it's 9:00 p.m. here on the east coast. hurricane matthew already destructive, increasing deadly, approaching florida's atlantic coast tonight. getting closer, apparently reconsolidating after a rampage through the caribbean, especially haiti, it's now taken nearly 300 lives, at least 283 dead in haiti, according to reuters. florida's governor, rick scott, who's been issuing dire warnings for days, telling people in the evacuation area that time is running out. >> i spent the past four days traveling florida's east coast, urging people to prepare and get ready for hurricane matthew. it's here. it's absolutely here. it's not very far off the coast of palm beach. we're already starting to see the impacts and it's a monster. >> well, we have correspondents, we have meteorologists across the affected areas, the winds growing, power outages now in the tens of thousands. to bring us all up to date on all of it, including evacuation and rescue efforts when they happen, we'll be checking in with all of them throughout this next hour. we begin in one of the areas

governor scott says he is most concerned about. cnn's nick valencia joins us from west palm beach. how are things out there right now where you are? >> reporter: we continue to get bands by the hurricane matthew as it barrels its way towards the east coast of florida. all day long, really, anderson, the wind has been a problem. just in the course of the last 15 minutes, this rain is starting to whip us here in the eyes and really intensify. the storm surge is happening about 2 1/2 miles away. the beach, palm beach, i should say, about 2 1/2 miles away from here. it is instantly worse, i should say, there. but just now, as i mentioned, this rain really starting to intensify. downed trees according to local maples is a really big issue. thousands are already without power. and this appears to be the start of the worst of it. >> there is a flood watch in effect for palm beach county right now, right? >> reporter: so that's a great point here. we were speaking to residents earlier, a mandatory evacuation area there by palm beach, about a couple miles away from here. and they say they're worried about storm surges.

on a normal day, if you think about it, a storm causes flooding on those streets and those downtown areas. this is anything but normal. storm surges are certainly going to be an issue. also an issue, we've touched on this and i can't stress it enough, those who have decided to ride this storm out, those who have chosen not to evacuate. first responders pretty upset at those folks who decided to stick this storm out, stay in their home -- according to first responders we -- >> you can see nick's image breaking up, often happens as those outer bands of the storm start to interfere with the satellite. let's go back to our cnn meteorologist, tom seder, is tracking matthew from our weather center. so where is this storm now? >> it's about 70 miles, just offshore of west palm beach, as the crow flies, directly east and west. but again, this is quite a large system, as you see here. if you were to look at the tropical storm force winds and stretch them out, it would be like from philadelphia to boston. but we're already seeing bonds of showers that have moved in. we've got about 23,000 without power in miami-dade and brevard

county, just with thunderstorms. but the track is interesting, as we talked about last hour. a closer inspection, it hasn't changed much. some models want to give us a 6:00 a.m. landfall at cape canaver canaveral. if it just hugs the coast, it's going to create tremendous damage. west palm beach, maybe hurricane force winds, but they're not going to have the surge. that's from the storm center northward. this is where the winds start to extend outward a little bit and cause more problems with the storm surge in the jacksonville area. >> some of the warnings and watches have changed for parts of south florida into last hour, right? >> that's right, it's because of the angle of approach, because of the wind direction. here's what we know. it's been dropped from around boca, south to golden beach. it's just a tropical storm warning. we're still going to see tropical storm force winds. the southwestern part of florida has lost this yellow, which was the storm watch. yes, there could be some strong winds, but all of the deadly elements of the flooding and the surge and the damaging winds are going to be mainly in this area of red. when you look at the radar,

anderson, again, 70 miles here, when this system moves in, the storm surge problem is just one element. we don't know exactly what happened in nassau yet. freeport, which was hit very hard, but it's still a category 4, and as we watch it, it's going to spread a lot of problems up and down the coast through the entire coast of carolinas. >> let's talk about the carolinas, georgia, south carolina, what should they expect the next 12 to 24 hours? >> if you consider 20 to 40-foot waves from miami to jacksonville, underneath the center of the storm where the heights are so high, that wall of water is unfortunately going to hit the curvature of the coastline. so the intensity of rain, you're looking at 8, 10, 12 inches of rainfall. but it gets enhanced. this is just rain, that's 12, 13, maybe 14 inches. we know what south carolina went through just a year ago. that's just one element. but the winds are going to be a big issue with this.

