left-hand corner of puerto rico. massive dam. that is a massive dam. they had to start evacuating people from that area. we did that again last week when the original rains brought this problem to the dam, but now they re reevacuating people because of the threat of more flooding and collapse of the dam. the spokesperson for puerto rico s governor said on the recommendation of fema, authorities evacuated a few hundred residents from the areas adjacent to the dam, flash flood warnings in effect for the northwestern parts, flash flood watches cover the entire u.s. territory. here is the latest satellite loop, and at the moment we have a brief break in the thunderstorm activity, but there is more shower and thunderstorms, abundant amount of moisture means more rainfall for this area through the course of the day today. the heaviest of rain was on saturday. we have lighter showers anticipated to end out the weekend and finally a break as
flash flooding to ocur later on today. we re already seeing a couple of pictures of flash flooding. this is a 5 1/2-hour satellite loop. the shore came onshore about 6:00 this morning. it moved right to the south of palomas delmar, to the south of san juan, and now it s moving offshore. if you were on the north side of this eye, this is called the dirty side, because you not only had the 145-mile-per-hour wind, but you had the forward motion that you have to add to it. this is the cleaner side, you still have the wind, but you also have the other way, because where wind is blowing this way and the storm is going that way. so it s additive and subtractive. and the big problem, i think, is when we get out into the countryside and truly see what happened over here, anywhere, you know, 50 miles north southeast and west of the rain forest, this is the area where we ll truly see where the damage occurred. we ll see a lot in san juan, don t get me wrong.
listen to your locals. this storm has potential to devastate our state and you have to take this very seriously. that s florida governor rick scott there basically saying, hey, this is the real deal. irma is coming and people need to get ready or get out. especially if you are in that target zone. take a look at the satellite loop here. the image of where irma is now. people who live in the florida keys are getting ready to leave. people who are visiting the florida keys have been told already they got to go. irma clobbered st. martin and the leeward islands a little earlier this morning. this is some video from that. taking aim at puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands next and then turn to the bahamas. gabe gutierrez seems covering hurricanes for the last two and a half weeks, gabe. another one on the way. looks beautiful where you are now. that will, obviously, change. can you talk about the evacuations and what is happening now? good morning, hallie.
hope that the hope would be this thing would dissipate and go out into the atlantic. we have to prepare for the worst. florida s governor rick scott declaring a state of emergency in all of his states, 67 counties, ahead of hurricane irma. now barreling toward the caribbean as a category 5 hurricane with winds up to 175 miles an hour. tomorrow morning a mandatory evacuation of the florida keys will begin for tourists. government officials say another evacuation for residents is l k likely to follow. the national weather service calling the storm dangerous saying it could strengthen ahead of reaching the u.s. virgin islands and puerto rico. rafael miranda joins me now with the very latest. this sounds alarming to say the least. it is alarming. florida on high alert. irma continues to strengthen as we head throughout the morning, now the strongest atlantic basin hurricane on record with winds of 180 miles per hour. we have not seen a storm like this in the atlantic basin. here is a
you can see where the flooding was, some of the waters have gone down a little bit, you can see debris all over the neighborhood. just neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood like this. again, still raining when this video was taken a short time ago, listen. neighbors coming out to assist there. this is the latest loop from the satellite that nasa has sent us, the satellite loop goes back about 24 hours and you can see that circulation in this storm, it s overland now. you can see a little bit of an eye and these walls will reform and there it is, another huge area of explosive storms there. dryer over to the west, lots more moisture there. and again, many more days of this next you have to come. here it is, this is at a supermarket and what town was a?