here just kicking up already. not high tide yet, a long way to go for this water. the rain comes in in bands, like you can see right now. it comes in strong. the consistent wind speeds are around 30, 35 miles an hour. expected to rise throughout the next 24 hours. so there's a long, long way to go with this storm, alisyn. >> john, you'll be monitoring it for us from florida all morning long. please be careful. okay. this storm has already left at least five people dead. so we will check back with you throughout the program. but of course, meanwhile, there's other news to get to. we have developments on a story that we first told you about yesterday. it's just this horrible, horrible boat accident off the coast of southern california. the body count, the amount of people killed on this dive boat has just been shocking. so we will get more details on how this tragedy unfolded. okay. so john, let's go back to you. i know that you have guests all morning bringing us the latest on dorian. >> reporter: and in fact the national hurricane center just gave a new update as to the strength and the path of this storm. let's go right to chad myers in the weather center. what's it look like as we hit here at 6:00 a.m.? >> it moved about 6 miles in the past 24 hours. this is a 24 hour satellite loop. the eye is getting a little bit smaller, which means some of the winds may be getting more intense around the middle. right now, the maximum wind is 120. we are still watching the radar, still watching bands come on shore. every time one of the bands get close to you, moves over you, and the rain comes down, the wind picks up. it will pick up 20 to 30 miles per hour compared to the consistent wind speed. here is the new track, completely offshore for the cone. the hurricane center will tell you, only 2/3 of all the storms are inside the cone. 1/6 on this side. 1/6 on that side. that's how they build the cone. they want to be at least somewhere in a 2/3 category. by the time they get to north carolina, it's pretty darn close as a category 2. the storm moves up the east coast. here are the maximum wind speeds, tuesday, today, stewart, 1:00, 59. be daytona beach, tomorrow morning, 62. up toward jacksonville and st. simons, tomorrow night, we're talking about 50s and 60s. savannah and then charleston this time 48 hours from now, we'll see the wind speeds start to pick up in charleston. a long duration storm because it continues to sit there. remember, this time last week we were talking about this storm potentially hitting puerto rico. the same storm, the same low. hurricane watches and warnings up the coast, we'll watch for those hurricane force gusts and now the surge is about 2 feet all up and down the east coast as the storm moves farther to the north. the storm surge could go up another 2 feet, and in some spots, 5 feet. back to you. >> and that's what they're watching, i think, most closely along the close. the storm surge could be at dangerous levels. now our patrick oppmann and his team have been in freeman, experiencing something that i don't think anyone living has ever been through before. i want to go to patrick in freeport right now, get a sense of how things are there. patrick, what are you seeing, how are people doing this morning? >> reporter: not well, as you can imagine. it's getting more complicated here. this morning cell service is down, power remains out, and there's a sense of desperation because this has just hit us a lot harder than i think anybody could have anticipated. we have seen video from the hospital, the main hospital in freeport of flooding. some of the other scenes here of waves hitting two-story homes are also quite shocking. it feels about the same, and i guess since the storm has only moved 6 miles, i didn't know that because we're completely cut off. that makes sense. the winds feel the same. the conditions feel pretty much like yesterday. maybe a little bit better but things come in waves as well. this is really moving, i think, from the weather situation to a breakdown of an island and of a city, and what i'm talking about is last night we helped people evacuate in the lobby of our building, and there was a woman who was elderly, she had fallen and broken her hip. there were people that almost drowned in their house, and essentially their neighbors had to rescue them, so you're not seeing authorities and this isn't a criticism. you're not seeing any help offered by the government here in freeport that i can see and it's just because they're completely overwhelmed, so it's up to people to take things into their own hands and try to save one another, and you just wonder how many people got trapped in their homes, how many people now are cut off. how many people could have been injured and have no hope of receiving medical treatment. right now, the city and island are completely dark, but you know out there, there are tens if not hundreds of cases of people in really serious condition and not receiving help. you know, we have gone for as long as we can. we have food for a couple more days. we have gas for a couple more days. you would help the government would get help in here as soon as possible. but the storm being off our shores really does complicate that. there was some hope yesterday