towns. that is ocean city, maryland. we know areas like wildwood and avalon have also been very hard hit in this storm. we ve seen boardwalks and beaches that have been destroyed, plunging millions of people up and down the coast into the dark today. steve harrigan is live in ocean city, maryland. is not far from where sandy hit. how bad is it where you are, steve? good morning to you. reporter: good morning, martha. it is worse here on the bay side of ocean city, maryland, than where we saw the storm coming in. it really peaked with high winds at 5:00 p.m. certainly hurricane gusts. this area of downtown ocean city was largely closed off. there was a mandatory evacuation. it looks like a ghost town. this st. louis avenue is pretty much turned into a river. it is a pretty strong current coming in. you can see the car half underwater behind me. most of the people are gone. there will be significant flooding. it looks like it will take a
highways. as far as rescues go we have just heard from rescue operations workers here in ocean city. they have carried out at least 30 so far tonight. this is mainly national guard troops moving in humvees going to places where people are simply afraid the water is rising too high for them. calling for rescues. at least 3 or 400 people in shelters overnight and as far as the situation goes, with the flooding, downtown ocean city, parts of it it are heavily flooded and sealed off. one man spoke to us of having chest deep water when he he was walking through it. as far as the main pier goes here on the board walk where water has been overtopping that iconic pier has been smashed by 15 or 20-foot waves. we still have electric power where we are, but there are reports of up to 30 or 40,000 people mainly in the baltimore area. they have already lost their electric power so far this evening. probably more to come, shepard. shepard: steve harrigan. thanks very much. i appreciate it the larg
harrigan was dealing with the growing power of sandy, several miles off shore. in just the last little while, steve, it s coming. reporter: harris, we ll show you some of the scenes here in ocean city, maryland, this is a wall to protect the boardwalk from the atlantic ocean and every five or six waves now it s topping over. you can see the boardwalk area here is pretty much shut down. downtown ocean city is under a mandatory evacuation so most people have been leaving. right now, electric power is still up, but they said they could cut it off tonight. the rain is basically coming in side ways and gusts of 45 to 50 miles per hour, but the real concern officials say are the roads. many of them, including route 1, which is the main escape route out of here are already covered up by water or by sand. much faster than many officials expected. so some real concerns about the slow pace of evacuations and rescues over the next 48 hours, harris.
and what we saw was very encouraging. there was virtually no ponding in downtown streets with the exception of a few intersections. the electricity was on in the majority of the city. it is not on where we are, for 10 blocks that way or 20 blocks that way. but the majority of downtown ocean city has electricity. we saw the bay on the far side had not really risen into the street level. we saw in addition to that, no trees down. i saw not a single tree down. a lot of branches down, a lot of leaves, but no major trees down whatsoever. so very encouraging signs there, based upon what we have seen. based upon that, as well, i would conjecture, that most of the damage we are going to be seeing up the east coast from the storm is going to be more inland, from power outages and from major trees, old growth trees falling down. we have the summer foliage in full foliage right now. we have the root systems very weakened from the excess rain.
in lewis as a result of that tornado. but we re very encouraged by what we saw in downtown ocean city. having said that, we still have yet to face the back side of this storm and the sour they rely winds which will likely bring in the westerly winds that it may bring. that may change the picture here. so far so good in ocean city, maryland. reporting live from ocean city i m doug mckelway, fox news. rick: thanks so much, doug. millions of people keeping themselves inside and safe. good idea. a lot of people can t fly because the airports are shut down. people don t want to fly. some people want to chase the storm. why would they do this? you will hear all about these hurricane hunters coming up next. all right. and you are looking at a live picture of ocean city, maryland. stay with us. we ll be right back. hi, anne. how are you doing? hi, evelyn. i know it s been a difficult time since your mom passed away. yeah. i miss her a lot, but i m okay.