leave is now. we know some people may be inconvenienced but this is the best way to keep south carolina and s alive. reporter: i spoke to a local businessman in cocoa beach who said he is grateful the storm didn t make a direct hit but he did say because it came during labor day weekend, millions of dollars in lost revenue. shannon: if they tell you to evacuate do so because it puts first responders in danger if they try to get to you. hurricane dorian stalled over the bahamas as florida braces for impact. janice dean is tracking the monster storm. live team coverage next.
welcome back, official sounding the alarm is hurricane dorian inches close to the florida coast. the category 3 storm threatening millions of americans after claiming 5 lives in the bahamas, many are following the evacuation orders. we have wind but no rain. i ve seen forecasts that put this 100 miles off the florida coast, tropical storm force windss extent 150 miles from the storm center. if that holds florida s barrier islands like cocoa beach will still experience damaging wind and dangerous storm surge, pouring rain from west palm beach to charleston, south
it is fantastic but pretty slow, one inspector going one home at a time thinking about the technology standpoint, flyover technology, big data analytics, satellite imagery to assess claims the same way insurance companies do. heather: we heard this before. a lot of charities pop up, some not legitimate charities with incidents like this to rethink charitable giving. not only the relief and response to find the charitable organizations with values, take nothing from the work which is vital and critically important in those first days and weeks after the storm. the long-term recovery is more expensive and less visible and
evacuation, okay? reporter: one of the frustrations is oftentimes residents even in mandatory evacuation zones residents want to stay and that it is really hard if not impossible to get help once the storm hits. listen to what a police officer had to say yesterday about a particular area that always gets flooded in these storms. usually a big flood zone. every storm but as far as a hurricane it is catastrophic. where we are standing now is there a likelihood? yes. definitely a likelihood this will be underwater. they have done everything they can but we have seen transformers blowing so part of the barrier island already without power and this is just beginning. terrible for sure. we appreciate your coverage.
the storm has a window of time to strengthen a little bit over warm waters and stationary, not moving, we expect that northward turn to happen today but you see outer bands in melbourne and st. lucie, not only tropical storm force windss but 4 to 7 foot storm surge and weak tornadoes. we haven t talked about that with landfalling hurricanes moving close to shore. we have a chance of thunderstorms and tornadoes. the closest approach to landfall is going to be across north and south carolina and this is thursday still as a cat 3 or cat 2 storm. all eyes are on these vulnerable beach areas in the next couple days. that is when we have the greatest impact.