the storm coming through there? are the wind gusts sustained? is it something that picks up and drops off? it s amazing. if you turn your back for five seconds, my crew my producer and my cameraman who are working diligently behind the scenes to bring us these shots, if you take your hands off the equipment, you ll of a sudden you ve got a camera and a light that s flown to the side because of the gusts that come through. but they re becoming more sustained now. we re still tropical storm force here with hurricane gusts, but i would give it another hour, two hours and we re going to be in the thick of it, george. you, too, you re not too far away from me, just a 25-mile drive up the road. there s nowhere for us to go. we re disconnected from the main land. the bridge that connects us to you has been cloned down nsed dr 24 hours, so we re left alone. derek, we wish you safety and appreciate your reporting there today live in carolina beach, north carolina. thank you so much.
lee linda, we ve been watching you throughout the day. definitely picking up in the intensity you are. certainly is, martha. we are one of those people getting their hurricane/near hurricane gusts and it s picked up right there. it is hard to state if you are outside, you can turn your face into the wind, it gets pretty painful as it s now whipping across here. the island, atlantic beach, is beginning to get flooded. it s difficult to get across the bridge, very difficult for any kind of movement. you can see behind me a lot of the shingles starting to rip off the roofs. we drove through the town. there are a number of signs blowing around, power is out not only on the island but also back here on the mainland as well as we are getting another one of these gusts coming into the wind we are standing at is an impressive visual but as he can see the torrential rain coming down, that s going to combine with this storm surge
heavy across the coast of the afternoon and evening today. some of those bands have had hurricane force winds at least gusts that come across the shorelines. one including at cedar island here had a gust of 85 miles per hour. those wins, as they blow on the shore pushing the water as we tl days, we expect a storm surge that might reach 7-11 feet in this area, somewhere south, but the entire coast of north carolina and much of south carolina is at risk for the life threatening storm surge. at present we do have a storm surge occurring. we talk about those winds going up to 180 miles per hour in gusts. here is a graph from a gauge located to that observation of the strong wind. water has already risen five and a half feet there. that s what we ve been concerned about the past several days, that water rise. a depth that s gone up more than 5 feet and we expect that will
north carolina. and carolina beach, dasherek va damme, you re experiencing the same thing we re experiencing in wilmington. tell our viewers about it. george, you summarized it really well in the beginning. there is a marked difference in the wind speeds now. the eye wall starting to edge closer and closer. it is at a snail s pace. that is why this storm is so threatening for residents along the carolina coast. it is a long prolonged duration event. that means it s not going to be a one punch and done. this is going to be a one, two, three punch all the way to the end, 12 rounds. it is going to take its time moving on and that means that the wind and the storm surge and the heavy rain potential is just heightened because of that slow, slow movement of hurricane florence. we re bracing ourselves for these gusts that come through more frequently now within the past 15 minutes. if you look on the latest radar, you ll see that really cohen
hour-plus. and to the top of the map, it s now arriving in the jacksonville area ocala to gainesville, flagler beach area, daytona beach, new smyrna. they re getting the wind off the water. and you still have a little storm surge to go. so almost the entire peninsula from the keys to jacksonville right now is getting the tropical storm force winds. where we still can get the hurricane gusts and we just had that gust to 70 at the atlanta international airport. it s almost up to hurricane, the hurricane gust. but not quite. this entire area of red is still where the power is either out or still going out and that s shifting north with the storm. now more power outages around tampa and the i-4 corridor. those people were watching and now not able to as much. here s what s left of the northern eye. gusts to 74. still at 64.