good morning. it is friday, august 26th. welcome to american morning. it s all about the hurricane today. i wish i could say happy friday, happy friday for those not living along the northeast coast. and whom it hasn t reached yet. exactly. let s talk about hurricane irene. now said to be a massive and powerful category 2 storm sitting just off the east coast. 50 million people could feel its force by this weekend. new hurricane warnings are now up, they stretch from north carolina to new jersey. states of emergency have been declared as far north as new england. irene totally hammered the bahamas yesterday with torrential rain, 115-mile-per-hour winds, north carolina like i is next. in atlantic beach a surf shop boarding up, mandatory evacuations under way along the outer banks and could be the biggest storm to hit new york in decades. people all the way up the coast are being asked to leave or to get ready. i understand sometimes folks think that people overreac
heading back to washington, d.c. a day ahead of schedule. earlier he called irene a historic storm. i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected path of the hurricane, you have to take precautions now. don t wait. don t delay. we all hope for the best but have to be prepared for the worst. irene is on track to follow the northeast corridor right up to new england and beyond. cnn is there. reynold wolf is in new jersey, and athena jones is in annapolis, maryland. we will start here in the weather center with cnn meteorologist, chad meyers. chad, give us an idea of where irene is now. not too much changed overnight. the storm did get a little stronger, and as it got stronger, you could see the eye. at 2:00 in the morning, you could truly see the eye. now we don t see it anymore. that tells me the storm is being torn up by a little bit of sheer. it s still a 105-mile-per-hour storm. it will not say category 3 or 4 anymore, but don t let your guard down.
rockaways. in addition, you should know that mta service, including subways, buses and railroads will begin to shut down tomorrow at noon. we ll discuss that and other measures in a moment depending on the effect of the storm, let me caution you in regards to the mta that service may or may not be restored in time for rush hour monday morning. i would urge employees checking with their employers regarding business openings on monday. cnn s reporters are showing us some of the stormy surf in florida. video shot by sheterly, don off new smyrna beach. amazing how rough the ocean is there. janet napolitano telling people not to mess around with this storm. she briefed president obama by phone earlier today and the president is going to leave marthas vineyard a short and return day short and return from his vacation. he s urging americans to prepare for the worst. i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precaut
the sea walls, but i think the worst here is orr and it passed. amazing how well they ve weathered this here. we have not seen any damage. just a quick ride through downtown nassau, and it seems that they ve got lucky and their preparations really worked. some of the southern islands in the bahamas didn t make it well. we have reports of serious did he have tags in some of the settlements down there and even some of the biggest islands, cat island that are both popular tourist islands had just gotten hit there. still trying to get communications back up to get word and a look at damages on those islands as irene moves through. right here tentatively in nassau people are pleased that the worst didn t happen here and they made out relatively okay. randi. jim, we got reports of one community that was the 90% destroyed. are you hearing anything about injuries or even deaths? reporter: we haven t heard anything about injuries or deaths, but those communities in the settlements
he said the retreat from his compound was a tactical move. just breaking right now over the computer wires, we re seeing from reuters, mousi ibrahim, the government spokesperson, who was in the hotel with other journalists, but fled yesterday. he is saying to reuters, now the mission is to just liberate tripoli gradually, our men are assuring me, it will only get easier them are trying to turn libya into the next iraq. central tripoli under the influence of gangs. they have been using them to describe the opposition fighters. clashes this morning in tripoli. some of our men died, but for the rebel side, tens died. 65 just from this morning. our armed forces will regain control of the area. he claims nato is trying to terrorize and occupy the country. he has been backing up gadhafi s statements, basically many of them outright lies for a long time, saying all of these opposition fighters were influenced by drugs, all high, young people, that they were on some sort of pharmaceu