Is where the storm is coming in atlanta. First a check to david of the weather. We have been watching irma to continue to fall apart over the last couple of hours its still packing winds about 60 to 65 miles per hour, but it is continuing to pass out of the region and starting to weaken through the next couple of days. I want to talk about what weve been seeing with irma here were going to start off by talking about what the damage currently looks like you can see what the pictures looked like earlier, where we had strong winds as this came ashore into portions of florida with some very strong winds. Right now it is down to Tropical Storm force. It is expected to stay a Tropical Storm force level for at least the next couple of hours and then as we head through the next couple days, well continue to weaken into a tropical depression. One of the concerns weve had is whats happening in jacksonville easterly and southwesterly wind, so its packing the water up the st. Johns river and leading to flooding in the jacksonville area right now there is a flash flood emergency for the city of jacksonville jacksonville, as well. As i mentioned, currently a Tropical Storm, it will continue to weaken through the next couple of hours. Early tomorrow morning, 7 00 in the morning, it will be down to a tropical depression packing winds around 35 miles an hour, so it will continue to weaken over the next couple of hours and well continue to track it for you. Back over to you guys. David, thank you very much. David bigger at hq sarah and john, couple thoughts to kick off the hour few things going on that the markets are going to want to Pay Attention to most obvious one that you learned earlier today was the relief we got from lack of a storm surge of ten to 15 feet, which was estimated here, which would have been about the size of my head didnt happen, so youre seeing the rally and some insurers and a bit of a selloff in Building Materials as the rebuilds all along here are not going to be as big or as necessary number two, were going to start getting some gas deliveries off the tankers, on to the trucks at the port of tampa about 160 miles that way, so maybe gasoline starts showing up at gas stations around the state. People have more mobility. Thats very good number three, power restoration. We just talked to tampa electric, who said that the degree of disruption, the degree of outages maybe not as bad as they would have had, had the eye been a little bit more to the west so were going to be watching for, although the winds are gusty, tampa electric said you dont need the guys in the buckets up on the power lines necessarily. Theres things we can do on the ground so, restoration of electricity to customers, those three things are all good its a part of the reason the markets are rallying today, but were, obviously, going to keep our eye on georgia increasingly, guys, which is going to be a big water event. Carl, i guess we got to also keep the perspective were rallying off of expectations of just a much bigger disaster. Irma still well within the top ten as far as destruction and costliness of hurricanes, and theres quite a lot of rebuilding and assessments still to do. Correct . Reporter oh, theres no question i mean, even if you take some of these latest projections of damages at 49 billion, thats going to put you in the neighborhood of an andrew, for example, not a katrina, 130 billion. I think your point is a good one, john, but helps you realize as bad as irma is and was expected to be, it reminds you of just how expensive harvey is going to be. I mean, thats going to be 100 billion plus recovery affecting a lot more commodity, affecting a lot more petro chemical. This covers a much broader area, the wind field is bigger, so theres ramifications for retail, for instance, retail sales. The coverage is going to be broader than it was in harvey on some specialty retail, for example, but no question this is not a toy. I mean, the damage were seeing today is less than expected, but its a lot more than it would have been under an ordinary scenario ill throw another industry into the mix where we are seeing market reaction, as well, today, kau carl, and thats the agriculture economy. South florida is home to the nations grapefruit and orange and avocado and tomato crop. More than half of the nations supply actually comes from south florida and orange juice futures have been a barometer for this they are weakening down a little more than 3 after surging 12 on some of the worst worries that a lot of this crop was going to be wiped out. I guess we havent heard anything as far as an update on the agriculture plan i know you talked about tourism as a main industry and some of the others, but ag is huge reporter it is huge. Floridas a massive producer not just for the u. S. , but for the world in orange juice. I think half of the grapefruit comes out of florida orange juice it rivals brazil in global production, but we saw those markets reacting early, sarah, back when irma was still a threat in the caribbean, so a lot of the markets have priced that in. I dont know if we want to go to diana olick in atlanta, but an increasing part of the story is going to be flooding and water jacksonville is a big story this morning. Were hoping thats not the case in atlanta, but diana, what do you see . Reporter well, at this point the storm is just moving into our area were watching flights, 955 cancelled now, 30 in the last 30 minutes, thats one a minute an amazing stat here, since irma started messing with air traffic, over 13,000 flights have been cancelled. Of course, atlanta is home to many large corporations, cocacola, mercedes usa, ups they are all telling workers to work from home today, if they can. They are also, home depot is the one big operation, they are trying to get as many supplies out to florida and georgia as they can today southern georgia being hit right now very hard with flood waters in savannah. Also kias only plant, which is in southern