powerful, but you re right. even the smallest thing, whether it s the disk on top of a light post, or even a newspaper stand or even a garbage can lid flying down this street at high speed could certainly injure if not kill somebody. we do have confirmation. let s walk over here. we have a crane collapse in downtown miami now. we were discussing the number of cranes up there. there are more than two dozen. the arm of the crane has collapsed on top of a building. this happened just a short time ago. this is one of the biggest concerns with high rises going up in the area. there s a lot of construction going on in miami. we don t str any word of injuries. one would hope a construction site was vacated. what we had heard was that the standing pillar of these cranes were solid. they could handle winds of up to 145 miles per hour. it s the t part of the crane that in many cases were being allowed to swing around.
days. bill nelson. bonita springs is probably right now at the eye wall. fort myers is the next population center above it. so kristin dahlgren there, look at her. she is blowing away, kristin. you re langing hanging on there looks like you re getting some guests. we are. we re expecting the eye wall to go right over us and we ll get the break in the center, but not before we get the worst of these winds, just a little bit of calm. i ll take you back here and show you what s going on here and we re obviously in a parking lot here. we ve been behind a big concrete building trying to stay safe, but take a look at how many branches are down here and this is a protected area. this was our fallback plan. so we re not out on the beach or anything where they re getting the worst of it. so this is a powerful storm coming through. the roar as these winds come through is absolutely incredible, and then we re expecting it to get worse and worse through the next few minutes and maybe within the
position you can t see. this lagoon is churning. i have been watching the roof on the building behind me slowly start to peel back. boats on moorings, water is coming up. you talk storm surge, we were in cape coral, that s a community to have a canal behind just about every home so everybody could have access to water. seems like a disastrous position. we were also at ft. myers beach, this area will take a catastrophic hit. the idea this is the beginning of the storm, i don t know if we are in hurricane force winds. this is tropical storm sfoforcer the beginning of it. it is pelting. feels like needles being thrown at your face. i am looking behind me, people that bailed, left stuff. i see a skidoo, wave runner. that will be totals. that will be on the street
years, these people really and truly know how to put themselves in a good position but we are moment by moment right now where i don t like where mike is, because that s all open water to biscayne bay behind him. around those islands. and let me also tell you there s a lot more people in those buildings than you think. one of the residents came down and talked to us last night when we were standing there, and he was in the building that s right above where that shot is. and he said, you know, there s 100 people in this building and i looked at him. he said the building management told them about 30% of the building decided to stay and he was kind enough to offer us a way to get out of the storm if it got bad. the problem with that, for mike today is that mike would have to wrauk through that flooded street to get to the billing. and if that water gets above knee level. right now, as we ve seen him, that water s been to about calf level in the street, but once it gets to about knee leve
ones. they re mounted at a base. they re bolted into construction on top of the building. sometimes, that one looks like it failed and folded actually, but sometimes those bolts when you get that much force on the crane structure, the bolt can give way, and it can fall. if you have the top of the crane that lays out like that, and you unpin it here and it will be able to swing so you re not holding yourself against the wind, sometimes you see a problem with that, giving it more motion for the crane to fall. in this one, you can see how it is crumpled. i am looking at the image on the top of the building. it is bent, yeah. reporter: it is one of the huge concerns about having those cranes in the area, why as part of the evacuation order there was an entire separate line about we know these cranes are