of things that happen. what do you feel or sense going around the city. is this the topic of conversation. are people waiting and seeing. do they think it's overblown? what your picking up? >> reporter: initially there was some skepticism. some people suggested the city was overreacting because it got caught offguard with that big snowstorm that hit the city. as these warnings intensified and they see the weather maps they don't want to take any chance. people are taking it seriously. >> which is a good thing. thanks so much. that's all for us from tonight. go to our website, cnn.com/jkusa for a complete list of resources how you can prepare for the hurricane. anderson cooper 360 starts right now. >> good evening we're live in new york's battery park, the southernmost tip of the island of manhattan. come sunday n-dlugd spot i'm

standing could be under water, covered in floodwater. here's what hurricane irene looked like when it hit the bahamas. new yorkers now of course are used to seeing this on tv. not up close but they might see it here and soon. here is the view as irene began moving up the eastern seaboard. as it did emergency plans started to kick in. airlines began cancelling flights. hospitals moving patients and here in new york mayor mike bloomberg be issued the first evacuation orders in city history for low-lying areas including the area, including the one we're standing in tonight. a hurricane warning is in effect for new york city. meantime as we speak north carolina's outer banks are getting hit. we have reporters all over the region. i do want to begin with chad myers who just got his hands on a fresh update from the national hurricane center.

chad, what have you learned? >> i've learned the storm has turned to the north-northeast. that is the continuation of the right-hand turn, anderson, that we talked about so very long. there's the eye on radar. there's our john zarrella right there, brian todd right here. this is a very wet storm right now. wind gusts are 45, 47 miles per hour. and that's going to be the story. the winds will stay between 40, 50 and even up to 60 all night long before landfall brings it in as a category 1 hurricane. maybe a slight small category 2 hurricane as we make our way into atlantic beach for 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. that's where john zarrella is right now. but you have to notice the size of the green. that's the size of the tropical storm rainfall. almost 300 miles east to west, 400 miles north to south. that means when it gets close to you, when this storm is within 300 miles of you, you are going

to feel the wind of a tropical storm. and you're going to feel that wind for the next 24 hours. so, if you are in a bay like the chesapeake bay, that water and that wave action is just going to push water in and the surge is going to be tremendous. some spots on the western side of chesapeake bay could see eight to ten-foot surge. ocean city, 2:00 a.m. sunday that's the lowest approach to your hurricane eye. it will be slightly offshore but that's pretty irrelevant. for long island 10:00 a.m. sunday morning, that's the eye landfall but for the 12 hours preceding that the wind will be from the east, with itting be pushing water right into the harbor where you are right now anderson and also on the north side of the sound, long island sound and also into the harbor are connected by a river called the east river. that's the river likely to swell because water is being pushed in from two different directions. flooding that occur there's from

about the south street seaport to right where you are could be the worst that we see in this storm. >> chad, just in terms of the power and size of the storm. it's been weakening, is that correct. >> that's correct. it weakened all day today. but there's a hurricane hunter aircraft iran it, that's it right there. that plane right there just found a 123 mile-per-hour wind. so, although the storm did come down today, i believe it's getting its act back together right now. what we have is a huge storm doing 50 miles per hour. it's like an ice skater one foot on the ground, arms and leg out. but when the skater pulls the arms in that momentum gets very fast in one small spot. if this storm brings its arms in

that wind speed will increase dramatically because of that angular momentum. it's the reason why the storm is big and slow or lumbering now but could be significantly faster at any time. >> so, by the time, though, i mean it will hit land, by the time it reaches new york city, though, it will have been over land and will likely slow down, right? i'm sorry, will likely weaken even more. what kind of a storm is new york city itself looking at, do we know? >> well, we know that when it goes over north carolina right through here, there's not going lot of land there. you have an island. the barrier island and then you have the sound and that's just basically water. now it may travel right over new jersey and if that happens it will lose some steam but if it's just offshore like the computer models are saying, then that wind will pound into new york city at 70, 80 miles per hour for many hours and that's where the storm surge comes from.

