wind potential. but the greatest most life threatening conditions, is that southwest and now west coast of florida, and this is an hour by hour situation because it depends on where this eye comes ashore, does it parallel the coast and we ll be following that all day. there is big ramifications if it goes all the way up to st. petersburg area today. to wbbh s gary brod in cape coral, florida. i understand you ve got a lot of downed tree branches, i see one snapped right behind you. that looks like a fairly thick branch. reporter: alex, it is a very big branch. i want to give you an example of how big it is. i have a 6 6 wingspan and it is at least double. 13 to 15 feet. i m not sure exactly if it was because of the wind or lightning. we haven t had much lightning in the area. i m assuming it is wind. wind speeds have picked up anywhere between 20 to $30 mi30
to that core. that s where you re getting those winds of 120, 130, 140 miles per hour and the surge that will be coming up here, so, again, absolutely life threatening conditions here. you do not want to be out in this. will only get worse for the next several hours, and then the eye will come up, things will get calm for a little while and you ll get the back side of the storm. remember, the water does funnel in from the back. so just because the eye has passed through doesn t mean conditions will get much better there in the keys. and the conditions across the lower part of the peninsula of florida will only get worse here, but there is still time, if you re along the coastal communities, marco island, toward tampa and live along the water in a surge threat area, you still can get out and i would advise based on the intensity trends, this is not getting any weaker. in fact, it is showing signs of getting stronger. so there is still time for you to act, the high tide cycle here
people, urged them to evacuate if they live near one of the construction cranes. however, i saw a lot of lights on in a lot of the towers near these cranes, so it is going to be interesting to monitor the cranes and keep an eye out to see what happens. we have seen them, dan, and it is an absolutely frightening picture that you so aptly paint there. we weren t able to see them but you ve done a great job. i wish you could see my face when you start talking about it. my eyes got as big as saucers, that s frightening. here in new york city we had that happen before, not from a storm, but just because the crane wasn t operational properly. and they have been deadly. so a lot to be concerned about there. dan, i ll let you go right now. i hope to speak with you again from wtvj, good job, thank you. to paul ulrich of global climate modeling. with a welcome to you, paul, let s get to it, what do you make of the way irma has restrengthened in just the last
so just give me an assessment of power there. reporter: we have been pretty lucky so far on power. we re not expecting that luck to continue. as you look up there, you can see one of the streetlights currently still on, down the road, i don t know if you can see, we re able to see several different houses with power right now. last check, in the three major counties we have, about 1500 people were without power. so not a large number by any stretch of the imagination. we have seen worse on a bad storm day. but like we said, we continue we expect that number to continue to rise throughout the next couple of days. keep a close eye on the wind speeds, don t want you getting stuck anywhere where it is not safe for you. thank you for joining us live on msnbc. thank you, gary. still ahead, the preparations in place to help those being hit hard by irma s wrath.
intensifies now, the more problems you have upstream going on throughout the duration of this event. this is another situation where we re now casting. so we re forecasting out the window, it is now casting hour by hour. at 11:00, the hurricane center said this will stay a 3. it is up to a 4 now. it is an hour by hour situation. we have to handle the next 6 to 12 hours. people in georgia, south carolina, you need to be keeping an eye on it. based on what we re seeing here, you better be preparing for it. prepare for the worst. hope for the best. that s what you do. steve, thank you for that. we ll see you again. we have certainly been seeing amazing pictures throughout the night as hurricane irma s winds have blown now the florida keys. let s take a look at some of them right now.