hurricane-force winds extend from the center, 60 miles. that's like seeing an ef-2 tornado. not just an isolated spot that synapse a tree or takes a roof off, that's every community, house by house, business by business, as it wraps back and around. when it gets near the georgia coast, that's where i think we could have a problem with a tornado outbreak. and we'll probably see a watch that will be formed a little bit later and posted. but it doesn't really look like the system wants to move back and away from land. worst-case scenario, again, anderson, is that it stays overwater and continues to be fueled by that water. sometimes it's better that it just get it over with so it can be downgraded, but with the storm surge, the winds, this is going to be devastating for about 36 hours. >> you'll be watching closely over the next hour and all night. let's go to palm beach deputy town manager, tom budchard, he joins us now on the phone.

what are the conditions there and how much damage are you expecting from this storm? >> hi, anderson, we're, so far, so good considering we have a category 4 stopper out in the atlantic. we have had reports of power outages on palm beach, and a pretty massive amount of debris, but nothing that's a great concern at this time. what we're looking for is later on tonight at high tide, there is some concern about the storm surge. most on the west side of the island, the intercoastal side, where our elevations are a little bit lower. so we do expect some pretty good flooding along the western shoreline. >> and obviously, there's been a mandatory evacuation in palm beach. but do you know -- i mean, have the majority of people evacua evacuated -- do you know how many or what percentage has staid behind? >> yes, we're fortunate that palm beach is a semi-seasonal community, so we have a lot of

folks who aren't in palm beach at this time of the year, but we had pretty good participation, as far as the evacuation is concerned. so we're guessing there's roughly 15 to 20% of people riding out the storm in palm beach right now. >> and the plan to try to help those who have stayed behind, if and when they need help, obviously, at the height of the storm, that's a real issue. >> it is. it's a really big issue. we try to do our best to let everyone know that there is a point in time when the winds get too heavy, and we are not able to send out medics or police officers to deal with an emergency situation. but our 911 center is still operating, the weather is not that significant that it would keep us away if there is an emergency, but the storm is just, you know, it's about 75 miles to our east right now. the eye of the system.

and we do expect it to get a little worse before it gets better. so that is a possibility that we may not be able to respond at some points tonight. >> and at what point are you able to get, you know, first responders back on the streets. i guess it's an hour-by-hour check on how high the winds are? >> absolutely, it is an hour-by-hour situation. we expect to have a full crew, not only from our public safety departments, but also our public works departments, doing damage assessment, right at day break, as the winds do let up, before daybreak, we will have a police officer, public safety folks out taking a look at the community and seeing if there's anything that needs to be addressed immediately. otherwise, at daybreak, we'll do our assessments, see where the dangers are, and try to get the island restored as quickly as we can to get residents back to their home. >> jay, appreciate you talking to us and all our best to you

and everyone in palm beach. joining us by phone is daytona beach police chief, michael chitwood. chief chitwood, what are you expecting tonight. how prepared is your community? >> anderson, how you doing? we are prepared. we have four shelters open in the city. all four as of about 15 minutes ago were filled to capacity. we probably have 25% of our peninsula or the barrier island that's still occupied, people are refusing to believe. they believe that this is like any other hurricane they have ridden out. we have emphatically told them that you have to get out. this is a matter of life and death. this is going to be devastating. when the storm surge rolls the through there, there are parts of that peninsula that may be only four or five blocks wide. the city, we broke it down into five quadrants. we have strike teams that are already in place and we will be out trying to help people and rescue people until the point in time where it becomes dangerous