>> i want to check in with brian todd who is in wrightsville beach, north carolina. >> reporter: a very powerful storm surge here on the beach in wrightsville. we're going to take a walk town. you're looking at johnny's fishing pier. look at these images. this is a very violent storm surge coming up on the beach here. emergency management has directed -- he's worried about these storm surges, over washing the beaches on the dunes. we're not far from the towers. you got about 20 counties in this region that will be impacted by this storm. 3.5 million people.

a few brave souls out here with me. they need people to get out of here and get out of here quick, anderson. >> in terms of wind, in teams of rain, what have you been experiencing? >> reporter: the wind is not quite as bad. the waves are very sharp. some of the sand is kick up. the wind is not as high as it will be in a few hours. it's having an effect on the storm surge. people said they never saw a storm surge quite like this in wrightsville. we're getting pounded with a lot of rain and sand drifting with it, whipping all around. the beaches down here are pretty abandoned. people are hunkering down at this point, anderson. >> brian, what time is the storm expected to actually make landfall there? >> reporter: the latest i heard is probably between, i would say 6:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m., maybe

later. then move, powerful elements moving up the coast into the outer banks. and it's is going to hug the outer banks and move north. i say we're probably less than 12 hours away from the crux of this thing coming right through, anderson. >> has that community largely evacuated or are there still a lot of people there? >> reporter: most of them have evacuated. they take these orders very seriously. they know what they are doing down here. there are a few people down here. you can walk on the beach. a few souls down here who have come down here to see the real show. but there are a lot less than we got out here a half hour ago. i think they started to take it seriously and get themselves out of danger. >> brian todd, we'll continue to check in with you. let's check in with john zarrella.

we've done a lot together. he's in atlantic beach just up the coast. what's the situation there? >> reporter: all throughout the late afternoon the conditions have continued to go downhill, steady rain, squalls moving in. i had my wind meter out and i got some gusts around tropical storm force. most of the wind have been around 25 miles per hour. pretty steady at about 25 miles per hour. but just about now ten minutes ago, the curfew went into effect. you can see this is the main road right through here in atlantic beach, anderson and it's closed down. the police told people today, went up and down with bull horns and said we're not tolerating anything, everybody is off the street at 8:00 p.m. we're going to let people get over the bridge and get out if they want past 8:00 p.m. but nobody is getting back on this island until the all year is given. as chad was saying and you know, where we are here, could very well see the center of the storm, the eyewall coming right over us very closely.

interesting scenario here because to my right is the ocean. that's south. the way the coastline comes out. the storm is coming up to us from the south. that's the beach. that over there to the north is the sound. so it's quite important, anderson, depending on which way the actual storm hits us from, we should get storm surge coming from the ocean on the front side of the storm, and then see it coming from the back side of the storm once it goes by us. sort of like you and i saw during wilma back in '05 when the water came up after the storm, center of the storm had passed us and we saw the storm surge coming up. that's kind of what we might expect here. now, the salvation army has shall terrifies open just over the bridge in moorehead city and salvation army started to serve meals at the three shelters there at 8:00 p.m. a lot of people told us throughout the day they were going stay and the ride this out. but an equal number if not more

said you know what? we're not taking any chance with this. this could be the worst storm here since the 1950s when hurricane hazel came through. a lot of older folks who know what can happen from a major hurricane decided they were going to get out. anderson? >> yeah. there's nothing like that experience having gone through it to bring the reality of it home which is something folks in new york have not experienced firsthand. john we'll continue to check with you. ed rappaport joins us from miami. how does this hurricane compare to others that we've seen? >> what's different about this hurricane is that the forecast track which is pretty much locked in nuclear program at least through north carolina, the eastern part of the state is going to be a little bit further to the west than what we've seen for other hurricanes in the northeast and for some folks that means this is the most significant event in 20 years from a tropical system. when we have a hurricane out

