category two hurricane is hugging the coast of north carolina and getting very close and packing winds of up to 100 miles per hour. states of emergency are definitely in affect from north carolina all the way up to maine. hurricane irene is currently at a category two strength. but how different is that from a category three? and where is irene heading now? our meteorologist is live in the fox extreme weather center. what are we talking about category two? category three? and we have a brand-new update coming out at 3:00 a.m. we are now talking a category one. that is good news. we want it to weaken and hopefully push out to sea, but that s no what that s not what the models are pointing to. right now sustained winds are 90 miles an hour. swree hurricane warnings in affect stretching from wilmington, north carolina all the way up to portions of new england. martha s vineyard is under a hurricane warning. new york city, atlantic city and to virginia beach and now we are
winds make. it s still a big storm. 50 miles south of cape lookout, north carolina at this point. the hurricane is not the only big story in north carolina. we re being told now a tornado has been spot in the eastern parts of the state. rick: our meteorologist maria molina is here keeping us up to date with the latest on the storm. why did the storm weaken first of all? we do have weakening and convection. you have a little of storms around the system. there is a loop right there. a gap in the thunderstorms so weakening taking place. drier air trying to make its way there. as the storm continues moving northward the water temperatures will continue to get cooler as well. as it makes landfall it will get cut off from that swatter supply. land begins to weaken the storm. we expect the storm to slightly weaken as it does move northward. large system, hurricane force winds still extend 90 miles out from the center of the storm. tropical storm force winds 90 miles out from t
injuries, due to the high surf, and, most all of the rescues were rip current related. martha: and people panic when they get into a rip current and don t realize what you have to do is swim parallel to the shore to get out of a rip current. don t try to swim in, you have to let it carry you and swim parallel to it, and that is the only way to. gregg: otherwise you tire and get swept away. evacuations underway in maryland now, a governor declaring a statewide emergency, ordering mandatory evacuations, for ocean city for the very first time, in more than 20 years. we are ordering a mandatory evacuation, off the barrier island of ocean city. what does that mean? that means that any visitors or residents of ocean city should be making plans to leave the island as soon as possible. and, in an orderly way. gregg: doug mcelway is live in ocean city, maryland, and, you
hour. which could certainly change the landscape across the outer banks and i want to mention, we haven t talked about this. we could see the threat for tornadoes. as we have these land falling tropical systems and the friction and rotation across land could, possibly, give us some tornadoes, across portions of all of these big cities. martha: a lot to think about and get ready for. martha, new advisory is sometime before 15i71:00 and we have it for you. martha: and we ll look forward to that and we may get information from the homeland security secretary. bill: and officials are moving everyone to move inland, in north carolina. the governor, beverly purdue says all disaster response teams are in place. we are as ready as we can be, we have evacuations in place now, our ferries are about to close. we have rescue squads, emergency personnel, highway patrol, national guard, red cross on the ground, and our shelters are
and trees will bring trees down more readily than if the ground was dry. that is what i have and i ll introduce craig fugate to talk about what all of the impact will be for their operations. good morning, everybody, as the secretary talked about, we already have our teams linked in with the governor s teams and the state emergency operations centers, primarily folks on the evacuation support now, but, also, preparing for the immediate impact and the aftermath. one thing i think we have to really emphasize here, as well as the forecast has been, all the steps of preparation, it does not mean there will not be damages. it does not mean that power will not go out over large areas and that it will take some time to get things back to normal. that is why it s so important for people to prepare and the one thing we can change the outcome on, is loss of life. that is why the evacuation orders that are being issued in the coastal areas are key. people need to leave early. travel safe distan