we never forget. that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you daytona beach a major tourist destination but you don t want to be there now. hurricane irma still very much in full effect. category 1 hurricane. look at what she s doing to daytona beach. salt spray flying off. storm surge. very much a big part of the story. big part of the damage you ll start seeing when the light of day starts to shine here in florida, because we need the sun. there are 4 million without power. here where we are there s nothing lit up unless you have car headlights or battery power. so, it s still ongoing. the let s get in there with
punishing florida, a category 1 hurricane making its way north and starting now to shift across the state. this was never anticipated to be as widespread as persistent, and now, as devastating as hurricane irma is proving to be. let s take miami for example. here in naples we had major, major wind gusts, the biggest they ve seen in the state so far, but the duration of poupding and water and flooding and damage that miami has seen and is still seeing took everyone by surprise. rosa flores has braved that storm with the rest of the cnn team in place and you re going to tell us a story of a city that is absolutely affected in every way by a hurricane. reporter: you know, chris, the heavy winds here in downtown miami snapped cranes. they uprooted trees like the one that you see behind me. we saw three and a half feet of
an hour ago. chris? hmm. calm, a relative assessment when you re in a hurricane of course. be safe. very fright nij added by the fact there s so little light. to go through a hurricane in the dark must be so frightening. that s why one of the reasons our hearts and minds are with all those who sheltered in place, many with children and family. very tough to go through. give us some perspective. are many of the areas that are getting hit now and still have to worry about this storm, have been hit recently. hurricane matthew did damage in gainsville, jacksonville in areas surrounding the region you re in. reporter: absolutely. it was impact here. i was actually standing on the ground floor during that storm here at the very same hotel. and i can tell you that the winds then felt like nothing compared to what we have been feeling today. i mean compare tim, yes, there was damage. yes, the sea wall came up and
our neighbors had time to prepare, the communities did. the so for the first time i think we were not surprised by anything that this storm did or could have done. i think a lot of us in south florida feel like it could have done more and we were very fortunate to only get the brunt of what we did get, not the full brunt of it. all right. mayor jack sieler, fort lauderdale. a lot of credit goes to the scientists, right? . victor blackwell thank you for your great reporting, all of our teams in florida. thanks for that. new day picks it up now. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. special coverage of hurricane irma, be very clear, it is not over. hurricane irma still battling the state of florida. right now some 24 hours plus after first making land fall. this is an unpress dentszed beating. even though the hurricane has
over into the board walk which everyone loves it for spring break. that was damaged. there was damage to the business owners, i ll tell you something else. the hotel we re staying at spent about $3 million in renovations to deal with some of the aftermath of that hurricane and now being hit again. we noticed that water is coming up. everyone is concerned about storm surge but right now i m looking at the board walk itself and i do see quite a bit of water that has come up and been pushed up that z ha not necessarily storm surge but pushed up from the strong winds. can i mention one other thing to you, chris? i know everyone worried about power there especially in miami where so many of out of power. florida power and light has a lot of their workers here alongside us, and we ve been talking to them and they ve been asking us hour after hour when it the storm passing? how long will it be. they are ready and willing to get out as soon as the storm passes by and they can drive the