come on, irene, let s play hardball. good evening. i m chris jansing with this special edition of hardball. leading off tonight, here comes hurricane irene. people living in the southeastern u.s. along the gulf coast, there is nothing unusual about bracing for hurricane in late august. but what is happening today is historic, it s extraordinary and frankly for a lot of folks, it s unfamiliar and scary. hurricane irene is bearing down on the entire east coast. all the way from north caroline why it maine with an incredible 65 million people in its path. rain and high winds have already begun to hit the carolinas, with that storm is expected to make land fall sometime early tomorrow morning. commuter transit systems in new york, new jersey and philadelphia are being shut down. with the enormous new york city subway system coming to halt
beginning at noon tomorrow. a hurricane warning is issued for new york city, which is expected to get hit sunday morning. today, may mayor bloomberg ordered 270,000 people to evacuate from low-lying areas. that s the equivalent of evacuating the entire city of buffalo new york. and president obama cut short his vacation, urging people in the path of the storm to be prepared. i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected path 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. all right, let s get right to it. nbc meteorologist, jeff reineri, how is it looking now. the storm has overall shrank but it is still a storm stretching several hundred miles