for us. and we think that that's unfair that you have some idiots who think it's okay to ride out a storm and put other people's lives in danger, and when they decide it's not fun anymore, they want to call 911 and say, oh, come and get me now. that's not going to happen. the power's going to out, people will lose their cell phone usage, lose internet usage and they'll lose power. and then you want to call and say, help me. and the time to get out is now. the window is open. there are shelters throughout this county. we are imploring you to get out. >> so there's still time for people to get to a shelter? >> there's time for us here in daytona beach for you to get out and leave now. the bridges are closed eastbound. there are three bridges that connect us to the barrier island. they are open only to travel westbound. if you call 911 now, a strike team will show up and get you to a shelter. we are imploring people, get out before it's too late. >> when you went door to door and you tell people, you know, they need to get out. how did they react? obviously, you can't force people. it's got to be incredibly

frustrating? >> it's frustrating because people say, i spent my whole life here, there's no reason to leave, i've been through five or six or ten hurricanes, but an anecdotal story for you, myself today, there was a young mother out with two young boys on bicycles. i got out of the car and i must have spent 40 minutes trying to convince her to at least let me take the boys to the police station, because we have all of our families are here with us and there's, you know, we have them all set up, food, video games, let me take the boys if you're refusing to leave and she refused. she said, everyone is making a big deal out of this, there is hype over nothing. we have gone back to the house repeatedly to try to convince her to leave and take her children with her. >> so in -- i guess, it may be a dumb question, but it's an hour, maybe minute by minute situation, but how long do you think you'll be off the streets for in terms of your ability to respond to people if you need it? >> we're going to stay on as

long as we can, but the general consensus is, once you reach the speed winds of 50 miles an hour plus, sustained, we cannot successfully get over the bridges to get you. even the strike teams, with the flooding, are going to be limited when that wind and that storm surge hits the barrier islands. >> and if there is extensive flooding and it stays flooded, do you have -- do you have, you know, shallow bottom boats to get around? >> we do. we have john boats already positioned. we have some really heavy duty pickup trucks that have been donated to us that we -- in 2009, we suffered some devastating floods here, in some places 7 to 8 feet high. so we were prepared from that. so we will be going out there when the conditions are safe, because you have to remember, there are going to be power lines down, gas leaks. there's going to be a lot of things that are going to happen here that will prevent us from doing our jobs. that's why we're begging and imploring people, get out now before we're not able to do a job. >> have you been through a storm

like this? has the community been through a storm like this in -- >> we have not. this is the first time in the area's history that this has ever -- a sized storm this large coming in off the atlantic has ever come into our area. and even the longtime residents, all during the week, have been telling us, this is something we haven't seen before. and these are folks that have lived here 40, 50, 60 years and they evacuated. because they were like, we don't like the way this looks. this is not going to be good. >> chief chitwood, sounds like you're on top of it. we wish you the best. thank you, sir. >> thank you. just ahead, more on what it takes to prepare for this and respond effectively in the wake of it. retired general honore joins us for insight he learned during katrina. and later, politics, how donald trump and hillary clinton are prepping for sunday's night, including trump's event tonight, a town hall style event in new hampshire.

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a scary night for a lot of folks in florida. hurricane matthew now getting dangerously close to florida's atlantic coast, having just slammed through the bahamas and before that haiti, where reuters is now reporting there have been 283 fatalities. in florida, 1.5 million people have been told to leave vulnerable areas. there you see the exodus, several thousand national guard troops standing by. supplies pre-positioned. patients and hospitals in some danger zones have been moved further inland as a precaution and preparations are up the east coast all the way to the

carolinas. i want to go to stephanie elam tonight in savannah, georgia. how are things there? what are the preparations like? >> reporter: here in savannah, they started at noon today, making sure, anderson, that people who needed to get evacuated but had no other means of getting out of savannah could get to a safe place. so what they've been doing here is they've been taking city buses that say "evacuation" on them, they're stopping at bus stops, and if anyone needs a ride from there, they'll pick them up and drop them off here at the savannah scivic center. from there, they go through, process, make sure they know who's here, and they board buses and are being driven out to augusta, a couple hours away, about 2 1/2 hours away. if you can see these buses here, they're lined up and they'll be doing this through midnight, tonight. tomorrow at 6:00 a.m., they'll start doing the same thing. the problem is, for people who have people getting to the civic center, they're going to have to find another way, because these city buses will not be in service tomorrow to help them out. that service tomorrow will be from 6:00 a.m. until noon.