here approaching north carolina we see track move on out the sea, missing new england, missing the coast to the south but in this case the forecast track comes up through north carolina, the eastern part of the state but doesn't turn right way. instead it moves very close to the shore line, perhaps across long island and southern new england. that means all the weather that's usually, in this case, worst to the east will be much closer to the metro politan areas and definitely hit the southern new england area and since there are strong winds, high surge, we'll see some of that along the east coast as well. >> so for a city like new york what strength do you think the storm will be when it comes into this region? is there anyway to say definitively? >> at this point, what we have is a category 2 hurricane that's very slowly weakening. we think it will still be category 2 perhaps category 1 as

it crosses north carolina. then that continued slow weakening will persist through the landfall in new england but it gets up to the new york area, southern new england probably looking at a lower end category 1 hurricane, perhaps upper end of a tropical storm conditions. what's important about this particular storm is not so much the peak intense egyity but the duration. it's a very large hurricane. in north carolina they are experiencing hurricane force within for as much as ten hours and the whole east coast near the center of the storm will experience tropical storm conditions for as much as 24 hours. it's a long period of having a battering of wind as well as higher levels of storm surge and because it's so long we'll go through a full tidal cycle in the northeast. there will relatively high tides coming this weekend. high tides plus the storm surge has us concern for the shore line. >> yeah. no doubt about it. a lot of damage.

probably long island. i had no idea, i didn't realize it would linger around for those tropical storm winds for 24 hours. that's with the tidal surge that could be really very unpleasant for an awful lot of people. let us know what you think. follow us on facebook and twitter at anderson cooper. next you'll hear from a hurricane hunter who just got back from a flight through the storm. he'll tell you what he saw and we'll talk to the storm chaser when hurricane irene hit the bahamas and hit it hard. we have new video of the damage there. >> reporter: anderson as the hunt for moammar gadhafi goes on searches have been uncovering his network of escape tunnels and secret bunkers. we got a look. you'll see what we saw tonight when 360 continues. vrrooom...vrrroooomm

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[ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. ban our breaking news tonight of course hurricane irene, the outer rain bands hitting north carolina on a path heading straight up i-95 right up the east coast, straight to new york city where we are tonight. a hurricane warning for the city, mandatory evacuations where i'm standing and other

low-lying areas. i'm in battery park. moments ago mayor mike bloomberg spoke to residents here. take listen. >> mta, our local mass transit system is shutting down bus and subway service tomorrow at noon. and once gale force winds arrive later in the evening it's going to be too late to go anywhere. so the mandatory order requires you to be out by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. from a practical sense if you're not out tomorrow morning you'll find it very difficult to get out. >> well, earlier new york city, excuse me, new jersey governor chris christie had one last warning for anyone who was still at the jersey shore. >> get the hell off the beach and asbury park and get out. you're done. it's 4:30. you've maximized your tan. >> he said warnings takes many factors including detailed information from aircraft flying through the storm.

a few minutes ago i talked to the noaa hurricane hunter who has just been right in the middle of irene. i asked him what it was like. >> yes. i'm on noaa's c-3 aircraft. we just passed through the center of tropical storm or hurricane irene. the south side of the storm was kind of benign but the south of the storm is quite bumpy. we got knocked around quite good. this is about par for the course especially with the storm at this stage, category 1, category 2 hurricane. parts of it can be rough, and parts of it are smooth. but right now, like i said, we're on the north side just out

of morehead city and we're getting bounced around pretty good. >> getting knocked around pretty good. some people chase hurricanes from 30,000 feet. others do it on the ground up close. sometimes they get video like this. we showed a portion it to you at the top of the broadcast. this is what hurricane irene looked like at a category 3 storm when it hit the bahamas. then take a look, this is some of the damage that the storm did in new jersey's governor chris christie and everybody else in a leadership position has said you don't want to thereabout when stuff like this happens. jim edge was. it's his job. he joins us now. jim, you were on the island when the storm smashed into it. what was it like? >> it was hard. we thought we would be close to the eye but it wobbled to the west and we got the worst part