that perhaps they could get some of those coast guard rescue helicopters in here today to begin evacuating people. we have heard reports of people riding the storm out on their roof. we have been told by people they only escaped their house because they cut out the roof with axes, th hatchets, that they had to cut a hole in the roof to climb out because the water it reached, completely covered their home, so, you know, i said it yesterday, it doesn't seem like an exaggeration, the bahamas is katrina, you have seen the government and the state break down, not be able to offer and at least two islands. a lot ft of services that we all depend on. so while you hope -- a lot of services that we all depend on. so while you hope, at least right now, things are getting worse, not better. >> reporter: patrick, it sounds harrowing. i know the situation there has been very difficult for you and your team because the hurricane has essentially been over you for 36, 48 hours. have you been able to get out at all? is there any infrastructure left from what you can see from your window? >> reporter: there is here on the coastline, you know, we can see hotels that survived. our building was fine. i don't think we lost a window, which is amazing, but i know just down the road, someone's house got completely washed away, a pretty big house, and they escaped, you know, barely with their life, and i know there are other people who have not been so fortunate. i think as well, what's really been shocking for most people is how quickly the water rose. we're hearing about an animal shelter in town that is completely under water. we don't know if people there were able to get any of the animals put there for the storm out in time if they're able to open the cages of the people we helped last night, to give them water and towels. they realized the water was rising by the time it was on their steps. by the time they got everybody together to leave with the things they needed, the water, you know, minutes later, was already halfway up their door. they couldn't open up the door to get out. just imagine that that's how quickly it happens. that's how little time you have to run for your life. and i think at a certain point, things became very critical here very quickly, and for people they just weren't able to anticipate that. i don't think anybody could anticipate that. things happened late yesterday afternoon, much more quickly than people were prepared for. >> reporter: patrick, i don't think anyone has ridden out a storm quite like this, quite as powerful, that hung out at the island for a long period of time. we're losing communication with patrick oppmann now. please stay safe on the island. we'll check back in with you as frequently as we can throughout the morning. joining me now is the director general of the bahamian red cross. if you can hear me director general, give us the situation of the need on those islands right now. >> certainly. good morning. right now, the needs are great. as you would have heard, especially for abaco where the coast guard was able to get in yesterday, did some rescue, search and rescue, but this one is mammoth. we have international agencies on the ground. we have executed the plan. the government has pleaded with persons to evacuate, and it was a national effort. the government told everyone to get out, and so persons were well aware, they knew, but of course you're in your house, you think it's safe, and the power of that hurricane just took over, and so the rescue will continue this morning with the coast guard but the all clear has not been given for us to go in and do an assessment. what we're getting between videos, et cetera, it is a mammoth instruction, and so we expect the rebuilding process to take some too manime. right now, our focus is on lives, persons lives versus property. and so persons are being moved to shelters that have not been compromised and so that is right now, humans come first. our job is to assess what we can, but as i mentioned we have the international federation of recourse on the ground with us, expecting another team to come in before tomorrow afternoon. so right now there is going to be needing a lot of help. people are going to be without homes, without food, without clothing because right now, just about the majority of structures, especially supermarkets, et cetera, are not available for persons . everyone there would have suffered some damage. >> do you have a sense of what is the greatest need at this moment? can you even assess that? >> right now, as we speak, greatest need is don't forget the hurricane is still here. it has not left us yet, so right now safety is a key concern. later on today once it clears, as i mentioned, the coast guard is going back into the abaco area where they're getting the last of it. grand bahama, it's still sitting over grand bahamas, so we are working without trying to endanger the rescuer's lives. the greatest need right now would be basically, food, shelter water, et cetera. that's basic needs to start with. >> reporter: and safety. don't take anything for granted. you're a native ba hall of faha. we have been through some hurricanes but not at this le l level. back in '74 i think it was, sorry, '94, that island of grand bahama had