continuing coverage of hurricane irma, i m isa soares and you are joining me in miami. i m in the financial portion here of miami t not one point during the day when really the hurricane, when irma was pounding through here, the water was as high as pretty much 3 feet, up to your waste. as you can see its receded so much. many people here are thankful the damage hasn t been as bad as some were expected. the officials need to assess the damage. let me show you video of some of the worst damage we have seen throughout the day here in miami. street practically covered in flood waters. miami being battered with powerful winds as well as heavy rains. this is some of the a first look at some of the damage. take a look at this dramatic
i m about to show you something that has shaken me unlike anything i have seen in 25 years and eight other hurricanes. thursday night i stood right here and interviewed the owner after bar called snappers and a bunch of very festive key west residents who were debating whether to evacuate or stay. peter, that time, was determined to stay. hold up inside his bar. he changed his mind. good thing he did. because it is completely gone. look at this. gone. the entire bar. right here. where i sat and had shrimp tacos with my crew after la live shot and hang out with these warm gracious people. gone. shoved up by the storm surge into the side of the fence of the neighboring businesses here. this was the bar. can you see they tried to board up with plywood and the storm, winds blew through it.
at some point that water is going to come back. even if it s not as fast as we thought it was before it could be really rey dangerous especially with the winds ripping around. for the most part the street are clear, people are not out here. we talked to a few people who are staying in high-rises downtown and they knew they were going to ride it out. they knew they were going to be in for a stronger sway higher up but they did that. 28,000 people in this county, hillsboro county which tampa is in are in 45 shelters around the area. they say they still had room but if you re not there don t go out. there s no reason to come out here right now. while it may look like this is a calmer moment it changes on a dime so fast. you can feel you re taken offer your balance by the win and the rain so it s not worth coming out here. it s much better to stay inside, stay with your loved ones and
are some that were strong enough to have tornadic winds. it is an incredible scene as you look out on the beach, the water is coming up on the boardwalk that everybody loves here ndiaye toe that. we are told by cnn meteorologist department that the worst of it is yet to come. we ve got a couple more hours before the worst of the storm hits us. michael. sarah, i can t see the pictures where i am here in tampa but it sounds like an extraordinary scene where you are. do take care. we will check in with you a little bit later. sarah mentioning tornadoes, there have been a lot of tornado warnings throughout the state. isa soares in miami. back to you.
wait a bit longer before you can return to your homes, before you can get that green light, that s still crucial because the winds are still strong. and of course with water still here in the main motor way it becomes very dangerous indeed. michael. it certainly does isa. thank for that. we ll get back to you in a moment. it s interesting, isa talking to people without power. that number is now approaching 4 million without power in this state. an extraordinary number. it s going to be days. there s a lot of utility crews headed down from out of states, as far as away as the carolinas to help out down here. it could be weeks for some people before they get the power back on, hopefully days but it could be weeks. the rain has really been picking up here in the last little while. it was just coming straight at us horizontal the wind picking