wind gusts, chad was telling us, 90 miles per hour. behind me is the northeast cape fear river. i can t turn around and look at it because the wind is coming off so fiercely and blowing the water in your face if you turn around. it blows down past wilmington, and there s concern the storm surge could push the rivers back up into wilmington even as the tremendous rainfall, three inches of rain per hour creates a flooding situation with the rain coming down with the rivers. over 400,000 customers without power right now. we have seen the explosions, the bursts of light that indicates people will lose power and lose power quickly, as chad was saying the outer eyewall over us now in wilmington, and we are feeling it and the wind is coming down. what happens, as our satellite loses the feed, the rain is
but in two or three hours you will see the winds come from the other direct shpb. reporter: i will take your word for it that we will see possible not with the wind blowing and the visibility as low as it is at this moment. i keep looking behind me trying to get a look at the northeast cape river. i know the water will rise still. the cape fear river, which is that way from where i am right now about half a mile, the concern is it could top 22, 24 feet with the rain falling like it is over the next several days, and the river master just gave a dire warning to us about what we can expect when that happens. obviously when the water overflows its banks, there s
wilmington. just above the horizon i can see the blue explosions, the transformer explosions, the power has gone out already, and 280,000 customers without power, and the number rising minute by minute. behind me is the northeast cape fear river. one of the rivers that flows into the atlantic, the concern is that the storm surge will push some of the river up, and you might see flooding from the surge pushing up, but in the next few days, the rainfall falling at three inches per minute will flood the rivers and put them well over their banks. it floods at ten feet. and it could reach 22 feet.
say 60 miles per hour absolutely for sure. what happened to new bern? new bern is right there, up the noose river. there is not a drop of water all the way on the east side of pemblico sound. you can see the ground of pemblico sound if you re on the outer banks. it is dry right there. all the water getting pushed and the water not getting to fill that water in. it s already picked up 6 inches of rain, but the wind is pushing the water the other way. that s why that 10 1/2 foot storm surge is already there, and it s not stopping. the rain is continuing and the wind is continuing to push that rain back up the river. so it could go up another couple feet and that would verify the 13 foot storm surge without a doubt. here s the inner eyewall, down to about 70 miles per hour. don t let that fool you because
we re book with our breaking news, watching this massive storm battle the carolina coast. it just won t quit. our brian todd is joining me right now from wilmington, north carolina. brian, what s it like where you are right now? reporter: kate, the rain is still relentless. a couple of minutes ago, it really was like a wall of water. it s the closest thing to that that i ve ever experienced covering one of these hurricanes and i ve covered a lot of them. right now, we re at an area where it s getting much more dangerous. this is the cape fear river right behind me. now, in far lesser storms, this river often does rise above flood stage. in this storm, authorities are very, very concerned that the cape fear river could rise several feet above normal levels, several feet above some of its record flood stages, and we could be getting to that point right now, because some of the water, i m standing in some of the water that the river and the storm surge has pushed on to water street here