two hurricanes back-to-back, so a person would have lost a lot, and we have not really recovered from that, so this on top of that is really devastating for persons, so yeah, we're going to take in the team once everything clears and most important right now, too, along with their basic needs, they're going to need some serious psychological evaluation and they're going to need some help through this, social support. >> reporter: director general of the bahamian red cross. please keep yourself safe and let us know if there is anything we can do. hopefully there is help on the way. our thanks to you. >> yes, thank you, sir. >> reporter: alisyn, it just sounds incredible, almost beyond belief. we have been talking to patrick and his team for the last 48 hours, and patrick was talking about how he could hear the building creek, he could hear the structure shake and to think that people have been coming to him for help over the last 24 hours, because there's so much need there at this time. >> having patrick explain that this is the bahama's katrina drives it home for so many people in the u.s. who remember that destruction. we'll be monitoring all of this this morning. john will be back with you momentarily. stay safe. we also have developments on this dive boat tragedy that is still unfolding off santa cruz island in california. the bodies of 20 victims have been recovered from that deadly boat fire. coast guard officials believe 33 passengers were sleeping below deck when the fire started early monday morning, and the search for victims continues at this hour. so cnn's stephanie elam is live in santa barbara with more. what is the status at this point, stephanie. >> reporter: you take a look at what was supposed to be the perfect get away dive weekend and as the santa barbara county sheriff puts it, it turned into the worst case scenario, a fire in a remote place in the middle of night. a devastating inferno engulfing a dive boat on santa cruz island in california with 39 people on board. >> it's fully engulfed from bow to stern, i mean, and flames probably 30 phofeet high. >> it was such a helpless feeling to watch that boat burn. >> reporter: officials telling "the new york times" they have recovered at least 20 bodies. a harrowing may day call capturing the last contact with the ship. >> what is your position and number of persons on board, over. >> i can't breathe. >> reporter: 33 passengers were asleep on the bottom deck when the flames consumed the ship, just before 3:30 in the morning on monday. five crew members were able to jump off ship, and were helped to safety by good samaritans on board a nearby ship. >> i wish i could have picked all 35 of them up, all of them, i got the space, you know, if they could have all just gotten in the water, i could have got them out of there. >> reporter: as the boat burned, frantic dispatchers tried to regain communication with the ship, desperate for more information. >> roger are they locked inside the boat, roger, can you get back on board and unlock the boat, unlock the door so they can get off? roger, you don't have any fire fighting gear at all, no fire extinguishers or anything. >> but no response heard on the recording. fire crews and emergency responders tried to battle the flames but it was too late. >> the fire was so intense that even after it was put out, you know, we're not able to actually embark the vessel and look for survivors. >> reporter: authorities looking for answers, unsure what started the deadly blaze and why the passengers could not escape. >> this is probably the worst case scenario you could possibly have, fire is the scourge of any ship. >> reporter: back out here live in santa barbara at the harbor here, and this is just about where the boat would have left for that excursion. you can see now that there are flowers and candles for each of the people that have been found and those that are still missing here. we can also let you know that according to the coast guard that this boat was in full compliance, and it was up to date with all of its standards it needed to have. we have reached out to truth aquatics, a company that charters this boat for comment. we have not been able to get in touch with them. still, so many questions, especially when you listen to the dispatch call about what they may have been asking, especially since we can't hear the answers from the people on the boat who are calling in that may day. >> if that boat was in full compliance, rules need to change. you can hear them saying there's no escape hatch. obviously that may come out of this tragedy. thank you very much for updating us from there. meanwhile, the east coast is bracing for hurricane dorian, and president trump is golfing and tweeting erroneous information. why is he getting so much stuff wrong. what might seem like a small cough can be a big bad problem for your grandchildren. babies too young to be vaccinated against whooping cough are the most at risk for severe illness. help prevent this! talk to your doctor or pharmacist today about getting vaccinated against whooping cough. motor? nope. not motor? it's pronounced "motaur." for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. i can. the two words whispered at the start of every race. every new job. and attempt to parallel park. 