largely positive report from punta gorda. the mayor of that town joining us. thank you very much. stay safe. joining us now by phone is storm chaser, meteorologist justin drake, who earlier today we saw him brave the elements to get wind measurements in the keys. what can you tell me tonight? reporter: well, currently where we re at, the conditions are a lot calmer than they were today now that the hurricane has moved well off to our north. conditions here calmed down, so now it s just been trying to assess how much damage has occurred in the area. now we can start the recovery process. so where are you right now? right now we are in homestead, florida. so we are just south of the city of miami. so the winds were pretty violent earlier in the day. they seemed to be slowing to some extent although there were still gusts topping over 100, we understand. but the storm seems to be
in on these areas too. that s right in this area here. this is where the potential, at least the rotation were a possible tornado. that was in the dark. and you can t tell and you can t confirm any of this stuff until the morning. here is the loop of the radar to show you that eye. it doesn t look like it s going very west, does it? look at the intensity, though of those purples. right. it actually those darker shades, the reflectivity here, the extreme heavy rainfall is actually wasn t even it s actually gotten stronger, that little northern portion there. again, that s because it s drawing its fuel from external to land. so it s counteracting the advice s you usually give us which is land is a corrosive factor to the lands. florida is extremely flat there is really no mountains there is no hills. the bands are clearly out here in the gulf over the warm water. we ve got bands in the atlantic over the warm water. it s been pouring rain over the state of florida. there is ju
nearing tampa/lakeland area, which you just heard the weather channel talking about, as still a category 2 hurricane at this point. it has decreased from the category 4 that it hit down in the keys to a category 2. that does not mean that it is not dangerous, and we will go get more information about that in a moment. before we do, we re going to flip to the other side of florida. we re going to go over to nbc s maya rodriguez, who is reporting from the brick nell section of downtown miami. what are you seeing now? it doesn t look like it s raining. reporter: nothing you wouldn t expect on a regular sunday night to be honest wu, cynthia. but we do have storm surge. about four feet of storm surge brought in by irma. and this is the brickle section of downtown miami. it s the financial heart of the city of miami. there s also a number of people who live down here. it s a very densely populated neighborhood. lots of high-rise hotels here as well. look at this.
to about 100 miles per hour. so if we re focusing on an area or region, if you re with your family and you haven t lost power yet and you re still listening, you want to get to your safe area. again, that s this area. there is the northern eye. and when we see these magenta colors in here, that s when we get to the extreme rainfall. and that actually helps bring down some of the stronger winds from aloft. and that s when you can get that s when we saw our reporters in naples gust to 142. we shouldn t get that anymore. but the hurricane center still has us at 105, gusts to 130. so it is possible in this pink in here, if you get the purple over the top of you, that you could go through some of that. there is the ft. myers area there is ft. myers, you cleared out nicely. the back side does not have a loft rain to it. and in sebring, there is a lightning strike right there. so this still has convection with it and there are still thunderstorms. and there is fort immediate area. in sebrin
is going that way toward the gulf. what should it be doing is going in the opposite direction. manny, that s over here to the rite. what officials are concerned about is the storm surge. the hurricane is going to whip this all back, put the water back in the correct direction, and then it s all just going to flood this area. a major concern. as you can tell, let me catch my breath for a second. this wind is really strong. if you can see with the lights there, you can see just how much hurricane irma is whipping the winds. we re doing our very best to stay safe out here, obviously. but the hurricane is just really drilling down in this tampa area. and this just the beginning. we re being told that the really bad conditions will start to kick in around midnight. and then again around 3:00. so between midnight and 3:00, we will know the complete devastation here, whatever irma brings here during that time period. back to you. jamie, if you re trying to impress us with the river running