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But we begin with adam housley in key largo which is in irmas direct path. Reporter we moved from the oceanside to the bayside a few hours ago. We are in an area protected from the wind. The rain is starting to come down heavy. It picked up significantly since we moved to this side of the island. When we drove around earlier when there was still light you could see much of the keys is deserted. Many of the people who normally stay for storms, many of those folks got out this time and said we are not going to challenge this, we are not going to test it. There are some here not by choice. Folks trying to get a plane ticket and trying to find a place to go. Here is what some of the reasons why they stayed. Take a listen. We couldnt get out. Our flights were canceled. We got stuck in Fort Lauderdale it wasnt worth it. And where can you go . You cant drive anywhere. So we are here. Reporter the power is out in parts of the keys. But n ....
Floridas top leadership is saying if you are in an evacuation zone you need to get to a shelter now. This begins those latenight hours that irma will likely do her worst. Forecasters are making it pretty clear, as we look at the size of our members is the size of the state of florida. No matter which side takes it most, east or west coast, barring a miracle moved by this beast of a storm you are pretty much would have to move the state of florida to grab it from irma. From box, americas news headquarters, im harris. On its present course, it will move up in the warm everglades feeling up and expecting to burst into a bigger storm and, of course, the shift we watched happened today so the west coast taking a direct hit potentially. Immediately put extreme burden on citizens to suddenly evacuate and places that they hadnt planned to like naples and the huge metro of tampa in saint pete. Hard facts are these and this has just come in. Florida keys, we are almost at just a couple of miles ....
Aircraft in miami or clearwater and if the storm spread to one side of florida or the other we could shift aircraft from one side of the state to the other from the storm. here we potentially have to evacuate our assets from the entire state and then to get them back into the state we will have to fly themselves from georgia and alabama and that will be into the peak of the storm. we either have to go with some of our aircraft go far away from the heavy winds of the storm or we will simply have to wait for those winds to die down so we won t be able to respond as quickly as we normally would work as quickly as we would like and we will also have to confirm that airbases in miami, homestead and potential at the naval air station in the florida keys that they are ready to support helicopter operations and they may be significantly damaged and disrupted in this unprecedented hurricane. harris: yeah, when you talk about the miami international airport i know you re talking about military a ....
And just a couple miles an hour short of that, sir, in the keys that the need for rescue your men and women may have to deploy early i don t know, are you already seen a situation where it is dicey? you are right. we anticipate that there will be a need for search and rescue and if you think back to hurricane harvey, coast guard, aircraft in both rescued well over 10000 people. we hope that number will be that large in the florida keys and the gulf coast of florida but we will attempt to get search and rescue helicopters, especially vessels back into the area as soon as we can. harris: i want to ask you about something that has been reported for the last day or so. this situation is going to and i will quote, it presents a much greater logistics challenge for the us coast guard than harvey or katrina. what kind of challenge are you talking about? normally, we would base our ....
Needs in south florida in particular. that will be the next thing we are in fact already working on. harris: that is so important right there. i made that note because fuel and gasoline so for aviation in cars is such a huge component of our coverage because you have so many people you re trying to move around. admiral brown, i know you re busy and we appreciate everything you re doing to keep people safe. god bless you and your team as you go forward with the united states coast guard tonight. thank you. thank you, harris, for the opportunity to explain. harris: this is just into the national hurricane center. wind gusts in the florida keys are nearing hurricane strength in the florida keys. adam housley is. [inaudible] adam, this latest information you are starting to feel it. adam: we been feeling it for a number of hours on the other side of the islands. were in key largo about a mile wide and at its widest where we are and we are over there and right before nightfall the winds w ....