place. they are not there. there are a few people, a business owner we talked to who said he was going to stay open during all of this. i m not sure who s going to go by, but certainly that he just could not let himself leave his business he worked 25 years to build. he boarded up his business and boarded up his house. it wasn t bravado, simply he felt he could not leave his life s work and decided to stick it out inside his business with a couple of co-workers that w t wanted to stay inside as well. so far, everyone should be all right. the wind isn t that terrible. as the storm surge starts coming in, that s what everybody is worried about, potential for flo flooding. as you know, in these kinds of storms, it is flooding that is usually the very thing that is deadly, not the winds or debris but flooding. people have to be very careful not to go into water they don t know exactly how high it is if that flooding does occur.
terrible terrible conditions now, extraordinarily dangerous conditions with winds 120 miles an hour that could bring rain up to 15 inches, a storm surge of 11 feet and devastating flo flooding. the national weather service warning the deadly storm could make homes and buildings in central florida quote uninhab uninhabitable for weeks and months, a dire warning from the weather service as hurricane matthew bears down on northeast florida, parts of the state could be left uninhabitable and even a disaster response like never before could be needed. joining us via skype this morning is lieutenant general russell on rho russell, who coordinated the response for hurricane katrina. what are you watching, general, as you watch this unfold?
nice to be here with you for the next five hours. tropical storm irene after lashing new york city, irene is dutching heavy, heavy rainfall in parts of upstate new york and also new england. the storm made landfall overnight as a hurricane in two stops, first on the landfall on little egg inlet in new jersey, and then it hit another landfall, coney island, new york. at that time irene had weakened to a tropical storm. on long island, irene s storm surge flooded downtown long beach. some streets in manhattan also flooding, but the water really has started to recede already. it is sweeping up the east coast. irene has killed at least 15 people at last count as it started, as it fist made landfall in north carolina, more than 4 million people as a whole without power. irene moving north now. its biggest threat is inland flo flooding. still the word is caution, and we have cnn crews up and down the east coast for you to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage on tropical storm