of it. >> how badly was the island damaged? >> we had some roof structures that were damaged. south part of the island was breached. i haven't been down there yet. some sails were on the mast. overall not too bad. they build houses a lot stronger here versus the united states. >> they certainly learned the lesson of past storms. i appreciate your time. thank you very much. i'm glad you did okay in the storm. the first hints of hurricane irene are being felt right now in the carolinas as we've been telling you tonight. coming up we'll take you live to north carolina where the storm is expected to make its first landfall. still ahead bracing new york city. the hurricane is already a historic event first-ever mandatory evacuation order for all five boroughs.

the northeast has taken a direct hit from a hurricane, what kind of an impact that has had coming up. 's for pain. it has microparticles and enters the bloodstream faster. works twice as fast as before. did you invent this or something? dr. eric first, from bayer. wow. [ male announcer ] new bayer advanced aspirin. but not in my neighborhood. ♪ [ female announcer ] we're throwing away misperceptions about natural gas vehicles. more of the vehicles that fuel our lives

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. hurricane irene is expected to make its first landfall along the east coast of the united states in north carolina. a states spokesman said he's concerned about the entire eastern half of the state of, the hurricane could affect 20 counties and 3.5 million people in north carolina alone. that's where john zarrella is with us from atlantic beach. john, what time is it expected to come there. what kind of preparations have they been making? >> 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, anderson. if the eye crosses us here, that's the time the center of the storm is expected to get here. so just after first light. preparations, not a lot of people have put up shutters or boarded up. we did see some. most of the people here, at least a good percentage of them did decide to leave. others said they were going to

go ahead and stay. mandatory evacuation. they can't force you to leave. police are patrolling all up and down here. shelters are open, just over in admoni morehead city. salvation army serving meals there. one thing to point out as we see the wind picking up and we've gone through heavier wind and rain now. it continues to get heavier and heavier all the time. inland flooding is what kills more people than hurricanes than storm surge these days. so we're seeing already ground saturated here. a lot of runoff already beginning. and, you know, as i was saying earlier, we got atlantic ocean to the south here and the sound to the north there. we could have storm surge in both directions as the storm comes by and passes us. inland, there could be a lot of inland flooding and that's a risk for anybody who tries to

get out and drive in it and then roads are under water, impassable and that is how loss of life occurs. again, anderson, wind kicking up a little bit. still only right around tropical storm force and gusts. but the rain steadier, steadier and heavier. as the moments go by here. anderson? >> john, stay there. i want to bring in chad myers to talk about where you are, where it plays into where this thing will make first landfall. chad, it terms of where john is what can you tell us? >> john is right there. there's morehead city and atlantic beach, kind of a dual communities, one is the ocean and one is the city right behind it. and john you have a major cell just to your south and southeast, coming your way. this is probably the biggest cell that you've seen so far. wind with at least 50. right now you're only seeing about 35 to 39.

almost tropical storm force, but in the next 20 minutes you will easily get to 50 and 55 miles per hour with that nasty bunch of cells coming your way. it's one of the inner outer bands now and as the night goes on every single band will get more windy and more windy and the gusts will go higher an higher. >> and in terms of landfall, you're still thinking what? a category 2 for that area? >> absolutely. and with that landfall, the way the shape of the land is, anderson, the eye being right down here right now, as the eye comes up and the shape of the land is almost like a bowl. it's going to hoard all of the water and is going to make a big storm surge right here as the storm rolls right on top, literally of john zarrella in about 10 hours. >> chad, stand by and john stand by. we just managed to get north carolina governor on phone.

