing into the street. Its only going to get worse there. Thousands of people have filed into more than 400 shelters across florida. Were going to check in with the red cross to see how theyre dealing with the influx of people. Its my first one. I am a little scared but not stressed because weve got to just hope for the best. Whats the most scary is what are we going to go back to . And are we going to be even are we going to be able to even get back to our house . Things can be replaced but your life cannot be replaced. We didnt really want to take any chances because i have children and so we decided then that, you know, before the rush of everybody trying to make a mass exodus, then we would try and get ahead. From here all we can do is cross our fingers and say a prayer. The situation is getting more dangerous all over the state of florida. Joining me now on the phone from orlando is the red cross. Obviously were just a couple of hours away from when irma is expected to hit the keys. Much of florida, certainly the west coast, is going to feel its wrath throughout the day today. What are your priorities right now . Really our priorities were to make sure that these Evacuation Centers were up and ready to receive people. The red cross has mobilized thousands of trained red cross disaster workers. Ive seen that firsthand from here in the orlando staging area where yesterday we had hundreds of volunteers that came in, were assigned to their location and taken over in vans before it got too dangerous for us to move our folks around. Were looking at an estimated 48,000 people that spent the night in our shelters and the ones that are supported with our government Evacuation Centers across florida. More Evacuation Centers are opening as theyre needed. That was one of the pieces that we worked on really diligently yesterday. Were even looking into georgia. So more than 13 Evacuation Centers were open on friday night in georgia and more Evacuation Centers there. And then monitoring in mississippi, louisiana, alabama. Were watching where this storm is going and making sure were in advance of that with our supplies and our volunteers. We couldnt do what we do without them. You have obviously a big chunk of the shelters there, but overall there are about 400 across the state of florida, at least 100,000 people are in them. A couple of things we have heard over the last 48 hours or so and we actually saw it as we saw people in line, there were people that brought supplies with them. It was suggested if you have one of these hurricane emergency kits, bring it. We saw people with pallets of water who had them on some sort of conveyians or people bringing in suitcases loaded up with supplies. There are also, i know, a lot of elderly people that have been moved to the shelters. There was a call for nurses particularly to help some of the older, the infirm, folks that have medical conditions. Do you have everything that you need though for the folks who, a, didnt bring anything with them but the clothes on their back and do you have enough beds . Right. There is a difference. Evacuation centers are intended to provide the immediate attention. Thats going to save their life. No one is being turned away. They may be full but people are being brought into safety out of the storm. The Evacuation Centers wont have the cots and the blankets, but were providing those light snacks, water, making sure that people stay hhydrated. So we are proud of the citizens that have heeded the conversations that weve had. Throughout the years we talk about preparedness and what to do if you were having to evacuate your home. When we see people responding in such a way that they really are prepared to take care of themselves in that manner, then that allows us to focus on the folks who were not able to do that. Nigel holterby, you folks are always doing remarkable work when people are at the most desperate. Its a long road ahead. We appreciate it. Thank you. Were going to continue our nonstop coverage of Hurricane Irma. Right now, still a category 4 storm churning 40 miles south southeast of key west. Hurricane storm winds are being felt. Those refused to leave are being encouraged to shelter in place. Well have a full report after the break for up to the minute updates all morning long. Its 27 past the hour. Im christ jansing live in new york at msnbc headquarters. We are keeping a close watch all day long on Hurricane Irma. A massive cat 4 storm. 130 mile per hour. The storms eye wall is expected to hit between 7 00 and 8 00 a. M. Eastern. Storm surge has already begun to hit the area. Water levels rising two feet above normal. Tampa bay could see five to eight feet of flooding. Florida coast line could see surges reaching up to 15 feet. More than 400 shelters open across the state. More than 280,000 people dont have power right now. That number is expected to rise. In just a few minutes we will get an update from power officials in florida. Lets bring back wnbc meteorologist steve sosa. We were talking about the potential with storm surges have increased. Three items here. Its the size, the intensity and the path and all three of them are really coming together for the worst case scenario. The news not better now with the hurricane being a category 4 overnight. So any weakening trends were temporary. Its now a category 4 storm, not expected to weaken too much over the next couple of hours. Im going to show you what the biggest threat is. Unlike harvey where flooding rains were the biggest threat, this will have flooding rains. Its the innone dajs of seawater. Its called storm surge. While the numbers might not seem too impressive, five to eight feet, these are very impressive. In central and southwestern florida we havent seen a surge like this especially in 100 years especially in the tampa area. 8 to 10 feet from fort myers down to marko island. This is a very heavily populated area. Very vulnerable to storm surge. Im going to take you in and show you how high the water will be above ground level. So above the ground look for this red. Nine feet the water will be above ground. Look how far inland that penetrates. Thats why we were asking people to evacuate, because that water pours into these inlets and these canals, and then with the wind coming in off the water it cant drain back. This water just pours inland. With this low terrain, even inland areas, 6 to 9 feet. You have to go well away from the water to get away from the storm surge threat. Same situation especially on the south side of that breaking news, Hurricane Irma bearing down on florida. Good morning. This is nbc 10 news today. Im rosemary connors. You have been watching msnbcs coverage of the storm. This morning, well continue to follow irmas path as the hurricane creeps closer to landfall in florida. Overnight, it strengthened back to a category 4 storm. Heres what it looks like right now in ft. Myers, florida. You can see the palm trees whipping in the wind. This is what it looks like on the east coast, a live picture from ft. Lauderdale. The winds have been picking up here overnight. Krystal klei is tracking