scope. it was a category three up until the top of the hour. it is beginning to inch north after being stuck for more than 40 hours in the bahamas. it battered the northern islands, flooded homes, killed at least five people so far. meanwhile, here in florida a lot of counties are under mandatory evacuation orders as the outer bands have started to finally reach parts of the coast here. marianna atencio is camped out about a hundred miles north of where i am. she is in cocoa beach. mayer anna, first of all, what are you seeing and hour folks getting ready? reporter: craig, you can see behind me the waves continuing to pick up. if you can make the water line here behind me as well, that water has started to come in. our team has been caught in these rain bands which are happening, i d say, every hour, hour and a half. but then the weather looks like this, you know. an otherwise normal day.
to see conditions deteriorate throughout the afternoon. stay safe. gabe, thank you. let s go to the bahamas where the storm has turned deadly. five people killed so far. that s the word there from the bahamas. nbc s morgan chesky reporting from naus nassau for us. reporter: it depends on where you in this chain of island. right now it s still standing over grand bahama but feet of rain flooding the airport, police stations, and the homes, more than 50,000 people who call that island home. meanwhile, just to the east on abaco islands, conditions from immoved enough to have people move in and help people. we know that the u.s. coast guard has been rescuing people since yesterday evening. they ve airlifted 19 victims from that island to a hospital here in nassau and we know six of those people are in critical
island for several more hours. the prime minister there in the bahamas saying so far the storm has killed at least five people. we have our teams stationed this morning from the bahamas all the way up to the carolinas where according to that new guidance, the hurricane could be heading. let s start, let s start with that new guidance, my friend in today show colleague, al roker standing by. al, what are you seeing? what s the new guidance telling us about where this storm is moving? it s interesting, craig. here we go. this just in at 11:00 from the national hurricane center. it is now a category two storm. make no mistake, let s not pay attention to the categories, okay, because question still get a lot of damage out of this. it s 105 miles east of fort pierce, florida. right now winds are at 110 miles per hour northwest at 2 miles per hour. let s not let s not go to the next graphic just yet because i want to point this out, craig.
we re back live here in jupiter jupiter, florida. just one town of maybe bracing for the worst but preparing for just about anything. crews across the southeast are preparing not just for the storm, but for the destruction that the storm will likely leave behind. i want to bring in the former fema chief of staff jason mcnamara. what do you see as the most significant threat of the storm right now? well, i think the uncertainty is the most significant threat. you ve got a storm that was predicted to, you know, first go right across florida and now it s starting to move up a little bit. it s stationary over the bahamas, and now it s finally starting to make the turn north northwestwa northwestward.
condition. those rescue efforts going to ongoing today. we finally got a chance to fly over the extent of the damage which has been described as catastrophic and unprecedented. the prime minister saying that he s finally going to be able to have a chance to start that long plan of recovery which starts with getting relief efforts in there, however, the seas have been too rough for a lot of those fwots maboats from here i to abaco island. the ocean still very turbulent as a result of dorian s swath of destruction that it brought to this area. right now we do have an anticipated update come from the prime minister later, he says that dorian s claimed five lives at that point in time. but as we view more devastation today, unfortunately that number may be going up. craig. morgan chesky there for us from the bahamas. right now, rasheema ingram joins