they have had more than 200 people spending the evening at their shelter. thanks, jennifer. hurricane irene is barreling down the north carolina shoreline. relief workers are standing by and ready to respond. joining us on the phone to explain more 1 major general gregory lusk who is with the national guard. i am looking on the computer and i can see that irene is now 60 miles off the coast of north carolina. what are you seeing in your state in. good morning. thanks. i haven t seen much from my position. i am located in raleigh, north carolina right now. we are experiencing some of the rain bands and occasional gusts, but unfortunately i m not at the coast, so i can t say firsthand what is going on there. tell us about the resources you have lined up and ready to go to respond to this
i m t.j. holmes bringing you the latest on the massive storm. hurricane irene that could affect about 20% of the population of the united states. here you are getting a look at the path of the storm. the projected path of the storm right now. some 65 million people are being threatened by this storm. it s in some of the largest cities of the country that are under threat of the storm. we are talking about new york, washington d.c., baltimore, boston, philadelphia. all areas not accustomed, necessarily, to being ready for hurricanes. hurricane irene is now a category one storm. it is on the north/northeastern path. it has been downgraded to a category one storm, but do not let that fool you. this is still a massive and powerful storm which is on the higher end of the category one strength. it did weaken overnight. it weakened somewhat overnight. still has sustained winds that are around 90 miles an hour. that is on the higher end of a category one storm. you have hurricane war
measurements are key. visually, is there much you can tell? visually, i have not flown into a hurricane before. i think visually there s certainly concerning indications you get. in particulars as you are able to look at 9 structure and the organization that the eyewall has. that tells you a lot about h how how intensely the central circulation is developing. so i ve seen the eyewall of hurricanes from the space shuttle looking down from on high all the way through a 50,000 foot storm. and i ll be very interested to see what the eyewall of irene looks like tonight. is it a smooth ride right now? it is right now a smooth ride. we get bounced and buffeted a little bit as we go through the rain bands, where the thunderstorms that are pumping all this lie. from the spiral pattern you see on at site images. we ve gotten a bit bounced as
wolf blitzer is off tonight. i m joe johns. you re in the situation room. i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected president of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. don t wait, don t delay. we all hope for the best, but we have to be prepared for the worst. we how is it going in new york right now, mary? you just heard the president speak about this hurricane. new york had asked the president to declare emergency assistance. and the president did have an emergency declaration for new york, meaning the city and state will get federal help. but this is an unprecedented move in new york today, joe. the mayor michael bloomberg has ordered iffer the first time mandatory evac yags in low-lying areas of new york. and this encome passes areas that affect between 200 and 300,000 people. this out of caution and concern about high water and heavy winds. earlier throughout the day, there have been some evacuations taking place in hospitals and n
of the storm is at least a couple of hundred miles wide. clouds and heavy downpours of rain all the way from southern new england down towards areas of extreme north carolina. the storm is pulling away from the carolinas. you can barely make out the eye. we are starting to see the rain bands work their way into the new england area. new england is really where we ll feel the biggest effects of the storm. you can see the storm is working its way to the northeast and it will be encountering some cooler water. but we are anticipating the strength to pretty much stay the same at least for now and then eventually weaken. here s the track as we go through the next couple of days. you can see the storm working its way, getting very close to the cape and the outer islands. there s nantucket. as it works its way to newfoundland by the time we get to saturday morning, gusts stronger at 85 miles per hour.