anticipate we will, we re not coming. we re not putting people in peril when they didn t heed the mandatory evacuation. giving what we know now, do you know how many homes, what area will be under water when the worst of it hits there, when the worst of the storm surge hits for? well, right now, as it appears, probably not anything under water. we re expecting 4 to 6 feet of storage surge. areas of upper tampa bay, safety harbor, northeast st. petering burg, those are the areas we most concerned about. well, that s a good update to hear, but i know you and your team are taking this seriously, sheriff gualtieri, it s going to
bands, the winds, waves, surge it will be happening. most of these storms come in and go. this is going to sit here for 24 to 36 hours once it makes landfall. we re not talking about from now so we ll talk about this storm through the weekend as it s sitting here dumping rain. the storage surge and flooding will be the two main concerns with this storm. we re talking about taking a beat of 120 mile per hour winds for 24 hours, a lot of structures will fail but the inundation of waters will be devastating with this storm. all 6 that energy is coming along with it and it will come
addition strong winds and this is where the biggest threat fors is loekded. you have to understand where the storm came from to know what to expect. look at the amounts of rain that have been dropped in portions of florida. ft. pierce with 16 inches of rain. gainsville with nearly a foot. napeles with a foot of rain. look at georgia and it recently started to rain. kingsland over 10 inches of rain already. homeland about eight inches of rain. keep in mind for georgia, the rain is still coming and likely will for the next several hours. the numbers are going to go up in terms of wind speed. we will not see numbers like this going forward, but they are impressive and naples with a wind gust of over 140 miles per hour. largo island at 130 miles per hour. storage surge is still a concern for portions of florida. mostly on the western coast.
and it s just a massive storm with all of the swirling clouds, and that s what is covering up virtually the whole state of florida right now. bill: yeah, i bet it s a beautiful thing from space but a hell of a thing to go through on the ground, and millions are experiencing that now. senator, good luck. we ll speak again very soon. bill nelson, the democratic senator from florida, riding this out through orlando tonight. sandra, on we go. irma is here, back to you in new york. things changing by the minute. bill. irma pummelling florida with hurricane-force winds but authorities pointing out the biggest danger comes from potential storage surge. we re going live on the ground in naples next where they re bracing for a potential 15-foot wall of water. oh. hey mom. now that we have your attention. capri sun has four updated drinks.
massive storage surge of 10 to 15 feet. that did not materialize. we were actually here in downtown naples. this is where the eye of the storm blew through. you see toppled trees and knocked down power lines. this area is without power. you mentioned so many people in shelters at germaine arena. many people went up there and have been there for several days and said yes, the power went out at the arena. several thousand people were inside and the roof began to leak at one point, but again, a local emergency management official said the building was safe and the situation was controlled. we spoke with one evacuee overnight and said the situation was improving there. as i m walking over here, talking about the storm surge. if you look, this is not far from the beach, this street. there is some water down there. and there was some overnight flooding in the naples area, but for the most part, that storm surge just did not materialize. if it had, this entire street