and had this gone this way a little bit more we would have had a lot more land to deal with. right here still a lot of water and still a lot of very warm water in there to feed it. shepard: the thinks is ache it tracks over coast very close to the shore and that shallower. i wonder if that makes a difference. at this point it s going to be moving so fast and we re talking about another, say, 18 hours by the time it emerges back here and if gets towards long island. so, if it s 85 mile-per-hour storm now. my guess is going to be talking about 75 mile-per-hour storm as we get towards long island. so definitely going to weaken a little bit. but it s going to hug this coast and pummel all these areas. shep, look at thee rainfall projections here. that s over 12 inches of rain across the delmarva and storm surge, even though you won t get awflted storm surge necessarily in here. a lot of water that s pushed up in towards the chesapeake bay, in towards the delaware bay. a lot of it ahead
coverage throughout this morning and afternoon. we ll also be checking in storm chasers and folks riding out the storms from their homes. but, first and foremost, chief meteorologist rick reichmuth in the extreme weather center. tell us about movement, rick. continuing to move off from the north, northeast jog to it center coming right here towards cape lookout. that point right there. kind of very end of the outer banks. the worst of it obviously off towards the east. if you are on this other side of this now, your wind has switched and you are getting pummeled from a north wind now here. storm going to continue to move over the pameleca sound. in the meantime rain making its way half way up the state of delaware. now making its way across the southern part of new jersey, getting in close towards parts of the northeast. looked at that last image. pretty good band moving in towards central jersey. take a look at weather models. this is why we are feeling very confident in the path of
along with 60, 70 miles per hour winds. tons of trees down and tons of pour outages. some people dealing with pour outages that you have your power out for a long time because they can t repair it that quickly. 32 miles per hour. cape hatteras. southeast at 87. 87. shepard: wow. i have seen one at 115 is the highest gust i have seen so far. shepard: rick, stay with us. because i have some questions about that storm tracker and that s going to happen there. beverly purdue the governor of north carolina is holding news conference with important information from our coastal residents. listen. have at this point in time lost power. probably more. these are the ones that we can point to this afternoon. we ll have some real communication system issues in carter and dare county. nash county hospital and at least one of our highway patrol headquarters are working on generators as we speak. we know that we have waste water plants in new hanover and terrell county that are
the wind is like. your clothes are flapping in the breeze there, bro. the reason we do it, shep, is because we get paid to do it. that s the bottom line. it helps people at home sort of experience what it s like to be in the teeth of one of these things. if this were a category 4 hurricane, would i be standing out here? not likely. i went through of those hugo in 1989 in charleston. i don t want to get through another one of those again. category 1 hurricane you are pretty good staying out here most of the storm though my ears are definitely getting sandblasted. shepard: that happens. the waves behind you, i don t know if it s the camera or what. but they look like they are 10 times your height. they are not. probably pushing 7 or 8-foot waves at this point. the tide is out. not coming too far up the shore. low tide is a little after 12. high tide is going to be at 6:00. and if this hurricane does continue on the forecast track and the eye comes right over us
it s prey incredible to think that we had bad conditions this morning. we are right in the outer bands about 200 miles north of the eye of hurricane irene. a big concern here is warning until 11:00 a.m. also storm surge what local officials are concerned about, the tides are going out. about 3 hours away they will be at their loweth point. hurricane irene the eye gets here in about six hours high tide will be in. that s a big concern for residents here note on that but the onlookers don t want to be seeing right now voluntary evacuation in place for a reason and next 5 to 6 hours. they don t want anyone leaving their homes. don t want anyone on the roadway. we re experiencing a number of road closures as well as flooding on the streets. a lot of state inspectors say if they can t get to those bridges or overpasses or streets.