Family. [inaudible] abby Hurricane Irma an hour away now from the eye of the storm making landfall on the west coast now bracing. Hundreds of thousands of the entire mayor. Sustained winds of 130 Miles Per Hour and could reach 15 feet in some areas. Others are forced to stay behind. Team coverage this morning. Pete with Griff Jenkins on the ground right now. Reporter in naples the wind is terrible. Its about 25 come in maybe 30 miles, but it coming and key west which is just minutes away from a direct impact with 130mile per hour winds are near to the west coast. They are hunkered down. Officials here describing it as a worstCase Scenario because you will have high wind combined with storm surge. The mayor telling me the biggest concern is storm surge. The west coast of florida will take the water row. Just behind me to bring it back in. Upwards of 15 feet above ground level search starts hitting here, it is going to absolutely flood everything and you do not want to be there. Thats wh
Radar composite. And the white shows you the cloud cover shield, which still goes from cuba all the way to clouds now. If you walk outside in North Carolina and look up in the sky, those are the clouds from irma far to your south. The green shows you the rain shield. All the way now approaching central sections of georgia and south carolina. And we still have rain bands down there in the florida straits. I can estimate it would take me about 15 hours to drive that far, to go all the way through this storm. This is the eye of the center as it made landfall, as we went throughout the 4 00 hour near marco island. And now it still hasnt even reached the i4 corridor here. Its taking its sweet time. I want to point out we still have tornado warnings in effect. One is for the titusville area. Look at this outer band. It comes up approaching areas in the bahamas. It comes back up into the space coast. And there is probably 70 Miles Per Hour wind gusts like that. We had a tornado warnings with
We will endure and come back stronger than ever before. Abby straight now to a fox news alert. Hurricane irma now a category 4 storm. But still barreling towards south florida just hours from making landfall and the state bracing for a direct hit. Pete they say its the largest evacuation in u. S. History and its now underway. Nearly 6 Million People. Todd strike the keys, naples and miami after already pounding cuba and the bahamas overnight. [sig [sirens] abby winds unbelievable. Powerful killer hurricane bringing extremely dangerous storage surges that can kill. Authorities warning this is as real as it gets. Got this unbelievable storm surge, pound the keys. You cant survive this. Todd so far irma blamed for at least 23 deaths. Now islands already destroyed by irmas wrath. They are bracing for round 2 as hurricane jose category 4 in the atlantic continues to intensify. Todd we have Live Team Coverage for you beginning all morning live with Griff Jenkins in Little Havana where people
In southwest florida, the time for evacuation has come and gone. Florida governor rick scott saying noon eastern, right now, it is the cutoff time for people to get out of irmas path. Across the state there are 260 shelters open with people pouring in. Of course we have reporters in place all across the state of florida covering all angles of this story from the evacuations and the preparations to the damage already done. Lets begin right now with nbcs Gadi Schwartz in homestead for us. Whats the latest from there no, we see Mariana Atencio and there is gadi. I guess well go to gadi since i introduced you first. Lets talk about whats happening in homestead. Lots of wind week see out the window but what about rain and any water . We just came down to key largo and were still 150 miles away from the storm. Theres been talk about how the storm, the hurricane has now been downgraded to a category 3, but i want to show you this. You can see were going down this street here in key largo and
Category four hurricane. Its now moving a little bit slower in a more westerly direction. Should be approaching the area tomorrow, its sunday. Looking at the track, we havent updated the graphic yet, a little bit west of what we showed at 11 00 a. M. This morning. Weve extended the hurricane warning, the wind warning up the coast, now extends as far north out of the tampa area on the west coast. A little further east coast. Again, because its a very large recommend, both sides on florida particularly in southern florida. With a slower motion, slightly slower motion and may be a bit of a wider turn, we want to see the impact coming in a little later than we are thinking on the previous Advisory Agreement may more like saturday afternoon and into saturday evening. Again, because it is a large storm, we expect the conditions to last in south florida for a 20 4 30 six hours. We also have to take into consideration that we expect this to remain a hurricane well up the coast and even into ce