This is cnn tonight im don lemon. What was Hurricane Florence is now a Tropical Storm. And were now hearing that it has killed at least five people in this area. This Tropical Storm is battering the carolinas tonight. Were told that more than 500,000, maybe up to 850,000 people are without power right now. They are concerned about major storm surges and also catastrophic flooding in the area. I want to take you out here on the beach. This is where the major problem where storm is rolling in and theyre concerned about flooding. This is what weve been seeing all day, the storms moving from the north and coming south down the shore here. One of those places being hit hard is where Miguel Marquez is in, in Carolina Beach. All day, you have been getting inundated with water and wind. Tell us what youre seeing. Yeah, this has been 36 hours of just hell in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, don. The wind is still blowing very, very hard. The rain is coming in right now, were not seeing a lot of
china are being made. he also said this. the tariffs have put us in an incredible negotiating position. i say that to china directly. it s only going to get worse for china. and we are going to talk about all of this in just a moment with top white house reporters who are standing by. but first, right now, just past 11:00 p.m. on the east coast, that means a new update on hurricane dorian. we re joined by ed rapaport, deputy director of the national hurricane center. ed, we re thrilled to have you with us. tell us the latest about what you know. quite a few changes with dorian. in the last several hours, the intensification trend during much of the day has continued. so now we have a category 4 hurricane. maximum winds have increased to 140 miles per hour from just about 100 miles per hour 24 hours ago. so quite an intensification. and we also know that the storm has changed a bit in direction, as forecast, from northwest to
because i don t think that there was a mandatory have given for new bern. was it forecast to get that much water, that much floodwater? yes, we had talked about how the water was going to rise on the order of ten feet along the coast. also up the rivers. the neuse river and pamly coriver. that s what we ve seen. may be higher in a few places. now we ve got the water coming down the river from the rainfall and so we re going to see flooding well into next week there. ed, can you explain to me and our viewers why this thing slowed down and stalled? because that s a problem here. and it s just stalling. and not moving quickly. and just producing a lot of water. we talked about a lot of water. a hurricane is very much like a float in a river. it moves where the currents around it steer it. fortunately, we he were able to
just dramatic how it comes down in sheets and sheets for hours and hours. it is stunning to see. yeah. ed, can we talk a little bit about new bern? because threw lost all their power. they had major flooding. and i just want to know when you were there last night and when you were there today, what did you see? i mean, what were the conditions of the homes and the people who were there they were rescuing? you have to understand the geography of new bern. and i let kind of comes in from the bay in the atlantic ocean that pushes several miles inland into this community. so you have a series of rivers and tributaries that dump into that inlet and then it pushes all the way out to the atlantic ocean. all of that is backed up so it s from those rivers and tributaries that the water was rising up out of. and spilling into some of these neighborhoods. i don t want to paint the picture that the entire city was
hopefully that is not going to happen. we do know because we ve been getting so much rain. and then there was there is the storm drains here we have been watching on the beaches. when we first got here, those drains were little tricks if they were moving at all. little tiny trickles. now they ve opened up and some of the water has been flowing from other areas. and expanding those, as well. we ve been getting updates from the national weather center, also updates from the national hurricane centering, as well. ed rapaport who has been joining us every single evening will give us an update now. can you hear me? yes, i can. good evening, don. so give us an update. i m in myrtle beach. the bands are coming through right now. we are getting drenched and the wind is picking up. what s going on? the center is located just to the west of you now. a lot of rain coughing the