governor, your state is used to taking some major storm hits. this is a slower storm bigger than a lot of people have seen for a while. are you ready? >> yeah, we're ready, anderson. we got evacuations complete. everything is tied down. and tonight is a hard night. we're just waiting for it to hit. >> how have evacuations gone? people say mandatory evacuations. sometimes a lot of folks don't want to leave. >> sometimes some folks don't want to leave. you have to let people do what they want to do. that's why it's america. this is the last of the summer along all of coastal carolina and the southern part of the country, and so we got lots of tourists have left. a lot of real people, people who are citizens decided to stay. they are smart. we're urging them to use common sense and not go out tonight in the middle of the storm to see what's happening. again, we feel like we're prepared. the big problems will come

tomorrow as we see what damage is done ands with we go into full recovery. tonight our shelters are open. we got marine helicopters. we got highway patrolman, national guard. all our resources are deployed. we feel we have this part of the storm handled. it's the waiting that's so hard. >> the president has signed a disaster order for your state. you brought in extra national guard just to help out, right? >> we've done that. we're fully mobilized in north carolina. we have the water rescue team in place across the state. we really have done it so many times in north carolina, we feel our system is as good. we've prepared as much as we can but there's always things that are challenges. so, again, during the night we urge information stay in, to use caution. we urge people to just be really aware that this doesn't sound like a huge storm right now, 50 or 55 mile-per-hour winds but it will stay over our state 10 or

12 hours. that's where the problem comes. that bowl full of water will dump somewhere and when it dumps there will be a surge of water and who knows what will happen. >> that's obviously a big concern here in manhattan as well, the storm surge and also the slow moving winds just kind of staying in this area for 12 or more hours as you said. governor, appreciate your time tonight. i know you'res about. thanks for checking in with us. i want to go next to david mattingly in kill devil hills. david, what's the situation there? >> reporter: well, anderson, the governor hit it right on the head. the waiting is the hard part. they know what this storm can do. they've prepared as much as they possibly can. now everyone has to wait and see what the storm does as it passes through here. every passing hour we're getting a little more rain, a little more wind and the surf pounds just a little bit harder. we've had rain for a couple of hours steady now and just a reminder of what's going to be coming later tonight.

we got gale force wind right now, some gusts up to tropical storm force wind probably and that will continue to increase. we'll have tropical storm force wind overnight and then hurricane strength winds during the day followed by more tropical storm force within. this will ramp up slowly, be here for a while and ramp down slowly again. we don't know how many people have actually been staying behind. you heard the governor talking about this as well. they are not going door-to-door making people to leave. people that stayed here have been told if you get in trouble you're on your own. everybody has been warned and it's a minimum of 72 hours that they will be on their own during this storm and in the aftermath. so everyone is advised if they were staying they need to have the proper supplies and need to take every precaution to make sure they do not need some kind of emergency services because they are not going to able to come help them if there's a problem. anderson? >> yeah.

good advice. try to know you're going to be on your own for days at a time. david mattingly we'll check in with you. why new york city is trying to take no chances. why the biggest city in the u.s. will happen in a worse case scenario that we don't expect to see. moammar gadhafi's secret underground city revealed. we go inside the maze of tunnels and bunkers. fascinating look at part of libyan, tripoli and gadhafi's rule that we've never seen before. we'll be right back. has ginkgo for memory and concentration, plus support for bone and breast health. a great addition to my routine. [ female announcer ] one a day women's. yup, we had a good year at chevy. they gave us a consumers digest best buy award. then they gave us an iihs top safety pick and you... well, you gave us your approval. so we thought, why not give a little back. the chevy model year wrap up. get in on our greatest model year yet.

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we already seen reporters in north carolina, south carolina's coast is feeling the power of hurricane irene. we go to paulie's island. how bad is it where you are right now? >> reporter: it's actually not bad at all. in fact, a couple of hours ago the gusts were the worse. i brought a little wind meter with me and i clocked them at 42

miles per hour, a couple of hours ago. but now we're only getting minor gusts. things aren't bad. to give you and idea of where we are, we're south of myrtle beach and north of charleston, south carolina. we feel very fortunate. we definitely need the rain because we were seeing a trout here in south carolina. the rain is welcomed. there are a few power outages and i know the causeway to paulie's island was closed because of the high waters. the atlantic ocean, the waves have been monster waves. there were a few surfers out this afternoon but later this evening absolutely no one in the water. in fact, the beach, there was no beach. the high tide normally leaves about ten yards of beach along here, but there was essentially no beach, it washed right up to the dunes and in fact into the stairways that are the beach access to the inns along this beach and the folks here had not ever seen the water that high.

