efforts. tell us no doubt about that and what does it look like right now? about 1500 cell towers throughout the island here and communications, it is desperate at this time. we are getting a lot of messages from the people on the u.s. mainland and trying to get in touch with their loved ones. i spoke earlier with the governor of puerto rico, it took him two days to get in touch with his own parents. it is also officials part of the relief efforts having to go there you and part of the problem is gasoline and the belief among residents here that there is a gasoline shortage. those that are transporting these gas kacanisters of areas that s hard hit, they are dealing with their own matters. it is a struggle here trying to get things baack to normal. she s trying to set the tone and she s trying to set expectations
because they needed that emergency provisional housing. so people here are just now trying to get back to normal. they re still trying to recover. even as they re trying to rebuild their resources, remember, just yesterday, there were eight dead in a nursing home. there were 145 evacuations. even some of those emergency evacuations still happening as recently as yesterday, as people are trying to rebuild, craig. we re going to go to the nursing home in just a moment. you mentioned power outages. what do we know about cell service, what do we know about gas? i know there was a great deal of concern there about a gasoline shortage. and the concern is real, craig. i mean, our crew was coming here about midnight after we been with the damage in jacksonville and in gainesville. we had to carry two separate gas tanks in our suv. the lines were about 45 minutes. we even saw a fight break out at one of the gas stations because people were so upset about having to wait in these long likes.
[shouting] there is a gasoline shortage. we can t go to shelters. there is no gasoline. there is no gasoline anywhere. there is nothing open. i have no food. i have no water. martha: statistics are sobering at least 12 deaths blamed on this storm. dozens more deaths in the very hard hit caribbean. in the florida keys, fema estimates that 90% of the homes were damaged or destroyed, 90%. 94s thousand people are still in shelters. across the state more than 5 million have no power and it may take up to two weeks, we re told now, to restore their service and it comes ahead of a heat wave. in moments, we will talk to tito hernandez who is the most senior official on the ground in florida. we begin with fox news phil keating who ho is in the florida keys tonight u hi, phil. hi, martha. this is the view why people live here in the keys. this is the view why people come here as tourists to
the good news is most of the homes here are concrete. they re still standing. there are some exceptions, obviously, but those seem to be wooden structures, the concrete structures we ve seen don t seem to have much structural damage. it s mostly railings and sidings that have been torn off. and there is some heavy roof damage. but when it comes to withstanding the storm, even the houses that were closest to the pay that took the direct impact are still standing here. residents are not being allowed back here right now. there are some residents who chose to weather out the storm. they are going house to house to make sure everybody cleared out and there is no one there. we re still waiting for emergency crews to come through and do the checks as well. stunning images. gadi schwartz, thank you. can we just reiterate? two-thirds of the people in florida are without power. and we know there s still a gasoline shortage. this thing is far from over. joining us on the phone is commissioner
bands of this storm can be. of course, conditions at numerous other islands in the caribbean are about to start going downhill. shep? shepard: thanks, trace with an update in the caribbean. in the florida keys, one gas station chain has shut down all of its locations in prep for irma. another one reports they plan to do the same thing in just about 22 minutes. that s according to police down in monroe county. they say there s no gasoline shortage or lines at the stations that are still open. we go to wsvn, live from the florida keys. andrew what is happening there? there s three major hospitals in the florida keys. one is where i am now, mariners and fisherman s community hospital and the lower keys hospital. the lower keys hospital is the one to keep an eye on. that s where you have patients that have serious care. those patients are being