brooke, nice to have you with us today. it will be a wet day across the gulf coast. this weather is brought to you by xyzal. tropical storm warnings all the way from mobile back to about galveston. that means wind of 40 or 50 miles per hour. we ll get waves one to three feet on top of a storm surge of one to three feet. some of these barrier islands getting overwashed, like dolphin island and the like. biloxi, a lot of rain coming onshore, a lot of wind and waves coming onshore. the key to this storm is hoe slow it will move, we are going to see inches, maybe a foot of rainfall in some spots. that will make flash flooding our biggest concern today. obviously there are a lot of different variables. you have to keep track of it. some 17 million potentially in harm s way. chad, we ll stick with you. thank you. the white house saying the president wants a health care bill with heart. will his party listen to him?
tonight about 65 million people from north carolina to new england are in the path of hurricane irene. ten governors declared states of emerge system new york city officials ordered the first mandatory evacuations in city history, but along the jersey shore, drivers can testify trying to get out of harm s way is a slow nerve-racking process. the hurricane isn t waiting. right now, the storm, a category 2 with 100 mile-an-hour sustained winds is heading for the north carolina coast. our coverage starts with john in north carolina. we probably don t need to ask you to set the scene for us. what does it feel like there? reporter: we are getting the winds as you see right now gusting and picking up a little bit. the rain has been constant. periodically heavy and then it lightens up a little bit. the past couple of hours or so here on atlantic beach, a mandatory evacuation, obviously, this is an island. the atlantic ocean is that way. that s actually south the way this beach fac