about an hour ago this beach was filled with people behind me looking at the waves trying to get a sense of what hurricane dorian is going to do here. what s the message to the people on the coast of florida that they need to get right now? that you re in the high hazard area. as the storm intensifies and worsens, those conditions can change rapidly. local officials have been ordering evacuation and that s really what we need people to do is to move to higher ground, move out of those low-lying areas. don t be fooled that conditions may not be severe now, but some of these bands are coming in quite vicious. we expect that to increase. stay out of these high-risk areas, move to higher ground and wait for the storm to pass. reporter: now, i know some 4,000 national guard have now been deployed, ready to respond as soon as this storm comes through. what else does the federal government, does the state government, do local governments here need to be doing now as this storm bears down?
getting is coming from hurricane hunters, from these planes flying through, above, all around hurricane dorian. the information they have been sending back is saving lives. when we come back, we ll speak to one of the people flying in those planes through the storm. cnn s special live coverage continues right after this. so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. the united states postal service makes more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country.
allison chinchar. she has a brand new update on the path and the intensity of dorian, allison, which is very important. it is, yes. also the direction. finally some good news to provide. the storm is now moving west-northwest instead of due west. that may seem like such a nominal thing to point out but it s very important because it now means we re starting to see that gradual shift off to the north. this is great news for not only people in freeport but also along the florida coast because it begins it s beginning that shift away from florida and up the coast rather instead. now, i want to emphasize this does not mean florida will not be impacted. it just means that we re starting to see that northward trend so the landfall across florida is starting to come down, at least the chances. however, because impacts will still be in place, we have hurricane watches, warnings as well as tropical storm warnings across the east coast of florida. mainly due to the fact that the winds are stil
never seen with a hurricane because you can t be this close to the ocean. you see the ocean out there. it didn t look like that a couple of days ago. it is much higher today. that doesn t make sense except with a hurricane it pushes the water out and out and out and finally sort of creates a bulge of water. but when the hurricane leaves, the danger won t be over. that water will have to go somewhere. it will rush in here and probably top the barrier between where we are and the beach. luckily we re on the third floor. but it would seem very likely that there could be extensive flooding here. the authorities said expect up to 20 feet of storm surge once the hurricane leaves and that is, as you know, the most deadliest part of a hurricane. they say you hide from the wind and you run from the water. in this case many, many people will not be able to run from that storm surge. another gust right there. dorian just is not done with the bahamas. but when that storm surge does come up and if
allison was saying the hurricane is starting to turn north now. and while that is good news, we are going to get hurricane wind impacts all up the florida coast, everywhere on the florida coast. they need to be prepared and be ready for this, and they are taking precautions. mandatory evacuations under way in many counties all the way up to charleston, south carolina, as well. i m going to go to daytona beach, florida. daytona beach might be where the storm gets the closest to the florida coast. there are mandatory evacuation orders under way there. rosa flores on the ground. rosa, tell us what you re seeing. reporter: right now it s nice and sunny and beautiful, but just as you ve been saying, john, we re getting those outer bands of hurricane dorian so every now and then, that s why i m keeping my rain gear on because every now and then it will start pummelling with rain, the winds pick up. they are brief but very powerful. take a look behind me, we re seeing high tide right now.