meteorologist bill karins with the check on the storm s latest track, bill? just got the new 8:00 advisory in from the hurricane center. down to 150-miles-per-hour winds. now the center s only 15 miles from san juan, puerto rico. that s the population center of puerto rico. 2.5 million people just to the north and that northern eye wall is now over-the-top of them. we don t have radar to show you because the radar went down in san juan. we do have super-san juan, puerto rico, gabe gutierrez. the situation here in san juan is dire. the winds here have been intensifying and the worst is yet to come. we have taken shelter in a concrete structure. there s a wall blocking me, blocking the wind to our right. as you can see behind me, there s a scene of utter chaos. authorities here have been warning people for days that if they live in wooden structures or flood prone areas that they needed to evacuate or die. well the time for that has
hurricane center. we re still category 4, 150-miles-per-hour winds, moving to the northwest at 10-miles-per-hour. here s imagery. there s the eye. this the worst case scenario, cat 4, northern eye wall right over the most populated areas of puerto rico by about 2:00 p.m. today we take it off the northern coast of puerto rico so by late this afternoon, the winds will relax. we ll have a couple hours during the late afternoon to for the officials to assess just how bad it is out there and the concerns are with the winds and we already had the storm surge on the southeast coastline and we still have to deal with the flooding rains. there are mountains on puerto rico. we have flash flood emergencies for rivers that have risen 20 feet. the water kills more people than the wind. so there s the surge as far as the rainfall flooding goes, even though you re not getting the worst of the winds, western
category 5, 150-miles-per-hour winds, 20-foot waves on north side not from havana obviously as it bears down on us here and the real concern for the safety obviously of those that stayed behind in miami is also the power outages, reports now from florida power&light, fpl, you will hear a lot about them in the coming days. they say upwards of 9 million people in this area could be without power for days if not weeks, part of the reason why that s going to happen is because so much of the power grid is on pulse and if we had those winds like cuba is getting lashed with right now, it will cause catastrophic damage and may even be difficult for the fpl crews to get out and into obviously the concern now we have power, you see the lights, we ve even seen some of police and fire trucks and emergency services still doing things but that s going to shut down as we
think we re starting to get those tropical storm-force winds and michael is starting to get a little bit stronger winds but we re going to wait and see and we are in also ourselves in an area where this hotel that we re in is fortified, windows can take up to 150-miles-per-hour winds, and it is concrete so it s solid. but the hotels along the coast have told people for the most part, you have to evacuate. we ve been in a couple different hotels and they have told all of their guests, we are sorry but we re making this decision for your own safety, you must evacuate, however they re letting some of the the media stay in those that are fortified, and florida power and light expected to be here because they re the first ones out the door. there are about 200,000 people who have no power and they want to restore that as soon as they can, as soon as the wind and rain starts to die down so folks aren t sitting here.