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(newborn cries) it is humanity's official two-word war cry. words that move us all forward. the same two words that capital group believes have the power to improve lives. and that, for over 85 years, have inspired us to help people achieve their financial goals. talk to your advisor or consultant for investment risks and information. as hurricane dorian batters the bahamas and moves closer to the east coast, president trump spent his saturday golfing. why does he keep getting information wrong that he's putting out to the public. let's bring in john avlon. cnn analyst. we can deal with the hypocrisy about golf or erroneous information. let's start with the hypocrisy. donald trump was quite upset anytime president obama would golf, so for anybody who's forgotten that, here's a recap. >> obama, it was reported today, played 250 rounds of golf. >> everything is executive order because he doesn't have enough time because he's playing so much golf. obama ought to get off the golf course and get down there. i'm going to be working for you. i'm not going to have time to play golf. this guy plays more golf than people on the pga tour. i love golf. i don't have time. if i were in the white house, i don't think i would ever see turnbury again. i'm not going to be playing much golf, believe me. he has played 227 days of golf as president. >> in 2 1/2 years. look, obviously, the hypocrisy alarm rings high. i don't think that in this particular circumstance people are getting upset about the president playing golf while there's a major hurricane parked off the bahamas is a good use of everybody's energy. as usual ourselves to a higher standard with the president than this. i think what's more concerning is he's tweeting out false information and going on hate benders all weekend that have nothing to do with the seriousness of the storm, putting out misinformation that alabama is being threatened. the national weather service has to say not so much. saying that nobody has seen a cat 5 when there have been four on his watch. >> to that end, margaret, i mean, you know, people give joe biden a lot of grief anytime he gets anything wrong at the moment, but what are we to make of president trump saying that he's not sure that he's ever heard of a category 5 hurricane. obviously irma, maria, katrina, just in recent memory at times were category 5. what's going on, why doesn't he know about category 5 hurricanes. >> he does know about category 5 hurricanes and has said previously he didn't know about them. and so that whole, like, rhetorical, i don't know what to call it, blip , was very strang over the weekend. you know, i think the thing to watch is that when there are hurricanes like this on the u.s. coast, a lot of times getting residents to follow governor's orders about evacuations, precautions, the right thing to do, there's always a segment of the population that is resistant to listening to those messages or slow to listen to them, and president trump in theory has the ability to really galvanize those people to action but it is only going to work if he gets the details and the facts right, and as the storm potentially, you know, as the storm is moving closer to the united states, that's going to be really important and if you're in emergency management, you've got to be concerned that the president only be giving accurate information that potentially his supporters would listen to him and act on when it involves their safety. >> right. but he's not. in terms of the alabama stuff, in terms of never hearing about a category 5 stuff. is this about nemental acuity? there's so much focus on joe biden's mental acuity. if joe biden said he'd never heard of a category 5 hurricane, people would be freaking out. uh-oh, he's not ready for this. he's never heard of a category 5 hurricane, so is it a rhetorical blip or is it a mental blip? >> well, i think that requires to get inside his head which one of us are qualified to do. what's clear is the president keeps making kind of mistakes that have been pointed out to him as mistakes before, and an normally a human who said something wrong would take into misinformation, a president who listens to conspiracy and unfortunately we need to adjust ourselves that this is the new normal for the president without normalizing that behavior. and calling it out when he gets stuff repeatedly wrong, calling him out when he lies, the biden controversy over the weekend, the military story he's telling on the campaign trail is not right on a number of levels, is important. we shouldn't normalize politicians speaking mistruths. at the same time, you got to put it in context, and in this case, the vice president is conflating two stories, and getting a lot of the details wrong, but it's not about self-aggrandizement. it's not about making himself look better and heroic. he does seem to be blurring details of stories, and we shouldn't accept that as normal. >> here's joe biden's explanation over the weekend about why this story that he told appears to be on various levels. >> do details matter on the campaign trail. >> they matter in terms of whether or not you're trying to mislead people. and i wasn't trying