it has gone back down, but it stayed high well beyond the high tide at 6:00 this evening. so we're just now seeing the atlantic ocean recede and that's the way it looks here right now. >> and debbie, the fact that the storm has weakened somewhat over the course of today do you think that's encouraged a lot of folks around the area to stay in the area and not evacuate? >> reporter: they stayed put. as a matter of fact i talked to a man who said he had built a concrete house, so he never had to leave in the event of a hurricane. can you believe that? but, in fact, we're actually seeing some folks who are leaving north carolina and virginia and are coming this direction because they know, essentially, that we're seeing just tropical storm force winds and eventually that will move on out. in fact, you can see the sea ropes are barely moving. i'm hoping this is the worst of it for us here along the south

carolina coast. >> let's hope so. debbie, appreciate it. tonight new york is planning for the worst. that's what you have to. public transportation in the city will shut down at noon tomorrow. first time i've ever seen that as a life long new yorker. i want to show you a video on youtube. this was after a severe storm in 2007. not a hurricane just a much smaller storm. you can see the flooding that just a regular storm caused, poej of wh potential of what a hurricane or tropical storm winds can do. there's 200 underground subway stations, more than 400 miles of underground tracks. we don't have to tell you above ground new york has blocks and blocks of sky scrapers and high rises. there's concern about construction sites with tropical force winds picking up debris. millions of people, 8 million people who live here in new york city all of them wondering tonight how much damage will

hurricane irene do? how bad will it be. joining me is stephen flynn, author of the book "the edge of disaster, rebuilding a resilient nation." joining us is chris soreno. i appreciate both of you being with us. stephen, i guess we have to talk worst case scenarios. what could we be looking at? >> from the safety issues there are people in low-lying areas tend to see substantial flooding and that's why the mayor stepped out to try to get people out of that zone a area. the issue is of degree with hurricane force within, there's a lot of stuff in the streets and construction sites. equipment on terraces. people may have gone to the hamptons and left stuff behind. that stuff can get tossed around. the big issue that will affect the entire region is disruption of people's lives. we'll lose a lot of electrical power. transportation systems will be a

mess for a while. people has to camp out in their homes and their apartments for a substantial period of time. and when we talk about an outlying areas like connecticut and long island, also very densely-populated, trees going to be taken down, a lot of utilities. people could be facing weeks or more of power outages. >> that graphic is potential flooding that could occur in a category 2 storm. we believe, chris, though, this thing may be come ago shore in north carolina as a category 2, the hope is and the belief is that it will slow down, of course, as it travels north as it ling erosion over new jersey and other states. and by the time it hits new york city if in fact it continues on that track that it would be a category, a low category 1 or a strong tropical storm, which is still of great concern, given what stephen was talking about. you see that video from the subway system back in 2007 from just a big storm.

how structurally sound, chris, are landmarks and sky scrapers in new york, in philadelphia, in boston? >> well if i can at least give everybody one piece of good news. with the modern codes, the sky scrapers in the city are designed with safety factors that allow them to with stand wind speeds much greater than what we're seeing in the next two days. that's one piece of good news. >> great news. >> there will be motion to sky scrapers. if you're high up you could experience motion sickness but no structural integrity issues with the building itself. >> the concern, obviously, in a scene like new york where you have tons of glass and lots of windows with air borne debris, with winds that are staying, you know, at high levels for 12 or more hours, you could have as stephen said a lot of stuff being picked up from construction size. >> airborne debris is my major concern as a structural engineer from debris on construction size. awnings around the city.

