the hour, hurricane irma is making its way north through the state of florida. the storm is less than 40 miles from tampa. one of the more densely populated areas that is expected to experience deaf stating hurricane-force winds. irma has been downgraded officially to category 1 status with sustained winds of 85 miles an hour but gusts up to 120 miles an hour. a curfew has been issued for the city of tampa. so, projections for storm surges have been reduced in some of the cities like st. petersburg, which is located in tampa bay, now expected to see surging of 2 to 4 feet. this all coming as tropical force winds are approaching the border between georgia and florida. florida power and light, which offers energy services to millions of floridans is reporting more than 3.6 million homes have been left without power in the state. jamie of wtvj is joining me from tampa. you have been rocking and rolling all night there. sure sounds windy, jamie.
people, urged them to evacuate if they live near one of the construction cranes. however, i saw a lot of lights on in a lot of the towers near these cranes, so it is going to be interesting to monitor the cranes and keep an eye out to see what happens. we have seen them, dan, and it is an absolutely frightening picture that you so aptly paint there. we weren t able to see them but you ve done a great job. i wish you could see my face when you start talking about it. my eyes got as big as saucers, that s frightening. here in new york city we had that happen before, not from a storm, but just because the crane wasn t operational properly. and they have been deadly. so a lot to be concerned about there. dan, i ll let you go right now. i hope to speak with you again from wtvj, good job, thank you. to paul ulrich of global climate modeling. with a welcome to you, paul, let s get to it, what do you make of the way irma has restrengthened in just the last
three hours prior to the sustained winds. i assume i saw a bus. it seemed to be in service at this moment. so if you still have not sought shelter, if you need to get out of miami beach. now is a great time to do so. joining us now on the phone. from the miami-dade police department. officer thank you for being with us. captain, rather. thank you. what do you know about hearing a report from wtvj about buses still operating and helping folks to get out of the city. what do you know about that? it s our priority. we make sure the citizens of miami-dade can kbet to a shelter in a secure manner. we will be providing escorts, also to provide security within the shelters. i do tell you that currently we have 43 shelters open. and we have some unprecedented numbers. right now we have 26,000 residents occupying shelters. these are numbers we have never
see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit or go to xfinitymobile.com. as the strongest hurricane in a generation bears down on the residents of south florida, memories of hurricane andrew still haunt the area. just over 25 years ago hurricane andrew slammed into the southern united states as a category 5 storm that destroyed or damaged more than 125,000 homes and killed 61 people. here s a look at how nbc and wtvj covered that deadly storm. good evening. it is being called an extremely
seen here for the most part. everybody has taken heed and gotten out. thank you, phillip. and that s the rare breed we hear about, folks who are making the choice to stay there. thanks for reporting from that gas station. it s not the only one we are tracking. if you re watching the special coverage, you may have seen a reporter pulling overnight duty and we re speaking to a lot of floridians, wtvj reporter lye with us in kendall, florida. what do you have now? well, we ve got a little taste of irma to begin with. we ve got some rain, we got some wind and take a look behind me. all of those headlights. this is what an evacuation looks like on a saturday morning when a catastrophic hurricane is on approach. you can see, these people are all waiting for gas. most of the people i ve been able to make contact with, they say they are coming from the keys. they made that final decision.