to mislead anybody. >> margaret talk about that double standard about people cornering joe biden, as john says for good reason, what are you doing, why are you getting this wrong, and then the president of the united states has never heard of a category 5 hurricane. >> i mean, people are cornering joe biden because he is the front runner and sustained front runner in this race, despite all these questions about is there an enthusiasm gap, and is elizabeth warren gaining, and i don't know how you compare the two. there's sort of enough baked in assumptions about president trump that perhaps the lens through which voters and certainly political voters view lease litmus tests are different. i think whether that's fair or right, whether that's right or not but i think if joe biden were 46 and were bungling the details of military facts, people would be talking about whether he's too ambitious, whether he's ready, whether test he's an opportunist, at 76 people are asking a different question, one of the recurring questions, is joe biden past his prime, did he miss his window to run for president. until this race breaks one way or the other, these are going to be one of the kind of defining sets of questions that are going to dog him into the ultimate face off where this contest brea breaks, but for now he's going to need to be more specific and correct about his details if he wants to shake these kinds of questions. >> we're out of time, thank you both very much for all of that perspective. now on to the climate crisis. what would you like to see done about it, ten democratic presidential candidates will discuss this critical issue tomorrow night starting at 5:00 p.m. only here on cnn. okay. let's go back to john berman, he is of course in the brain of the storm that is approaching florida, so john, what's the situation down there in port st. lucie. >> reporter: i got to say, the pictures from the bahamas are devastating. we haven't seen anything like this before. that's there, here in florida, they are bracing for hurricane strength winds as soon as tonight. the storms are starting to feel the effects of that. we're going to get the latest on the forecast right after this. ♪ ♪ this simple banana peel represents a bold idea: a way to create energy from household trash. it not only saves about 80% in carbon emissions... it helps reduce landfill waste. that's why bp is partnering with a california company: fulcrum bioenergy. to turn garbage into jet fuel. because we can't let any good ideas go to waste. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. can't imagine doing it any other way. this is caitlin dickerson from the new york times. this isn't the only case. very little documentation. lo que yo quiero estar con mi hijo. i know that's not true. and the shelters really don't know what to do with them. i just got another person at d.h.s. to confirm this. i have this number. we're going to publish the story. ispending time together, sometimes means doing nothing at all. holiday inn. we're there. so you can be too. at t-mobile, what can you get when you a buy a samsung galaxy note 10? 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entrust your heart to entresto. when crabe stronger...strong, with new nicorette coated ice mint. layered with flavor... it's the first and only coated nicotine lozenge. for an amazing taste... ...that outlasts your craving. new nicorette ice mint. welcome back, i'm john berman in jensen beach, florida. this is cnn special live coverage of hurricane dorian. this is what hurricane dorian looks like on the ground in florida now. about a hundred miles from the center. you can see it is already causing the water to kick up here in the intercoastal waterway. the wind has been blowing hard, the bands have been passing over it. that's what it looks like from here. what does it look like from 45,000 feet. joining us now, from the air, richard henning, flight director of noaa hurricane hunters who is approaching dorian from the north side. your 7th trip into the storm. richard if you can hear me all the way up there, what does the storm look like this morning? >> i can hear you just fine, john. we do have some good news, as chad indicated, the internal structure of the storm at its core is not nearly as organized as it was when it was at its cat 5 peak intensity. when it was at peak intensity, we had a 12 mile diameter eye that was like a buzz saw. it was almost like a, if you can imagine, a 12 mile wide tornado with winds of 185 miles per hour. that no longer exists. it's a 35 mile diameter eye that's very ragged on radar. a lot of it has opened up to the south and southwest of the center. so it's lost about 40 millibars of pressure since it was at peak intensity. it was down around 909 millibars, which was a record low pressure for this part of the atlantic at its peak. now we're sitting at about 950 millibars, a little bit above 950 millibars, so that's all good news to everybody in the southeastern u.s., but everyone still needs to pay very very close attention. as chad indicated, a lot of this weakening is due to the fact that it parked itself unfortunately over those four people on grand bahama and great abaco, those islands and that has been a big reason why it's lost a lot of