patio furniture. all sorts of things in the city. trees in the city and the suburbs that can cause potential problems. and become missiles for windows. so definitely don't be anywhere near glass. don't take your chances outside. >> stephen, you and i talked about the infrastructures in big cities in a lot of different ways. but in terms of this storm, how does new york city, for instance, how does the infrastructure here capable of dealing with something like this? >> it's going to be a bit of a challenge particularly on the transportation side. a lot of our infrastructure, especially in the northeast is ageing and not very gracefully. it fails sometimes just by, you know, day-to-day wear and tear. when you put it under extreme pressure for an extended period of time, we're going to see some failure and it will take a while to recover. this is everything from pumps that have to be operating in the subway systems here, dealing with massive rainfall on top of storm surge.

it's going to be a challenge for that infrastructure. one good news of sorts here is that city will go quiet for a little bit of time. getting it back up is going to take a little longer than most new yorkers are used to. we really haven't had a major hurricane hit new york city for almost 100 years in terms of direct hurricane force winds, sustained for a long period of time. usually long island, east long island. this will be a bit avenue experience for virtually everybody who is alive in the metropolitan new york city area. >> you stalked about the structural integrity of sky scrapers. for people who do live in high rise, above the 10th floor, is it okay for them to stay in their apartment? do you suggest they go to a lobby or a stairwell? >> it's okay to stay in your apartment. don't be near the glass. i think everybody needs to help out their neighbors because basically what you have if you have balcony furniture or

anything that you have on a patio, that could be the projectile into your neighbor's building. be needs to help each other. i know people could be away on vacation in a hazard that they wouldn't be back to secure their furniture. stay inside. stay away from glass. don't let the projectile be an issue for you. >> thank you for your advice. coming up next we'll look at the rare times a hurricane hit the northeast. what happened back thenning might give you and indication what could happen this weekend. it's the high winds and people for flooding storm surge that we're worried about in new york city. we'll take you underground inside library area in tripoli, inside a vast network of tunnels under gas phillipine's compound. it's a fascinating look at what the dictator has done. did he use some of these tunnels to escape? >> i'm sure it was used because this place is so big to get back

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i'm in battery park in lower manhattan which is in the evacuation zone in new york city. the water is about 20 feet from where i'm standing. today mayor bloomberg took the step of announcing mandatory evacuations from low-lying areas in each of the five boroughs of new york which includes this area of city. subways and buses will stop running tomorrow afternoon. all broadway shows for the weekend have been cancelled. i want to take a look at how devastating it can be when the northeast takes a direct hit from a hurricane. a lot of folks don't have much sberns it. when it does happen it's unforgettable. 1938, the long island express hurricane crashes ashore as a category 3 storm and wrecks much of new england. >> washed away the pleasant beaches. >> wind gusts as strong as 136

miles per hour and waves as high as 50 feet the storm claims nearly 700 lives in the region and destroys almost 9,000 structures. including the connecticut home of actress katherine hepburn. six years later great atlantic hurricane of 1944 roars on to long island. the storm cost more than $100 million worth of damage. it sunk five ships including two coast guard cutters and a navy destroyer and claimed 300 lives. in recent times less powerful but no less dangerous hurricanes have hit the northeast as well. 20 years before hurricane irene there was hurricane bob. the eye of the storm made landfall on rhode island in august of 1991 as a strong category 2 with within of 115 miles per hour. bob is blamed for more than a billion dollars of damage in 18 storm related deaths.

two months later hirk gra er hue came by. later called the perfect storm. it lashed the east coast of the u.s. with pounding waves and coastal flooding causing significant damage in massachusetts, maine, new hampshire and new jersey. nine people were killed in the storm which produced 100-foot waves equivalent a ten-foot story building. so-called storm of the century. hurricane gloria, september 1985. recorded winds of up to 150 miles per hour. gloria made landfall as a powerful category 3 storm on the outer banks of north carolina before moving up the east coast making a second landfall on long island then another in connecticut. causing significant damage up and down the east coast and eight storm related deaths. now another tempest is threatening to strike the northeast.