here's what's really interesting about this. they're telling people that they really think if you can find other options, you should do that, but you should definitely evacuate. the governor as made it clear they want people to evacuate from the east side of 95, but they've made it clear, as far as the mahler is concerned, that these shelters are not going to be comfortable for people, that this is a last resort. if this is what you need, we can help you, we will get you out of here, but at the same time, just know that this is going to be a hunker down situation that may not be the most comfortable or the most hospitable, but people should be safe there, anderson. >> all right, stephanie, thanks very much for that update. i want to go to orlando, the danger there real enough that all the major theme parks in the area, their closed now. cnn's ryan young is there. what are the conditions like in orlando if they're closing the theme parks? >> anderson, the rain is starting to fall here and everyone's talking about this. you think about the fact that disney world is obviously right behind us and everybody is thinking about coming here and spending all their money. we spoke to some people who

spent more than $6,000 to come to disney world and it closed around 5:00 and from there the airports close at 8:00. so some people are trapped here. we talked to one family from toronto who got on the last plane out of here. people trying to evacuate before the storm hits. big conversation, especially near the hotels in this area, anderson. >> yeah, disney world, obviously, a huge world in orlando. the hotels, i understand, with are nearly fall. so are a lot of people just going to be stuck there, kind of riding it out in hotels? >> you know, that's an absolute conversation, as a floridian and someone who grew up here, i was speaking to people being called in. there were people who live on the coast, coming into orlando trying to avoid the storm. now that they're looking at the pattern, they're wondering if they made the wrong decision. but when you look at it, you can see that they're really worried about the sustained winds. that's something people have been talking about over and over. one hotel manager that we talked to said he has so many cancellations at first, but then all of these out of towners started filling up. they started packing water.

they said they can sustain themselves for about four days, not only with the generator, but water and supplies they brought in to make sure they can feed people. one woman told me, after 25 years living here in florida, this is the first time she's ever been scared about a storm. >> understandable why. ryan young, appreciate that. florida governor rick scott has now activated sever thousand national guard members. president obama signed emergency declarations including fema and other federal agencies to act. governor scott telling wolf blitzer earlier that he is getting what he needs from the federal government. joining us now is someone who knows how difficult and meeting those problems can be is retired general russel honore, who earned praise in the wake of hurricane katrina. conditions starting to deteriorate in florida pretty rapidly. what advice do you have for those trying to ride this out? >> riding out is a risk that people take individually. i've heard the governor and all these mayors for the last 24 to 36 hours encouraging people to leave. but let's say this, anderson if

you're in a coastal community in florida with those inlet canals that have been built to allow people to go back and forth in their boats, any community there with that type of surge, the right front of that storm probably creates an 18 to 20-foot surge. the left side, which is the left side of matthew, as you come up, will create maybe an 8 to 10-foot surge. at high tide, in that surge, a lot of coastal communities are probably going to flood. particularly around palm beach. i've been there many a times. they've got a great group of first responders and emergency managers along that florida coast, but they can only do so much. so if people are listening, they immediate to move to higher parts of buildings. and don't stay in the first couple of floors, if you're along the coast. if you can see water from where you live and if it goes out to the coast, you need to move to a higher part of a building or evacuate, depending on what your local mayor is telling you, if

you still can evacuate. if not, get to a higher part of a building. >> you know, in a stopper like this, in the wake of a storm like this, and this applies to people all around the country who, you know, might one day face something like this, how long should people plan on kind of being on their own or taking care of themselves before help or services can get to them? >> well, i think if you look at recent history, anderson, katrina, we were still rescuing people 4 1/2, 5 days after the storm, in the isolated areas, inside -- going inside of homes. so it's key that somebody know where you are. if you're going to take the risk to stay, let somebody know what building you're in, what address you're at. because that is going to be an issue afterwards, because the power goes out, the communications will go out, and then it will be very difficult for the first responders to come find you. but it could take up to four to five days, if you have the level of flooding 40, 50% of these

cities flood, which could happen from surge, then it's going to take a while for everybody to get to you, because florida, being a coastal city, you can only approach it from one side. unlike new orleans, we could come from three different sides. >> that's why supplies, water, supplies, critical. there's some store models that actually show this storm looping around, making a second-round hit in florida. i don't even know how you prepare for something like that with all the different models there are out there. >> absolutely. sure, i think people need to stay aware and that this can happen. the idea of people taking their own -- doing their own safe risk assessment and say it's only a category 3, we've lived through this before, that is not wise counsel and if you have somebody you're responsible for, particularly kids oldr elderly people, the lights are going to go out. and if you visualize staying in your place with lights out surrounded by water, that is what could happen to you.