georgia, has closed for production today and tomorrow here in atlanta, theyve closed down the government, closed down metro, closed down the schools and they are now opening up shelters while atlanta is landlocked, were expecting a lot of rain to come in. Not quite as much high wind as florida, but there will be a lot of rain in the area, so you can expect to see widespread flooding throughout and we do expect, of course, as this day goes on, to see many more flights cancelled. Carl diana, well check in with you in a bit, diana olick in atlanta. Were going to bring in ceo of the spe hotel group, which has a bunch of High End Hotels and clubs in miami, including the delano hes at post nine with sarah and john sam, glad to have you with us. I wish i were there with you i got to ask you about some of the flooding we saw in downtown miami and in brickell, and i just wonder over the weekend if that kind of footage freaked you out. Obviously, weve been tracking the storm for the last week, working very closely with local jurisdictions with the fire department, police department, mayor levine the biggest thing for us was safety for our associates, for the community, and i think we did a good job with that, particularly our team in south florida, we have eight hotels down there, was crucial and collectively the communication ended up to be a big factor in us not losing life, which was our number one goal. Obviously, now, the storm is going up through jacksonville and our hearts are out through not just florida, but, obviously, what happened in texas and louisiana last week. So its been a couple weeks of anxiety, seeing those rivers weve seen them before weve owned hotels in miami beach now for close to 13 years, but this one was a big one this looked a lot more catastrophic and i think in many ways it was. When you talk about the caribbean and talk about really the people that got affected everywhere from the caribbean down to cuba and up to the west coast of florida so its been hard. Were still dealing with it. Miami beach is still closed, as you know, and we hope to get in there tomorrow to help the community again. Yeah, glad you brought up the caribbean, because our thoughts go out to the British Virgin islands, barbuda, bitter end, thats going to be a giant rebuild. How long lasting do you think the effects are going to be from a local business standpoint and from a tourism standpoint . I think once we get our grips on the effects of the human anxiety that this thing continues to pull on right now were dealing with, you know, the motions of a lot of our associates, a lot of our guests, but i think this will be anywhere from, you know, two weeks to a couple months from that perspective at the same time our assets in the bahamas and brickell may be a little bit longer. Were hoping to be back in business by the end of the week, but then again we have to get into these properties and really be conscious of the human toll this has taken sam, im wondering, how long does it take to really recover the tourism momentum from this sort of thing . Are there promotions you tend to do because youre no stranger to tough weather, to disasters that hit this area. Whats the process going to be like i think, you know, we are still assessing it right now Different Hotels got affected differently. We manage the Raleigh Hotel on 18th and collins, which got more damage than the delano, but for us, were longterm owners and operators in miami and southern florida, so weve been there a long time. Our owners and associates, like you said, weve been there and done that before unfortunately here last year we had zika, hurricane matthew, so this is a part of the world that affects this and i think for us were not really what were looking to do is open up our hotels we feel around the world our hotels are part of a community and during disasters thats where everybody wants to come and congregate and if theyve lost their homes and thats what our main focus is on the next two, three weeks and get geared for the high season in november and october, so our goal is to be back on track for that, but the interim goal is just assessing kind of the human toll that this takes. You got some prime real estate when it comes to south beach and miami beach, but its right there on the ocean what is the level of preparedness of miami beach in general for these types of events i think the good thing about miami beach is through time theyve put some amazing codes and zoning in, so, for example, the newer hotels have these hurricane proof windows, hurricane codes that really kind of help keep these properties. Because in south beach youre talking about the most historic Art Deco Hotels in the world were custodians of the hotels beautiful, beautiful architecture, they are a big part of the American History so our job is to maintain them ultimately well get back to the offer and the promotions as need be, but right now our main job is literally to assess whats happened were still realtime we cant even get into the hotels right now sam, thank you for your time. Obviously, our thoughts are with you and the city of miami and the state of florida, as we assess the damage today. Sam, thanks again. Sam nazarian of the sbe hotel group. John, over to you. Thank you, carl with more on the recovery and relief efforts, were joined by former fema director under president Clinton James lee witt james, good morning. Good morning. I want to ask about Small Business there are all kinds of Small Businesses, whether they are operating in Tourist Attractions in that area who are really going to need to get back up and running for their livelihood one of the things that fema does is assist with getting people connected to Small Business loans after an event like this how quickly is that process really going to be available and what should people know about it well, first of all, if youre a Small Business owner and you had Flood Insurance, that will be a factor that youll have to show and prove to