74 million people are under heat alerts. we re talking temperatures up to 25 degrees above average in some places. and right now, texas is bracing for what was just named the first tropical storm of the season, tropical storm alberto, heading toward the gulf coast. and fast. meantime, out west, those deadly wildfires rage on with firefighters battling that relentless heat, and we have team coverage this morning with nbc s sam brock in galveston, texas, nbc s maya egoland in coney island and we have your meteorologist standing by with your forecast. storm prep is already under way there. this is now tropical storm alberto. what is the latest, sam? reporter: sam, we re having a hard time with your mic. let s work on getting that. let s turn to maya who is here in new york, one of the places experiencing these extreme temperatures. how are people coping, maya? reporter: hey, ana, as you can see behind me, some people are coping by taking a dip in the water, but it is ext
time since 1971. let s check in with the meteorologist standing by at the weather center. i think it will have worse travel for friday and saturday that we are what we had today and tomorrow for the most part. we haven t had any delays across the airports today. a little bit around new work, san francisco but overall the worst we have seen for the most part add two storms we ve been watching, one is around the great lakes. it still bringing windy conditions. 53-mile-an-hour wind gusts and detroit s. that is the wood that s going to be in the morning across parts of northeast which is making us worried about those balloons. for the most part i think he ll be okay, just probably tethered really far down. that is the one storm that s exiting across parts of the east and then we ll turn our
shelters, 500 of them throughout the island. now, this is the strongest storm to make landfall in puerto rico since 1932. there hadn t been a category 4 or 5 since then. the fear is, according to san juan s mayor that the power could be out in some areas for four to six months. of course, the power grid is a huge concern here. weakened infrastructure of this island that had just been grazed by hurricane irma and only 75% of the island lost power, more than 60,000 people were without power going into maria. and now there s just the vast majority already without power, communications is an issue here. most of these cell carriers have dropped and we had to change our transmission in order to bring you this live report today. back to you. my goodness. it s hard to get your head around, four to six months without power on parts of that island. gabe, stand by. we want to come back to you later in the hour. let s go to dylan dreyer, meteorologist standing by in the
and welcome back to our continuing coverage of hurricane irma as it heads towards the mainland usa. let s bring in our meteorologist standing by in miami beach. i guess people in miami would have been a little relieved when this moved further west, but this is such a massive storm nobody is going to miss out on it, are they? no, absolutely not. the stretch of tropical force winds extends 400 miles. that s from one side of the storm to the other side of the storm. it is unbelievable. much wider than the entire width of the peninsula of florida. nowhere will be spared. hurricane force winds on the other hand, maybe we could breathe a sigh of relief. some communities on the extreme
because the pollution can trigger that as well. reporter: air pollution can be made of everything from soot to heavy metals like arsenic and lead. likely now a part of brother nut s pollution break. here s a picture of him pouring the dust into a brick mold. translator: air pollution is a problem for everyone. and now we are being deprived of our right to breathe fresh air. reporter: his art project went viral. perhaps not surprising in a city where 21 million residents have to deal with pollution every day. and that will likely be the topic of conversation for people here in beijing for several days to come. this heavy, heavy smog is not expected to clear out of the area until thursday, midday, at the earliest. john? they could get enough bricks to build another great wall. matt, thank you for that. matt rivers live in beijing. let s go to our meteorologist standing by at the cnn weather center with more