to be soon. thank you. this morning, we are getting a look at the path and destruction irma has left behind in the caribbean. it is the strongest on record to hit the islands of turks and caicos. people are beginning to take stock of the damage overnight. this is a video from a man. he and his family survived the storm, which hammered the island with 150-mile-an-hour winds overnight. he is joining me now by phone. desmond, can you hear me? caller: yes, ma am, i m hearing you. thank you so much. we see your video of what you woke up to today. what was it like overnight? caller: trust me, i was a bit scared. i have to stay strong for my family. this is the first time in my life i witnessed anything like this. yeah. you lived in turks and caicos for nine years they were telling me. how does this compare to any storm you have lived through since you have lived there?
the bahamas and cuba coastline. still category this 4 for a good part of the day but a restrengthening is possible to 5 and a high 4 is possible. when you see the 4 above the b and the a in cuba, if it interacts with the island in myny way, it could help to weaken that storm, but it s not expected to. here s the big track. now watch this. 2:00 a.m. sunday, 150-mile-an-hour winds right in the northern part of the florida keys as the eyewall hits there. then moves straight up through the center of florida. all the way into north florida by about monday at 2:00 a.m., it s toward bonita beach, daytona beach, actually so, we re talk about 12-hour period of time with hurricane-force winds in the southern part of florida. this is new and a lot of people are paying attention to, this watch that storm go up toward nashville and tennessee toward central tennessee a little east of nashville is where they have the center of circulation.
it s kay yotic, it s difficult, but it may be the difference in being safe and not being safe. obviously they re all heading north. florida s governor shutting down offices, schools, colleges, even some hospitals have been closed. miami is a storm-savvy place. much of the construction is newer and built to storm specs, but 150-mile-an-hour winds are no joke. 20 feet or more of storm surge is no joke. it can easily overwhelm the best defenses, alisyn. that is the message. if you can get out, do it. chris, ten people have already been killed by hurricane irma. that number is expected to rise as it hits more populated areas. the storm is hammering turks and caicos. here is video taken overnight. the wind you can see, the torrential rain has caused widespread destruction. now the bahamas and cuba are bracing for the worst. they are next in line to be hit by irma. the red cross says the storm has already battered 1.2 million people, but 26 million more are
was a 5 for about 16 hours. was a 4 when it made landfall. the size of that storm, 180 miles wide, and the destruction was complete to homestead, and the tip of florida. now look at this. this is irma. category 5. longest running category 5 in hurricane history. anywhere in the world there has been no tropical cyclone that has been stronger longer than irma. size, 370 miles across. the state of florida is just 140 miles across. at just about its widest point. now, craig, you can t compare these two storms. and even though the categories may be similar, the storms are not. their destruction will not be. when we start talking about 150-mile-an-hour winds, sam, what s the practical effect of winds like that? all right. if you ve seen images from what happened with andrew, and you can level buildings with that,
house briefing any moment now on the federal response. we re told that s going to happen roughly 30 minutes from now. when it does, we will go there. but we start with sam champion, msnbc weather contributor in miami beach, monitoring irma s path of wrath, if you will. sam, what are you seeing now? what can we expect over the next 12 to 24 hours? hey, craig. everything is on track for the models that we have seen. and the forecasts that we have had for the past few days. now remember, we use two models and they re both in agreement this is a florida storm that will strike the tip of florida as a category 4. now, let s show you exactly where this storm is right now. look at the eye of this storm, and definitely in that satellite picture you can see it just south of the bahamas, north of cuba. we have a category 4, 150-mile-an-hour winds. but that should not make anyone feel better. remember, a category 5 is just 156 miles per hour. so got a very strong storm. here s the short track on