water. if another low-lying neighborhoods now under mandatory evacuation orders, mayor bloomberg tonight saying the city transportation system will shut down at noon tomorrow. all five local airports in danger of flooding. they re being closed arriving flights starting at noon. now this is what they re concerned about. pictures here of irene hitting the bahamas. new yorkers are used to seeing this on tv, not up close, though. but they might see a version of it in about 36 hours from now. all day today irene was making its way north. and as it did. emergency plans started kicking. in warnings went up. people boarded up, stocked up and either hunkered down or took off. in a moment we ll check in with anderson and our entire team on irene. first chad myers and that late bulletin from the national hurricane center. chad what s the latest? not much change in the forecast and not much change in the track, isha. we re still at 100 miles per hour. we re still forecast to get slight
troubling new assessment. they are expecting the storm surge from irene to flood the area which includes the ground zero construction site with anywhere from 6 to 12 feet of water. it and other low-lying neighborhood on a mandatory evacuation order. mayor bloomberg saying the city transit system will shut down at noon tomorrow. all five local airports also in danger of flooding. they are being closed right starting at noon care this is what they are concerned about. pictures here of irene hitting the bahamas, new yorkers i used to seeing this on tv, but up close. they might see a version of that and about 36 hours from now. all day today irene was making its way north. and as it did. emergency plans started kicking. in warnings went up. people boarded up, stocked up and either hunkered down or took off. in a moment we ll check in with anderson and our entire team on irene. first chad myers and that late bulletin from the national hurricane center. chad what s the latest? no
outer bank islands and we hope people heed our orders. even though we declare a mandatory evacuation, it is still totally voluntary to the residents whether they leave or not. what is more important to us and, as you mentioned, this is labor day weekend, which is a very large tourism weekend for us. we have to err on the side of safety now and make sure our tourists understand the impact, the dangers of this hurricane and encourage them to go back home or not to come until the evacuation is lifted. this was the exact situation obviously it s a different kind of storm that new orleans was facing before hurricane katrina and the mayor there delayed mandatory evacuation for that very reason. he was concerned about affecting tourism. you made the decision, though it s a tough decision, because it can impact on tourist dollars and obviously on residents lives. how many people are in your city? oh, in my city is about
not heed mandatory evacuations? are you talking to me now? yes. i m sorry, mr. mayor. yes, this is mayor gerald jones. we have warned carter county and evacuated them and the outer bank islands and we hope people heed our orders. even though we declare a mandatory evacuation, it is still totally voluntary to the residents whether they leave or not. what is more important to us and, as you mentioned, this is labor day weekend, which is a very large tourism weekend for us. we have to err on the side of safety now and make sure our tourists understand the impact, the dangers of this hurricane and encourage them to go back home or not to come until the evacuation is lifted. this was the exact situation obviously it s a