intensity. if it begins moving again, it may reintensify a little, but right now, the hurricane center forecast isn't calling for significant reintensification. >> reporter: the science is incredible. it's stuck in one place for so long, it took all the heat from the ocean. it's now getting the water from the bottom where it's so much colder. any signs from where you are, can you tell if the storm has started to speed up at all or take the northward turn that so many have been expecting? >> a couple of hours ago, looking at the radar imagery, the data from our aircraft, i kind of thought maybe there was a slight northerly turn had begun, that it had started to move but not really. i would consider what happened to be just sort of a wobble as the poorly defined center sort of rotates around and develops. so right now, still, unfortunately, that's not good news necessarily for the folks in the hurricane warnings on the east coast of florida because they really want to see this thing start to move in that northerly direction to give them a little bit of relief from their anxiety. but unfortunately right now, that hasn't happened yet. it's still pretty much parked right on the north end of the area just north of freeport in the bahamas. >> reporter: richard hetinnning flight director from the national hurricane center. a unique perspective. thank you and be safe. >> thank you, john. >> reporter: i can only imagine the view he has of the storm. he can tell it's weakening, that's good news, but the fact that it's parked where it is over the bahamas, it has been relentless for those islands. >> and of course we just don't know what this unpredictable hurricane is doing next. i don't want people waking up and thinking we're out of the woods. meanwhile there's a frantic search for the victims on the deadly boat fire off the california coast. we have new details about what happened next. what might seem like a small cough can be a big bad problem for your grandchildren. babies too young to be vaccinated against whooping cough are the most at risk for severe illness. help prevent this! talk to your doctor or pharmacist today about getting vaccinated against whooping cough. sleep number 360 smart bed.st sale of the year on a you can adjust your comfort on both sides your sleep number setting. can it help us fall asleep faster? 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>> stay vigilant, stay off the coast, heed the evacuation orders. too many unknowns to say it's safe to go home or we're not going to get impacted. the real key message today is vigilance and heed the evacuation orders. >> reporter: and i have to believe as an administrator, this is a particularly challenging storm because it's been lingering out there for days and days and days, and while officials have been warning people to take precautions and do what they can, after days of it, people might get complacent. >> yeah, i mean, people started getting ready as far as last thursday. so this has been a long, slow storm, but i think as the images come out of the bahamas, people understand the gravity of the situation and why these precautions are being taken, and then hopefully the storm does move up the coast without making a landfall. >> reporter: right. that's the best case scenario everyone hopes for. 4,000 national guard are on the ready. where do the resources need to be? what do they need to be doing this morning? >> they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, sitting in place ready to go anywhere along the coast, georgia, south carolina, north carolina, are doing similar things. everybody is prepared to respond if we see significant impacts so hopefully this will be a quick response. hopefully even an overwhelming response from the resources that are there. but again, they were planning for a possible landfall of up to a category 5 hurricane. they're not going to back off of that until this storm is out of the danger area. >> you have seen the pictures coming back from the bahamas just as someone with experience in the rescue and rebuilding and relief efforts there. what do you think they will need besides everything? >> well, the first part is life safety. again, this is equivalent of a huge tornado with a lot of water damage. rescue is going to be the number one party, and getting supplies in there, water, food, medical supplies. this is going to be a very intensive operation that's going to take literally weeks. >> if not longer. >> reporter: craig fugate, former fema administrator. great to be with you this morning. >> thank you. we're getting new information from the weather center as we speak. we'll have special data for you as we speak. our special coverage of hurricane dorian continues right after this. pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. welcome to fowler, indiana. one of the windiest places in america. and home to three bp wind farms. in the off-chance the wind ever stops blowing here... the lights can keep on shining. thanks to our natural gas. a smart partner to renewable energy. it's always ready when needed. or... not. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. at t-mobile, what can you get when you a buy a samsung galaxy note 10? 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