they ve got river rising there. they re trying to lower the level of the reservoirs. so this stuff is happening all over. where you are, something important to remember about, much of north carolina and the coast, those are estuaries. they are tidal. when high tide hits, high tide is going to hit me at about 11:00 a.m. eastern. so you ve got flooding under normal circumstances. then you ve got high tide. then you ve got the storm surge. and you ve got the actual rain that s dumping. this is the part that is going to affect people for days to come. it s not just being able to withstand the winds in the hurricane. it s being able to withstand the flooding, the power outage, the downed wires, the downed trees that kate snow was talking about. what s the situation on the streets there? is everybody off the streets? for the most part, everybody got out of town. it was a voluntary evacuation so some people stayed behind. those that decided to stay on higher ground.
to change directions and that is where we are going to feel the brunt of it. we are feeling florence lash out. the wind, the sand, according to the weather app, the wind gusts that i m feeling are up to 50-60 miles per hour. the good thing is, i haven t seen anybody walking around. that is good news. it is unlike other hurricanes that we have covered where you have people wandering about. here, this island under mandatory evacuation order. as you can see, it s a ghost town. people are hunkering down because this hurricane is coming and high tide is coming in two hours. i probably won t be able to do these walking shots that i m doing now once that tide starts going up. ali? yeah, you make a good point. i m here on myrtle beach. we are on the two most popular beaches in the region. yesterday, there were all sorts
of people walking around here taking a look. look up and down this beach. there is nobody left. we had a beach patrol vehicle going up and down making sure there s nobody on this beach. there are a couple reporters on here. we have access to shelter when we need it. the wind, you are close to me. we are not getting the winds and rain you are getting, but we are getting the gusts now. it s becoming more and more steady. i think what you have we are getting soon. ali, i m about an hour from north myrtle beach. something else i want to show you is, i want my cameraman to show you these streets are starting to get flooded here. this hurricane isn t even here yet. so, when we talk about the historic flooding that this area could see, the 20-40 inches of rain, these are the streets where people are not going to be able to drive-through for a
u.s. coast guard in south carolina. as of now, we are at a heightened state of readiness. we have people in your location around myrtle beach. we are understooding just starting to feel the effects of the hurricane on your end. we have steady wind here, not what you are experiencing. all week by moving people, boats, aircraft around the gulf and the sea board. captain, we don t know, yet, what the full effect is going to be certainly on the coast at myrtle beach. the storm is moving very slowly, could go inland, could go out, skirt the coast and come down here. in south carolina, you are going to have a lot of flooding incidents. bill karins was telling me overnight saturday into sunday, midnight sunday, places as far as columbia are going to get the
second, bill. let s go to fema the presser just started. let s listen in together. the american red cross, the national voluntary organizations active in disasters, fema s office of disability integration, and of course we will close with a spanish language update from our fema spokesperson, daniel yargas. also available for questions. we will have the national flood insurance program and the environmental protection agency. and with that, i will turn it over to noah fornoaa for a weat update. at around 7:15 this morning, the center of hurricane florence made landfall at wrightsville beach, north carolina. it s currently a category 1 hurricane. with 90-mile-an-hour winds.