please get to higher ground or evacuate. >> general honore, appreciate your expertise. earlier, we heard a local police chief talking about all the local people that should be evacuating, but not. the window's still open, he says. that's true throughout the danger zone. cnn's nick valencia is in west palm beach tonight. he joins us now. conditions, how are they now, nick? >> reporter: anderson, the stopper just keeps getting worse and worse. i'm not sure if it translates -- heaviest rain that we've seen here so far. our photographer, michael callaway, if you want to pan up there to those palms, you can see the winds. we expected these winds a lot earlier, these tropical storm force winds, and just in the last 10 or so minutes, they really started to pick up significantly. that is a concern, of course, as the debris can come off of these trees. we've already seen one of these palm trees fall a little bit while ago, as this storm sort of picks up and the intensity happens, first responders, and of course, local officials, really worried that can break windows, damage buildings. here we're out of a hotel where

a lot of local residents have decided to take shelter here, spend the night here. these are the smart ones, those who decided to evacuate, get out of those lower-lying areas and out of those storm flood zones, but people here are still concerned as this storm appears to intensify by the minute. anderson? >> nick valencia, appreciate you being out there. in a situation like this, obviously, our folks will try to stay on the air, as long as they can, all throughout the night. we have a lot of experience covering these kind of storms. a lot of times you find the satellite truck, try to find a 90-degree angle on a building so if the winds pick up, it doesn't literally lift the satellite truck off the ground and flip it on its side. we'll try to stay on the air, we have as many correspondents and weather experts all throughout the region as we can to track the storm, minute by minute. we'll have much more ahead on the storm this hour. plus, we're going to dip into presidential politics and presidential candidates gearing up for the second debate on sunday. donald trump coming off his performance in the first debate held a town hall tonight in new hampshire. he says it wasn't a practice

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hillary clinton and donald trump will be facing off in st. louis in their second debate, which is a town hall. hillary clinton known for her intensive debate prep, and this time team clinton is expecting a better prepared donald trump. he just wrapped up an invitation-only town hall in new hampshire that looked an awful lot like a practice run for sunday's debate. trump said it was not a practice run. the participants were hand-picked by his campaign. here's what trump said when he was asked if he held back his attacks on clinton at the first debate. >> yeah, i did hold back. i thought it was just inappropriate to say what i was really thinking i would say. and i held back. i think for -- i think for good reasons. i'd much rather have it be on policy and i didn't like getting into the gutter. but i had a problem with the mike. we had a guy inside the room oscillating my mike. it's not that the mike didn't room. and it's interesting, i went there a little bit before, and i said, boy, the mike is so great. unfortunately, when i went to

talk, they turned the mike up and down. you saw it. everybody in the room saw it. so we had a real problem. >> trump made a point of saying tonight it was not a dry run for the debate, also took a swipe at hillary clinton. what more did he say? >> well, anderson, even though this was a town hall style event, the kind of town hall that donald trump really didn't do during the primaries, like his republican opponents were doing it, and even though there was a countdown clock that timed his answers to 2 minutes, donald trump was insistent this was not a dry run, this was not debate prep for what was coming up on sunday, and he couldn't help but getting yet another hit in against hillary clinton, who has spent quite an awful lot of time preparing for these debates. >> we want to keep this small. and by the way, they were saying, this is practice for sunday. this isn't practice -- this has nothing to do with sunday. we're just here because we just wanted to be here. and, you know, hillary, frankly, they talk about debate prep. that's not debate prep. she's resting.