in a matter of days hurricane irene may join this dubious list of killer storms. let's hope not. cnn is tracking hurricane irene all weekend. right now, we have the business news. >> in tripoli the hunt for moammar gadhafi continues with libyan opposition forces covering a network of secret tunnels beneath his compound. today sarah got a look inside the winding tunnels and bunkers and found a virtual city beneath a city. >> reporter: in this room this is the tv studio. he has professional videotapes there. these are actually tapes that cnn still uses. this is amazing that all of this does exist. it was rumored for so long and seeing it in person is absolutely almost unbelievable. this whole place is filled with some of gadhafi's recordings.

be interesting to see what's on them. >> in mexico authorities now say at least 52 people died when armed gunmen torched a casino in monterey. the suspects arrived in three vehicles and burst into the building. looked like gallons ever gasoline. the mexican president blamed the attack on tricht terroristed m by greed. the dow ended 130 points higher, up 4% for the week. the s&p 500 and nasdaq also posted gains. investors liked what fed chief ben bernanke said in a closely followed speech that made no mention of new plans for more economic stimulus measures. with hurricane irene looming, national park engineers are racing to protect the washington monument from further damage. they are working to plug cracks caused by that magnitude 5.8 earthquake days ago. and like many other places washington is preparing for

irene. >> no doubt about it. up next we'll check in with chad myers for the very latest on the path of the storm. also new information coming up next. we'll be right back. jerry, how are you doing? fine, i just got a little fender bender. oh, jerry, i'm so sorry. i would love to help but remember, you dropped us last month. yeah, you know it's funny. it only took 15 minutes to sign up for that new auto insurance company but it's taken a lot longer to hear back. is your car up a pole again? [ crying ] i miss you, jessica! jerry, are you crying? no, i just, i bit my tongue. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. i have copd. if you have it, you know how hard it can be to breathe and what that feels like. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms... ...by keeping my airways open... ...a full 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both.

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welcome back. we're coming to you from the southernmost tip-in manhattan. an area expected to be under water when this storm hits. there's a number of rats running around our feet right now. not very pleasant. a states spokesman in north carolina says he's concerned about the entire eastern half of the state, the hurricane could affect 20 counties and 3.5 million people in north carolina alone. john zarrella joins us again tonight from atlantic beach. obviously there's a lot of concern there about the impact of this. it looks like that band that chad myers talked about a short time ago, it looks like the rain is getting stronger there right now, john. >> reporter: yeah. you know, anderson it's not that

sideways driving pelting rain that feels like sand when it hits you in the face. but it did intensify a few minutes ago and coming in. it's picking up again. you know one of the things we're talking about, your might be able to see. the ground is already pretty saturated here in a lot of these low-lying areas. so one of the big concerns you talked about 20 north carolina counties, a lot of those are counties inland not right on the coast and that's because of all the rainfall. it has been raining steadily now for several hours and as everybody, as chad myers has been pointing out, we could be in this kind of weather and worst weather right through tomorrow late afternoon and evening because the core of this hurricane is expected to pass right over us at about 7:00 a.m. in the morning when we'll get those category 1, category 2 hurricane winds and then for another six, eight hours on the back side of the storm we'll get this tropical storm force winds and the continuation of the

rainfall. so, a long time yet to go before we see any clear skies here. anderson? >> all right, john. appreciate it. let's check in with chad myers. give us an overview, a rundown when it's going hit, how strong it's going and where it's going to go. >> well, i think it's getting stronger right now. we had a very big lull during the day where the storm lost its color. kind of yellow. but now i see almost a storm inside of a storm. where we have the arms of the outer bands way up towards hatteras and down south. there's a core beginning trying to build and that core may be the energy we talked about, about an ice skate where the ice skater brings her arms in on one foot and does the spin. that spin may be getting bigger there. we have hurricane hunter aircraft in it right now looking for that spin. there's the eye. it is going to make landfall, 8:00 in the morning. very close to either whe