more than that as the outer bands come. folly island, as you know, ainsley a barrier island. a lot of vacation homes for the people down here in charleston. we are in the parking lot of the pier here trying to get a sense. you know aishah talking about storm surge. they are expecting upwards of 5 to 8 feet already with the amount of rain that s coming. 6 to 12 inches. we are seeing the streets are taking on water. not more than a few inches but it is coming. the power has been going on and off. we are watching that ocean over there when you have these high winds with the storm surge, and, of course, the flooding that s expected in theist these low lying areas, particularly a low lying barrier island like folly, it s going to be a long, long day. the tide is low. it s going to come in to high. where i m standing, we re told is about 80 miles from the center of the eye of the storm. remember 150 miles out from the eye of the storm is tropical storm winds. hurricane winds come at about 60
hour and above. so that s not going to take much when this storm is at its peak. it will go way above that at its peak, so when the bridges close down you are really out of luck if you try to get out at that point. they are just saying one official told me earlier that the storm surge more than the wind is really what they are worried about here because there is so much low country here. the town of beaufort, south carolina is below sea level so think about that. if you are in those areas, you heard the governor talk about daniel island. we were on folly island yesterday. these are low-lying areas right on the water. they will get flooded. they also talked about going door to door and warning people. we were on folly island, one of the barrier islands, yesterday. the police chief said this morning they are going door to door to give people final warnings. that s all they can do. if you don t get out, you are kind of on your own. first responders are not going to be able to get to you a
want to. reporter: that s right, jake. i-26 which is a main artery going into and out of charleston going east-west. the eastbound lanes are closed off. they re opening the entire highway for people to go westbound. 175,000 as you mentioned from the governor this morning. she said plain and simple, that is not enough. they need at least about 250,000 more people to get out. we ll hopefully get updated numbers hortly on how many have gotten out. we re on folly island where you see the wave surge behind me. that s about to get a lot worse. they expect storm surges of 4 to 8 feet, rainfall between 8 and 12 inches. this is low country. the storm surnl will protell the ocean water past the low-lying dunes onto the streets of folly island and probably will flood them because this dwra floods very, very quickly. islands like this on the barrier chain are going to be cut off very likely if it flood like that and then people will have a really tough time getting out, jake. brian todd in sou
here. a lot of people here are used to hurricanes. they ve lived through hugo in 1989 and some other major storms. a lot of them want to stay, as you say, and the psychology gets into play, they want to see what goes on here. a lot of them do not want to leave their homes right away. this is folly beach, which sometimes protects south carolina from some of the larger storms. you see the large waves, and these are under normal circumstances. we re expecting 4 to 8 feet of storm surge when the storm hits in about 36 hours. here s the problem here on folly island. you can see, the storm surge is clearly going to come up this way. the dunes are very low lying. not really very high. not offering much protection at all from these buildings from the street which is about the same let mel we are right beyond this. local officials telling us they do expect the storm surge to actually, you know, just carry the water into the street. this area had a lot of flooding last year when there was just a
folly island, one of the barrier islands protecting charleston. some people have stuck around, wolf. the state began what are call these lane reversals on interstate 26 to speed traffic out of the coastal area where you are. is that helping? it s helping quite a lot, wolf, the governor is pleased with how it s gone. a lot of people have gotten out that way on interstate 26. they ve closed the eastbound lanes coming into the charleston area to eastbound traffic. you can only go west and people got out yesterday, people getting out today but one thing to remember, there are bridges in this area with 65 feet and above. when the winds get to 40 miles an hour and above those bridges will automatically shut down and there are those bridges at 65 feets and above so if people want to make the late decision to get out, they may not have the luxury if the winds are that high, wolf. be careful, we ll stay in close touch with you as well.