hour is expected to grow even stronger into a category 4 by this time tomorrow. already, irene is causing damage in the caribbean. phil keating is live in nassau in the bahamas where the situation was windy last hour and looks a lot worse now. definitely worse now. these battering winds getting more and more ferocious and now at least we have daylight here and you can really see the wave action behind me. the storm surge is truly the biggest threat for the bahamas out of this hurricane. remaining a category 3. 115-mile-an-hour winds but these waves are anticipated to surge, to really grow from 7 to 11 feet higher which is more than a lot of the 700 islands that make up the bahamas, the flooding has already reported in the southeast, the bahama islands from last night, as irene landed first at the bahamas on an all day long event today, going to
before we wrap up this hour, the latest on hurricane irene is now a category 3 storm packing 115-mile-an-hour winds and it is now pounding the bahamas. irene is expected to head straight up the east coast and almost parallel to the i-95 corridor. it is expected to lose some steam as it moves north in colder waters dropping to a cat 1. the colleagues at the weather channel predict that irene will hit north carolina s outer banks late friday night, and philadelphia late saturday evening and new york city sunday morning and boston sunday afternoon and portland, maine, sunday evening. we are going to join our colleague who is there at the bahamas at a shelter while she was there on vacation ride ought the storm, essa.
fine. then after north carolina, irene could hit new york and new england late this weekend. keep watching for latest turns in the hurricane s track. right now, a firefight is under way outside a cluster of buildings in tripoli. libyan rebels believe they have moammar gadhafi pinned down. they believe he is hiding in apartments in his compound. rebels have put $1.5 million bounty on gadhafi. he is wanted by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes. moammar gadhafi s son, wants a cease-fire to stop the bloodshed in tripoli. saadi contacted nic robertson by e-mail. reporter: he said he wants to negotiate a cease-fire. he doesn t want it to be syria. he wants help in the negotiations. he says he has reached out to washington and reached out to nato. he wants help in doing this. rebels claim they captured three of gadhafi s sons this week, including saadi. but saadi s status is not clear. the number of americans filing first time jobless claims is up agai
up the east coast all the way to canada. this is a huge storm, folks. just check out the view from the international space station. we re all over irene, where it is, where it s going. we ve got jim spellman riding out the storm in the bahamas. john zarrella is in wrightsville beach, north carolina, and jacqui jeras here in the hurricane headquarters. jim, let s start with you. what s the situation there? reporter: good morning. the winds have been blowing like this for hours now. about an hour and a half ago they really picked up a lot. you can see the sea is being blown over the sea walls here, a lot of the low-lying roads along the coastal areas already have water on them. fortunately so far we have yet to see any major damage to structures. reports coming in just within the last hour of widespread power outages across the island, as you may expect, as lines get blown down. so far they have avoided that main blast. just about all of the tourists in the area that could ge
thing. cnn newsroom continues right now with randi kaye. hi there, suzanne. thank you. well, three major stories on the radar this hour. starting with a major hurricane. category 3 irene batters the bahamas and eyes the carolinas. chad myers is watching that. a hostage ordeal is over in tripoli, but the fighting goes on, and moammar gadhafi still out of sight. and washington surveys the damage from the earthquake that shook the east coast almost 24 hours ago. i want to start with a huge and still growing hurricane irene. chad myers is watching it all for us. what s it doing now, chad? and exactly where might it be headed? well, it s headed to the bahamas. and right now, if you want to get a map, it s right over crooked island in the bahamas. and later on it ll be going over long island at the bahamas. the irony is that there s the potential, at least in the cone that in four days it could go over long island, new york. right now at 115 miles per hour forecast to get