landfall this morning, on the outer banks of north carolina. more than 1 million homes are without power tonight. flooding is widespread. now, the winds have died down a little bit, but irene is expected to remain a hurricane all the way to new england. and as you can see, the surf is already pounding the coastline nonstop. right now, ocean city, maryland, getting hammered. and if there s some good news, well, an admiral with the u.s. coast guard says the preliminary survey of damage shows irene has not been as destructive as had been feared. and we hope that will be the case in many places. cnn correspondents are strategically positioned, all up and down the east coast to give you the very latest information. chris lawrence still in chesapeake beach, maryland, for us, where water continues to rise. we talked about the beach erosion as well. chris, also 40,000 people without electricity there. however, the conditions not as bad as you predicted? reporter: no, exactly.
i m t.j. holmes bringing you the latest on the massive storm. hurricane irene that could affect about 20% of the population of the united states. here you are getting a look at the path of the storm. the projected path of the storm right now. some 65 million people are being threatened by this storm. it s in some of the largest cities of the country that are under threat of the storm. we are talking about new york, washington d.c., baltimore, boston, philadelphia. all areas not accustomed, necessarily, to being ready for hurricanes. hurricane irene is now a category one storm. it is on the north/northeastern path. it has been downgraded to a category one storm, but do not let that fool you. this is still a massive and powerful storm which is on the higher end of the category one strength. it did weaken overnight. it weakened somewhat overnight. still has sustained winds that are around 90 miles an hour. that is on the higher end of a category one storm. you have hurricane war
troubling new assessment. they are expecting the storm surge from irene to flood the area which includes the ground zero construction site with anywhere from 6 to 12 feet of water. it and other low-lying neighborhood on a mandatory evacuation order. mayor bloomberg saying the city transit system will shut down at noon tomorrow. all five local airports also in danger of flooding. they are being closed right starting at noon care this is what they are concerned about. pictures here of irene hitting the bahamas, new yorkers i used to seeing this on tv, but up close. they might see a version of that and about 36 hours from now. all day today irene was making its way north. and as it did. emergency plans started kicking. in warnings went up. people boarded up, stocked up and either hunkered down or took off. in a moment we ll check in with anderson and our entire team on irene. first chad myers and that late bulletin from the national hurricane center. chad what s the latest? no
if you re in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. 65 million people in danger. to all the people in eastern north carolina, good luck and our prayers are with you. mandatory evacuations, time to get out right now. you have to get out. we ve never done a mandatory evacuation before and we wouldn t be doing it now if we didn t think this storm had the potential to be very serious. we re tracking this monster minute by minute and going live into the storm zone. this is piers morgan tonight. good evening, we re covering every angle of hurricane irene tonight from north carolina, with landfalls expected in a matter of hours to new york city where unprecedented mandatory evacuations are under way. thousands of flights are cancelled on the east coast. jfk is closing to international arrivals tomorrow at noon. major highways are closing down as i speak. there are unprecedented shutdowns, transit system in new york and philadelphia. atl
troubling new assessment. they re expecting the storm surge from irene to flood the area, which includes the ground zero construction site, with anywhere from 6 to 12 feet of water. and other low-lying neighborhoods under mandatory evacuation orders. the city transit system will shut down at noon tomorrow. all five local airports also in danger of flooding. they re being closed, arriving flights, starting at noon. this is what they re concerned of. pictures of irene hitting the bahamas. new yorkers are used to seeing this on tv, not up close, though. they might see a version of it about 36 hours from now. all day today irene was making its way north. as it did, emergency plans started kicking in. warnings went up. people stocked up or hunkered down or they took off. in a moment we ll check in with anderson and our entire team for irene. first, chad myers and the late bulletin from the national hurricane center. chad, what s the latest? not much change in the forecast and no