authorities along the coast are weighing recovery efforts, let s bring in south carolina state representative joins us from myrtle beach, representative clemns nice to have you, what s the situation in your town? i m in myrtle beach, america s favorite beach front community, we ve had the brunt of the storm come through, we are fortunate myrtle beach, we faired much better than our neighbors to the north, yes, we have down power lines, we ve got trees town, we have stoplights that aren t working, we ve got in our county, we ve got about 45,000 without electricity now but there is no great structural damage, structures that we have seen, the infrastructure is intact, it is certainly not the impact that we are expecting from this storm before it before it hit land.
like it s going to deteriorate over the next couple of hours. and i m kbeguessing you re a home and staying put? actually, i m at a brand-new town home in old town in the heart of downtown. it s pretty much built like a bunker, concrete, steel, rated 225 miles an hour winds. this is one of the safe spots on the island. i knew i had a pretty good chance of making it through this thing. as you have been hearing no doubt, hurricane irma is now intensified and strengthened to category 4 and as you know, as well, shifted northwest in the last ten, 15 hours or so do. you still believe you ve made the right call here? well, there really is no
see a storm surge up to 15 feet. i suspect that is one of the biggest concerns for authorities there. no question. the intensity of the winds is also a big concern and what kind of structural damage that might cause here. but for the most part people that you have spoken to say a lot of the buildings here in this corner of southwest have been built rather well in recent years and they feel confident it can withstand the winds. the mayor of naples, florida, south of ft. myers describes the city as a coast town. many people started evacuating days ago even before it was clear that hurricane irma was going to make an impact on the western gulf coast on florida. many people have packed up and headed out of town. you have seen the effects of that this morning. there were empty streets,
downtown would be impacted all of the areas around the waterfront would be impacted. it would be pretty devastating. there would be a lot of trees town, a lot of standing water, there would be power disruptions. it would take a number of days to get the power hooked up, if not weeks. i think you would see tampa in a predictment not that we wouldn t emerge from it but it would be a tough couple of weeks i think. and that was the tampa mayor speaking to me earlier about the potential impact of hurricane irma on his city and the storm surge. the city is vulnerable to that sort of impact from a hurricane, the surge. do stay with us, the latest on hurricane irma now battering south florida coming up after a short break. is this a phone?
in power lines. we all got hit pretty bad too. this is bad as hurricane irene in many places. what happens is the storm comes through and the trees come down and the power lines come down, and the poles come down, and everybody sits and sweats and complains. gregg: steve centanni joins us live from falls church, veneer the number of chainsaws nearby. describe what is going on there. reporter: they are working furiously, this one hot spot here. at this intersection there were two trees town. look up this street it was blocked by a giant tree that fell across the street. two cars were damaged. luckily the house was not hit. somebody put up a sign on the tree trunk, free firewood, come and get it. nobody has come to get it yet. that s where the chainsaw