with some first responders out here checking these boats, they had a water rescue team going to these boats, that was an hour ago and they told us wind gusts were getting up to 50, 60 miles an hour. the strongest gusts are above that now. we re a little this is one of the quieter moments we ve had here over the course of the last hour. 15 minutes ago we couldn t even see that bank of island there because of the intense rain and wind pushing through here so it s very cyclical as these bands come through but it s intensified over the last couple hours. it doesn t take much. they put you and me in hurricane irma, we thought we were built to withstand wind and it wound up not taking that much to blow us around, it takes less to take
boats off their moorings, sustained winds can change the way a community looks and functions for a long time. ed, i ll check back with you. now we ll go to carolina city. miguel marquez in north carolina along the coast starting to see more of the effect of florence. what is it like where you are? we got a good punch of rain a short time ago and we are expecting more short ly. the we have as are getting bigger and more frequent. they have had some flooding on the north part of carolina beach from where the dunes are lower. about 18 inches right now but not terrible, they are expecting much, much more. the seas are just showing the effects of that massive serge, that bulldozer of a storm pushing this water on the shore. the wind is less than officials
what does this scene behind me mean to you? is that the energy in this storm if it comes in with the power and the wind at above a category 2 and with winds and rain as predicted, it could be like a weapons of mass destruction concentrated at landfall. and i don t want to alarm people but if you visualize all the power lines down and most of the homes within three to five miles of the coast flooded and all the rivers running over their banks five or six times what they normally are, it would have the effect of a weapons of mass destruction. and when you don t have power, as we know, chris, it changes the way we live 100 years because you can t communicate, and you don t have fresh water, so this is a real disaster just losing power. i know we ve got a lot of teams out there ready to come in, but it s going to take them a while to get there.
and that s what we ll do at duke energy. we won t rest until the last restoration is restored. david fountain, thank you very much, we appreciate your time from duke energy. anderson, you heard him. seven million people. that s a lot of people. he said they re bringing in armies of people not just the carolinas but surrounding states but when you have that flooding, who knows when it will be restored, if you can get your food and electricity and what have you. you don t know when it will come back. yeah, just one of the many unknowns that the folks are facing. we re going to continue our coverage here. i m in wilmington, north carolina, don is in myrtle beach, south carolina. chris cuomo is in north mincyrt beach. you re watching special coverage of hurricane florence. it s arrived today. we re starting to get some rain here in wiggle, the carolina
bands, the winds, waves, surge it will be happening. most of these storms come in and go. this is going to sit here for 24 to 36 hours once it makes landfall. we re not talking about from now so we ll talk about this storm through the weekend as it s sitting here dumping rain. the storage surge and flooding will be the two main concerns with this storm. we re talking about taking a beat of 120 mile per hour winds for 24 hours, a lot of structures will fail but the inundation of waters will be devastating with this storm. all 6 that energy is coming along with it and it will come