i want to salute lindsay. senator dick durbin, a pleasure, thank you for being with us. now to the breaking newses, hurricane irma. the strongest storm ever recorded in the atlantic ocean. right now, a category 5 hurricane closing in on the u.s. virgin islands, maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. irma is expected to hit puerto rico later this afternoon, threatening widespread devastation and destruction in that u.s. territory. forecasters say irma will likely pose a serious threat to millions in southeast florida this weekend. the today show s al roker is tracking irma and joins me now. what is the latest path, al? what can you tell us? andrea, it has been interesting. since yesterday, we have been seeing a little bit of a shift to the right on this thing. and so we continue to track it. as you can see, again, a powerful storm. it ramped up to a 5 yesterday and shows no signs of slowing down. right now it just 55 miles east of st. thomas. 185-mile-per-hour winds, movin
difference. the majority of the 585 fatalities came from haiti but they weren t all there. we did have other fatalities with that and storm surge for this one was 26 feet. so again, these are not irma. but there are similarities between the two. but the thing to note is that this is a category 5 storm. this is incredibly strong. which is why we have hurricane warnings out for areas like puerto rico, dominican republic, and the turks and caicos and areas like the bahamas and cuba are looking at hurricane watches. some of those might get released for florida and other states when we can finally narrow down that path. but the take wa is, regardless of where the u.s. landfall is, whether it s florida or the carolinas, all of those states need to begin their preparations ahead of time. and as you said, and i was wrong before i tossed you, 185-mile-per-hour sustained winds, gusting, as you said, up to 225 miles per hour. i mean, just staggering. and thanks for the update.
185-mile-per-hour winds and the latest update shows irma could hit florida head on this weekend. president trump declaring emergencies for florida, puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands to help with storm preparations. we ll have the full hurricane forecast in a moment. the most immediate concern is for people in the north eastern caribbean. overnight a 36 hour curfew was issued for the entire territory of the u.s. virgin islands. and the biggest evacuation in history. in the history of the bahamas has been ordered. residents of six southern islands have been told to evacuate. the potentially catastrophic storm bearing down overnight on the northern leeward islands. those islands are under hurricane warnings as are other other areas including puerto rico. several south florida counties are operating in emergency mode hoping for the best, but indeed preparing for the worst when and if hurricane irma hits. the mayor of miami-dade county signing an emergency
more storm surge than andrew, more wind than andrew, so everybody take this seriously. thank you, governor, and now we have our two great senators from the state of florida bill nelson and marco rubio. you re listening to the florida governor. the governor again emthat sizing even though irma is four full days away from potential landfall in florida, 185-mile-per-hour winds has convinced the governor he needs to be out there telling the residents of his state do not underestimate this storm. saying many stores in florida, southern florida are out of water. politicians trying to get out ahead of this one. as florida prepares for irma, let me show you some live pictures from the house floor, members of congress reacting in
winds that we re talking for the turks and caicos and the bahamas. and it s very little infrastructure can withstand that kind of pounding. and where you have the most deaths usually is storm surge and the storm surge for the turks and caicos and the bahamas, we re talking about anywhere from 15 to 20 feet and that s on top of if it s high tooids. upwards much 16 inches of rain. they could be devastated. i have a family member that came to ride it out with our family. he lives in miami. but can you talk about where the path of the storm is and the i m going to get behind and show you. okay. what we re looking at as far as where folks have to be concerned. so right now, again, as we mentioned, this is the latest on irma. category 5 storm. still a 5. 40 miles northwest of saint thomas. 185-mile-per-hour winds. it s been moving stead lil west northwest at 16-mile-per-hour. and here with go. as we talked about these