she's resting. and i want to be with the american people. i want to be with the people from new hampshire. and she wants to rest. debate prep? >> so, in terms of style, tone tonight, was there anything new about how donald trump dealt with the audience in this sort of a format? >> reporter: well, anderson, it was an interesting setting, because it was invitation only. the group was hand selected, and the questions weren't asked by people in the audience, but rather, they were asked by a conservative talk radio host, who was moderating this. now, part of the reason new hampshire town halls turn candidates into such formidable candidates is because it draws out engaged voters. it draws out people who are undecided, who can ask really anything. that's not what he saw donald trump get tonight. he got a lot of pretty friendly questions, and he didn't dive too deeply into the details. you heard a lot of the sort of, top, broad brush of his policy proposals, but not a lot of meat on the bones. not the long, winding answers you're used to seeing from

candidates. >> sara, thanks very much for the update. joining me now, cnn senior political commentator, david axelrod. he hosts the ax-files podcast on cnn.com. and gloria borger also joins us. david, when donald trump says hillary clinton isn't doing debate prep, she's just off the trail because she needs rest and then says he wants to keep the debate on policy, not get personal, how do you reconcile that? >> i think in the last debate, it was clear she was indeed, doing debate prep, because she was well prepared. she's going through the regimen you usually do. you prepare for weeks in advance and go into an intensive period before the debate where you do pock debates and so on. i wonder if his staff didn't put this on his schedule because they can't get him to prep and this was the closest thing they could do to get him to prep.

if he goes into this debate like he did the last one and hasn't rigorously prepped, the result could be the same. >> he says he won the last debate, he said he didn't take any of the bait that hillary clinton dangled in front of him. but hard to imagine that he wouldn't kind of change something, no? >> i think that's what they were trying to do tonight. was to get him accustomed to this kind of environment, because he hasn't done a lot of these town halls, and i don't think it worked, honestly, anderson. i think that he gave these kind of rote answers, he wasn't allowed to make a lot of contact with the people in the audience. and he seemed to just keep saying, this isn't prep, this isn't prep. it wasn't. it wasn't prep. because his answers were very broad. he didn't give specific answers to some of the questions that were asked. and then, by the way, were all softballs. how great are you? was basically the tenor of the

questions. soy presume those aren't the kinds of questions he's going to get on sunday. >> it's interesting, david -- >> you would think, on that question, gloria, he could talk for some time. >> yes. >> i'm sorry, anderson. >> it's interesting, david. donald trump is saying, look, i want to talk about policy, i want to talk about policy specifics, but we don't hear a lot of it, not really tonight in the small amount from i heard. do you believe that trump can be anyone else other than his authentic self, which did very well for him in the primaries. >> and in his heart of hearts, i don't think he believes that he should. i know people are telling him that. he hates being deemed a loser and he reacts very poorly to it. so maybe that's an impetus. but he's 70 years old and has gotten as far as he's gotten by doing it his own way. it's very hard to imagine that he's going to change in a dramatic way. the one thing about this thing tonight, though, is that the thing about these town hall meetings is, you know, you have people standing in front of you

who are real human beings and they represent other real human beings around the country and voters do watch how you interact with these people. and if you don't interact with them in a real and in a genuine, appropriate way, i think it doesn't work for you. i will amend something i have been saying. i've been saying, you can't be negative in a town hall meeting, and i think -- i still believe that if he wants to bring up infidelity, that's not going to go well there. but i recall when i was working for the president, the president's second debate with mitt romney was a town hall debate and they had some spirited debates over benghazi and some other things, but both candidates were well prepped for those. they weren't such spontaneous moments. they were moments they were waiting to have. so, you know, i think that donald trump takes great risk if

he goes barrelling into this next one and does it as a kind of spontaneous exercise, as he seemed to for much of the debate last week. >> you know, it's much more difficult in a way, and david, you would know this better than i would, to, in a town hall setting, take the turn to attacking the person standing next to you when you're getting a question from somebody in the audience. when somebody in the audience is saying, i have a problem, and how are you going to solve my problem, you then have to think three steps ahead, and say, here's how i'm going to solve your problem, but here's what's wrong with the way, for example, hillary clinton will solve your problem. >> yes, yes. >> it's a little more difficult, i think. >> you have to make that pivot, you're absolutely right. if people sense you just blew off the question in order to get to your attack, it goes very badly. and again, this is why preparing for a town hall debate is almost more difficult and exacting than

