hil hillsboro river behind when that goes out to tampa bay, there hasn t been any major storm surge here. i m standing on the river walk. the 15 feet that could have happened here would have covered where i m standing. taken out a lot of property along the but a so we have not seen that. that s good news for tampa but we know that there has been a loss of power here. number estate wide has fluctuated. thousands of people lost power when the branches took out power lines. the hope is that they didn t also crash into mobile homes. those were ordered evacuated ahead of the storm. we can also take to you a place where the weather, wind especially, has been unforgiving over the last several hours. to the other coast of florida and that s daytona beach where sara sidner has been healediold to a cement wall as the wind is blowing there. sara, how is the weather now?
a large number of power lines down. some areas, p to 4 feet of water. warning residents to it is not safe to come outside. this is one of the most dangerous times is after major storm like this passes. traffic lights are out. people want out to see what is going on. we are telling people to please stay inside. and let first responders do our job. you are doing that with a curfew that goes through 6:00 a.m. eastern time. derek van dam, our meteorologist there, mentioned looting. how big of a problem has it been where you are? i know the city just north of us, ventura, had a bit of an issue. they resolved that issue. we ve been fortunate so far to not have that problem. we sent a pressage out early into the storm that miami-dade beach police department has one solution for looters.
we were told we today come back inside. we did so we are getting stronger gusts but right around the time when this is going to get its absolute worst. our forecasters there and cnn center, around 4:00, this is going to be the most difficult time and that s sustained for half an hour to 45 minutes. we are getting some of that right now. i want to mention something to you. we keep seeing lights go out and at one point it looked like the city was dark but then it was back on-line. we are in the same hotel when hundreds of florida power and light workers and florida power and light is going to be leaving. their folks are leaving tomorrow morning. once the storm passes through, they are ready to go to try and restore power especially to miami. we are told by a couple of guys here they will be leaving as soon as they can, as there is daylight and less wind. heading down to miami to try and turn that power back on for everyone.
department. they say the most dangerous part of the storm for miami is now. when people venture out and there is so much danger lushe d around where you are. yes. they are curious. they want to know, how is their property? how did their house fair? how did the trees fair? not a good time to go that. obviously downed power lines. water. water problems. trees blocking roadways. stale dangerous here. in fact still mandatory evacuation. or mandatory curfew in the region. this is equivalent to what we expect to see with hurricane category 1 wind. look at this tree that toppled over in the destruct you ve winds. of course the ground is extremely saturated for two reasons. about 10 inches of rain here but also with watermain break, that occurred with this particular tree. loosened up the soil. and ripped the six-inch piece of
that was a destruction equivalent of category 1 hurricane and sending power lines blushing. blues and greenes this morning in overnight period. that s when the storm was at its strongest. this is one of the examples of the many trees that have fallen on some of the power lines across the area. there are the transformers. and customers are without electricity right now. this is a concern for police because wouz electricity, homes are dark. alarms are not working. that s a security concern. police are heavily patrolling streets to make sure there is no looting. they have reported, 28 arrests because of looting just in miami-dade county alone. check this out, too. thanks to this tree that toppled