sba. And then also sba, if you have an existing loan on that business and you need x amount of dollars to rebuild the business to reopen, then they can actually rework that loan and also the damages that money you need to repair the damages into a new loan at a very low Interest Rate so its important that Small Business owners thats been affected is to make that application to sba as soon as possible to get that in the works. And, james, theres been a lot of talk over the past few months after President Trump put out his budget about just how much money is necessary for these types of events. There were some cuts proposed in this budget initially, i believe, to fema and the National Weather service, for example. What is your take on whats really needed to prepare for events like this in the future and how being in touch with this and the real human toll may change our perspective well, i think it would be a terrible mistake for the president to cut femas budget or any of the agencies right now particularly thats involved in the Recovery Efforts in texas, as well as in florida. You know, the department of agriculture is probably going to need supplemental just because of the damage to the vegetables and fruits in florida and possibly in texas with cattle and other livestock, so the supplemental is going to be important. They are going to be without money in three or four weeks, because it will probably be over 100 billion in texas and yet to see what it will be in florida also the Congress Needs to reauthorize the National FloodInsurance Program and they are probably going to have to increase the line of credit for the Flood Insurance program simply because of the floods in texas and also in florida. James, beyond the money and the claims that are, obviously, going to start to pile up, can you walk us through what its like to be inside the fema war room right now how you get out on the ground after a hurricane like this when actually its still baring down and try to assess the damage in terms of property, streets, ewe tulties, power, and Everything Else take us through what thats like well, administrator brock long is experienced and i have faith and confidence in him, as well as the fema staff employees. They are dedicated about what they do and their jobs fema region four is probably taking the lead on this with florida and theyve already prepositioned resources in to help the state of florida and governments and they were in the Operation Center during the hurricane, they are supporting them and state kez nighted what resources they needed, then fema has the ability to put the resources in place then the next thing is the local governments, counties and cities will be doing rapid Damage Assessment as soon as possible as soon as thats done, that goes into the state operations center, where the state and fema then can get a good estimate of what the damage is going to look like in the early estimate then, of course, the state and fema will go out, work on local governments and get a better assessment of what its going to take to recover. Important work, crucial at a time like this thanks for joining s, james le witt, former fema director thank you still to come on squawk alley, much more on Tropical Storm irma as it continues to press north. Live updates for you throughout the hour then all eyes on apple ahead of its major product unveil tomorrow plus checking out stocks, broad rally on our hands this morning. All major groups in the s p are higher dow is up 211 points there is an impact here from the storm. Travelers company, for instance, is up almost 3 , it is dow leader hope depot down moalst 1. 5 . Back on squawk alley. Not rebalancing your portfolio. Pursuing your passion, not reacting to market downturns. Focused on what you love, not how your money will last through retirement. Let us help you with those decisions, and get on with your life. We make it easier to plan for retirement with day one target date funds from prudential. Look forward to your 401k plan. A rally for stocks to start the week we have the dow up triple digits all s p factors in the green much is a reversal from last week its being led right now by financials especially those insurance and reinsurers that are getting a boost off of perhaps some relief that some of the most dire forecasts in terms of the economy and the weather for irma were averted technology is also very strong the dollars rebounding. Its up a percent against the japanese yen and treasury yields are higher, john, with a ten year back above 210. Again, some of the safe haven trades that were so hot last week are reversing this week, being given up stocks are in demand speaking of technology, a big day tomorrow, Apple Holding its hotly anticipated product event at its new headquarters in cupertino. A lot of talk about what we can expect from tim cook and company. Josh lipton is outside of apples new spaceship headquarters josh thats right, john. So right behind me here is apples new corporate campus called apple park. 175 acres of parklands and buildings, and tomorrow is actually going to be the first time apple opens up this campus to the public. The event is going to take place at the new steve jobs theater and auditorium that can hold 1,000 people star of the show is going to be the new flagship iphone and heres what we expect, 5. 8inch iphone with edgetoedge oled display. No home button, instead using facial recognition for unlocking the device, advanced sensors and cameras and wireless charging. The price tag here, rbc says, 999 besides the new phone, we also anticipate updates to the iphone 7, a new apple tv with 4k support and new watch with its own cellular connection, meaning that watch would be much more of a stand alone device say youre on a run, you can send texts, receive notifications, even when the iphone isnt in range. Investors clearly expected about these new products, especially the iphones apple stock has now surged 40 so far this year. Now, skeptics will say that sto