projected path. just moments ago, the national hurricane center issued a new bulletin. chad myers joins us with the latest. chad, what does the new bulletin say? the pressure is going down, anderson. and that s bad. the lower the pressure, the higher the wind speed. now, there are hurricane hunter aircraft in there right now, did not find any increased wind speed yet. sometimes the pressure goes down and then the winds build. but there s the eye right there from the miami radar site. so it s not all that far away. we ve had outer bands coming onshore in florida for most of the day. there s another outer band offshore right now, if you re standing ong the beach you may be able to see the lightning in the distance. i hope you re not on the beach at this point, though, because the waves are getting much larger. you get the 115-mile-per-hour winds out there, there s going to be a lot of rip currents going out into the ocean in the next couple of days, all the way into cape hatt
wolf blitzer is off tonight. i m joe johns. you re in the situation room. i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected president of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. don t wait, don t delay. we all hope for the best, but we have to be prepared for the worst. we how is it going in new york right now, mary? you just heard the president speak about this hurricane. new york had asked the president to declare emergency assistance. and the president did have an emergency declaration for new york, meaning the city and state will get federal help. but this is an unprecedented move in new york today, joe. the mayor michael bloomberg has ordered iffer the first time mandatory evac yags in low-lying areas of new york. and this encome passes areas that affect between 200 and 300,000 people. this out of caution and concern about high water and heavy winds. earlier throughout the day, there have been some evacuations taking place in hospitals and n
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.
this is a crew speeding away from the rixos hotel in tripoli where gadhafi loyalists, the gunmen who had been holding these men and women captive for five-plus days. now and only now can they tell their story. we will hear it coming up. something here, the cnn crew, among dozens of international journalists, as i mentioned at the rixos hotel, between 30 and 35 journalists were held inside for five-plus days trying to negotiate the release according to our matthew chance, every hour, every minute of every day. the end came today when a cnn producer persuaded the local commander that the fight outside was over, that the gadhafi forces had lost. listen to this. well, i actually we ve spent time with him over the past few days sitting and talking to him about his kids, his family and so he started to come i really miss my family and i really want to go out and see my family who are really worried about me now, same thing for the 30-plus journalists sitting in the hotel. he