michelle malkin is going to join us live on that coming up next. ainsley: get out or prepare for the worse. that s the warning for 4 million in the path of hurricane irma as it gets closer to florida. we re live on the ground in florida coming up next.
and the bahamas want to be as ready as possible, isa. yeah, and i can imagine, stefano, evacuations have started to take place. are people heeding those warnings from what you have seen? yes, absolutely. the bahamas have gone through a massive evacuation operation yesterday and the day before. six islands, the six southernmost ooilt i ms of this little archipelago have been almost completely evacuated, and people have been brought here in nassau in the capital where there are some shelters and camps have been provided for those people and for the rest, for the inhabitants on nassau. the advice has been to stay inside, not to put them at risk and stay put and hold force while irma passes through this little archipelago.
you ve been there for several days for cnn. paint us a picture of how it has changed in the last 24 hours or so. not just the preparations, but also those howling winds. yes. the wind is when we first arrived, it was this classic tourist paradise. these tropical beautiful air with barely a breeze. and now we re seeing the winds coming up. the palm trees are definitely moving around. i can see that it does look like the hurricane is on its way compared to for example 24, 36 hours ago when we arrived here and everybody was seemed very, very far away in the future. now it s happening. it s happening now, and now irma is arriving. stefano there for us in the bahamas. stefano, do stay safe. we ll touch base with you the next hour or so. well, hurricane irma has already brought death and destruction to the caribbean islands.
reporter: they have to. they have to leave them up. it takes a week or so to take them down. even then they would clawing the streets, wolf, and they want the streets open for people to evacuate. more than 20 of these cranes in the city behind me, everywhere you look, you see they have. we see at least ten from this hotel balcony right here. it s a sign of the progress in this city. they are built to withstand 145 mile an hour winds. as you have been reporting, wolf, irma is going to hit as a category 5 storm somewhere in florida. that will bring wind gusts of more than 145 miles an hour, 160 miles an hour and that could be extremely, extremely dangerous. now, these cranes are fastened to the buildings very, very tightly. but one feature here is that the boom, the arms that you see up there, they are not tied down. if they were tied down it would provide too much resistance and work like a sail and pull everything down. those booms are loose and they re designed to work like a
family, yourself in our thoughts. and as soon as you hear from your family, do get in contact with us and do let us know. a pastor there joining us on the phone. thank you. well, actor robert de niro is anxious to help the british territory of barbuda get back to normal after hurricane irma. he is a co-owner of a resort on the island, and issued this statement. and i m going read it to you. we are beyond saddened to learn of the devastation in barbuda caused from hurricane irma and look forward to working with the paradise found resort team, the barbuda counsel, and the entire community to successfully rebuild what nature has taken away from us. and of course, if you ve been watching our program and want to help hurricane irma victims, why don t you go on to our website. that s cnn.com/impactyourworld there. you ll find a list of charities we have vetted, charityious can