we re going to take a quick break, but obviously we ve been covering the hurricane as it moves towards the united states at around 2:00 a.m. eastern time. it brushed the northern coast of cuba. there was a mandatory evacuation order there in cuba trying to move tourists, residents, cuban citizens off of the northern coast. as we heard stephanie there say, any hopes that hurricane irma may have begun to break up as it made its way off of the coast of cuba seems to not have materialized because it is making its way towards the florida keys for potentially two landfalls. one on the florida keys and later on on the actual peninsula of florida. a lot of concern there. obviously, we ve already received reports of deaths in cuba. we know that 90% of barbuda earlier in the week was also damaged as a result of hurricane irma. this is a hurricane that is not slowing down any time soon. stay with us.
let s get a quick update on the path of the storm of hurricane irma. to that we turn to the weather channel, stephanie abrams in delray beach. different conditions where you are right now, stephanie, than where julia was at the very tip of florida where we expect the hurricane potentially to make two landfalls. one on the key west isles, and then further north on florida s west coast. if this does make landfall as a category four, this would be the first time in recorded history that the yaegts has had two category four landfalls in the same season. of course, we had harvey in texas and now we do have irma. we do anticipate that happening. i am a little bit farther north, but we re going to start to see here what she s seeing with the outer bands coming in. it is much breezier today, and what s happening is we have our low pressure, which is our storm so the south. it s actually a high pressure off to our north. there s a little squeeze play of the winds in between those. that s help
obviously, the salvation army. there are many ways you can donate. we also heard of ways you can help rescue pets too, so there s many facets that you can help. leland: yeah. and right now as we have heard, especially for folks florida south and those in key west, bill nelson telling us there s about 10,000 people still in the florida keys. it s too late, and now people down there need our thoughts and our prayers as irma bears down. as irma leaves cuba and heads north, could very easily intensify in the straits of florida with that warm gulf water. and even as we heard from the national hurricane center, they don t know yet, does irma make those two landfalls, or does it stay a little bit off the shore and able to keep its strength up as it just sort of tears up the west coast of florida? it s just too early to tell. elizabeth: we had our own adam houseley, nice key largo, and it was less he s in key largo, and in less than an hour, winds were up to 5 35 miles per hour. really he
at first it was going westerly. now it s west-northwesterly at 12 miles per hour, and i was really watching that because, unfortunately for cuba, boy, i mean, the torrential downpours and the hurricane force winds have been relentless for cuba. particularly on the north part of the island. now we re getting some of those feeder bands. the very outer feeder bands coming into the keys right now. winds are picking up. current winds as far north assist west palm up to 25 miles per hour. the winds are stronger in key west, and they re going to go up from there. if you are just joining us now, and you haven t most of the computer models have really concentrated this track on the west coast to florida. that means potentially we could see two landfalls with this system. one around the florida keys sometime on sunday morning, and then a second one, sunday into monday, on the west coast of florida. also, even just looking at this now, the first thing i m thinking of, hey, i thought we though
things have changed with the track since yesterday morning. hugging more of the west coast of florida, so a double landfall is possible along the florida keys perhaps early sunday morning and then again sunday afternoon near naples. sth a possibility in terms of exactly where it will pinpoint and we ll see the eye pass over. the national hurricane center mentioned one of the reasons that the forecast is difficult to make for the actual eye or center of the storm is because of the angle at which it s approaching florida. so something to keep watch on. but most of those models are trending west, so that s what we re seeing right now. if you look, notice how tightly those lines are together. there was a time when it was pretty widespread, but now we re confident that it is going to move towards the west. the potential to go back to a category 5 exists. the water temperature in the florida straits, 90 impress. of course the storm surge in southwest florida sunday morning, very high. and