off for the past two hours or so. we ve been out several times for a couple seconds or couple minutes. it would be surprising if over the next hour hours when these winds really pick up there s another gust there, if the power stays on. so far it is right now. now, as miguel was saying, this storm is now tracking in a different direction. we were expecting the eye of irma to pass right over us around midnight pu now it. now it s tracking to the east, 20 to 30 miles to the east. what we are expecting starting right now at 10:00 p.m. is sustained winds of 80 miles per hour going all the way up to around 100 miles an hour. those are hurricane-force winds. those winds expected to last until 2:00 in the morning. what we re told because of the change in forecast, because of the change in this storm, that the city managers are hoping to send out emergency response teams around 2:00 a.m. to assess the damage. they were very disappointed.
i have not received damage reports from either of them yet. i think things are fine. all of this depends on which way that storm goes and making sure we stay on the good side of the storm and deal with as will are amount of surge tomorrow morning. we were looking into the abyss, don. it wasn t pretty but we were prepared. i ll tell you, this is where government matters. people with complain about the sides of government and efficiency of government, but when you need government, particularly at the local level, this is where you need us to be at our best and we re absolutely prepared to do that. mayor bob buckhorn of tampa, florida. good luck to you. we ll check back, mayor. thank you. when we come back as hurricane irma slams its way north through florida tonight, life-threatening storm surges. you heard the mayor talk about, may be the worst of the danger. live pictures as we go to break from clearwater, florida. look at the wind. so was your doctor s appointment at a steakhouse?
you can see this is how it works. it s calm for a second and then really it really picks up for a second. they really wanted this storm to happen during the day so that they could assess the damage and start responding to it during daylight hours. now all the damage is going to be done in the middle of the night. they ll have to start figuring it out in the morning. when we did speak we city manager yesterday, he said they were at peace with their preparations. they were ready and waiting for irma. they don t have to wait anymore. irma is here, don. absolutely. you can see it there, even your audio cutting out and you can hear the wind. we ll get back to you. stay safe. looks like it s picking up in sarasota, where alex marquardt is. let s get to ryan young in clearwater, florida. i know you re from the florida area, from tam pashpa, i belief. people should know the bulk of this storm hasn t gone up the i-4 corridor that connects tampa and orlando right now.
such a thing, when you re talking about a hurricane like this. there s been so much question, we re thinking 5 to 8 feet in saraso sarasota. they downgraded that 1 to 3 feet. we won t know about the storm surge until the early morning hours here. that s something i know the mayor is very, very concerned about because he s been raising red flags about this, frankly, as you know, don, he gave interviews last year at city hall saying if a cat 3 storm made a direct hit on tampa, the downtown would be 15 feet under water. this is a city that, you know, fills up or that floods in certain areas if there s a heavy rainfall. a cat 3 storm, which is what was anticipated yesterday, could have been devastating in terms of the surgery. i think people waiting for that 11:00 advisory. if you look at it, because you re standing in a body of water but clearwater has this body of water on one side and then the ocean on the other side.
might be worse news for people in the direction of orlando, but it could have hit tampa. the worst has not come to pass as of yet. a category 3 storm hitting tampa would have been completely unprecedented. you d have to go back to 1921 when it decimated this area. thankfully at that point, it wasn t a big population center, as it is now with millions of people. there was only one fatality in 1921. but the structures as they were were badly damage. a lot of people, including the mayor, who have been raising red flags about what a major storm with a direct hit on tampa would do. they faced this back in hurricane charley in 2004. there they dodged a bullet. unfortunately, for the people of punta gorda, the storm tracked at the last minute, turned and hit punta gorda and decimated that town. it was supposed to hit tampa. we were here in tampa, waiting for that, and ended up driving