in this part of north carolina. yeah, it is raining and raining hard here. right now the winds here as you ve said have kicked up. the boats behind me they are rocking, they re beginning to rock here, and this is river. not even the ocean. i can t even look that way because that s the way the wind is blowing right now. and john, you were talking about the duration of this storm, and that is what makes it so dangerous, and you talk about the trees. a tree maybe can sustain winds in tropical storm force, cat 1, cat 2 for an hour. but if it keeps on blowing for 8, 12, 20 hours which is what s happening here, that s a real problem. sure. you know, sometimes when the winds are sustained it s not that big a deal for a while, but when the winds begin to abate and gust that starts the rocking. and as anyone knows in imperial, north carolina, knows those storms after fran, those oak
of the eye. this is always the case. where the most damage will occur. offshore in myrtle beach no surge at all. even chris said the water s far away, way down the coast because they re getting an inverse shift here. that s why it s so dangerous. still 11 to 7 foot surge all around the barrier island. clearly this is dangerous situation for those rivers in the bemlico sound area. and it will not be allowed to come back down the river because the wind is just blowing it straight up. this number, atlantic beach, occurred around 7:00 last night when i was actually going to bed. it was 12 inches. it s rained all night long. i have no idea what this number is right now. it could be 24. that could be 2 feet of water
in wilmington, which is little bit inland, a little bit up the cape fear river. you can see behind me this is river, not the ocean here. you can see i think the white caps on this river kicking up around the boats here. i was out here when it was still daylight and it was significantly lower. i would say 5 to 6 feet lower. now, it is closer to high tide now. that could have something to do with it but perhaps some surge as this storm moves closer to where we are. i m in wilmington. about 13 miles down from where i am right now is carolina beach. that s where we find meteorologist derek van dam. give us a sense what you re seeing. well, no doubt, john, the full story of hurricane florence is still yet to be written because this a long duration storm, a long duration event. this is incredible what we re
rained out of the sky and then the wind trying to push all that water back up toward ed, too. yeah, it s like a isn t it? behind me i have this cape river and this flows down into the atlantic basically. but what s happening is the surge will push it up at the same time that the flooding rain brings it down. and there s concern in the cape fear river, at 10 feet it floods. it could reach 22 if not 24 feet and of course all along this river here there are lagoons, all kinds of live stock that can wash right into this river, right down. the river master told us he simply doesn t know some of the things that could end up in this river over the next few days. that s a concern. cat, i know you say in this storm it s not exactly the eyewall and the eye of this storm, but just for reference point because i think people want to know when will the center of the storm make
bill: the cape fear river which you can t see now because it s dark. there is no electricity. we are using generator power in wilmington now. i reached all-time record high today, martha. higher from matthew from two years ago in 2016. higher from hurricane hazel in 1954. think of that. 64 years ago. historic storm such as hazel has been topped now by the cape fear river and the rain that continues to be pushed up the rivers here in north carolina as a result of florence. you go up and down the coast, that is the big concern. my sense is midday tomorrow, so many reporters have descended here throughout the state offare. but they can only get to so many places. with so many roads blocked and so many impediments on the way, i think it will be mid-day tomorrow when we start to get a better picture now about some of the rivers and the flooding. it could get much worse than we have seen so far once we get access to it. martha: i think you are