preparing for any other kind of debate. >> david axelrod, gloria borger, thank you very much. we'll have a lot more to talk about on sunday starting at 4:00 eastern time when our cnn debate coverage gets underway from st. louis. i'll be moderating the town hall along with abc's martha raddatz. more on hurricane prep up and down the florida coast. winds picking up as you can see in the daytona beach area. a late update as the category 4 storm gets closer.

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on activities and restaurants. - the extra income that i get from airbnb has been a huge impact in my life. the winds are picking up along florida east atlantic coast as hurricane matthew gets closer. the storm has already taken nearly 300 lives in the caribbean. sara sidner joins us live. how are things there? >> reporter: we just got through with another band. and this time it was the heaviest rain that we've seen. so definitely we're starting to get the effects coming on to shore. you'll notice the trees flowing and blowing back and forth behind me. sometimes the wind changes direction. one thing we can also tell you, we've learned that there's at least 500 florida power and light folks who are going to be coming in here. because they know and expect

that about 2 million plus people will be without four at some point tonight. they want to be in place right here on the beach and ready to go to try to get power back on as soon as possible. we also have seen some people who are still here. they live here, there are some lights on that we saw in some condominiums. so there are folks on the beach that have decided to stay, trying to weather this storm. a very dangerous decision. a decision that both the governor and the police chief says could be deadly and they will not be able to get help. and that's something they keep saying over and over and over again. if you call 911, first of all, your phones might not work, and second of all, they're not going to send people out in the middle of a category 4 hurricane. when it passes,thal be on it, right on it. there's at least 200 officers full-time, ready to go. the entire department ready to go, but they will only come out when it is safe for them to do so, anderson. >> how sturdy are those homes on

the beach? >> reporter: some of them have been around for a while. we were talking to the police chief about that. some of these hotels, there are folks that wanted to come into the hotels, they feel safer here, but many of the hotels fwh including the one where we were saying said, nope, everybody has to evacuate. it's no joke. they can make that decision, the general managers of these hotels, and they have said, no, you have to get out and get off of the beach. some of the places we saw, some of them were older, and that means they may not have really strong windows. these windows in some of the newer hotels can withstand about 150-mile-per-hour winds. but some of the older ones can not. that's beginning to be a real danger as debris starts spinning around, because there may also be tornadoes inside of the storm, because it's such a monster. so they really, again, are just telling people, don't do it. don't stand there and watch this storm come in.

if you're doing that, it is already too late. >> sara sidner, be careful. joining us on the phone is miami county mayor, carlos jiminez. what are you seeing and expecting in the hours ahead? >> we're seeing that the worst is behind us. we really just started looking at some squalls, maybe some of the feeder bands coming around the hurricane, on the backside of the hurricane. we're expecting to be normalizi normalizing life here in miami-dade county as early as possible tomorrow morning. so some of our services like transit and stuff will start already. so we expect, like i said, the worst is past us and we were lucky that the -- that we didn't get too much, too much wind. we didn't get too much damage. so we prepared for the worst, but for us, it's -- it wasn't a bad storm, but i know that for our neighbors up north, it's going to be a very different

story. >> in terms of the next 24 hours, you're still expecting rain and some wind? >> yeah, we are, but, nothing -- >> nothing like -- >> yeah, nothing that will keep our services down. transit is going to start again. we have closed a lot of our services, but tomorrow we're going to start them up again, and we should be back to business as normal here in miami-dade county no later than saturday. >> well, certainly good news for the folks there. mayor giminez, thanks so much. a little bit of good news there. just ahead, we'll check in with nick valencia for an update on west palm beach, the situation there. we'll be right back. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine.

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. hurricane matthew is heading for florida after leaving 283 dead in haiti, according to rh t rheters. nick valencia is in west palm bea beach. give us an update. >> reporter: you remember the outer bands of hurricane matthew were so long is knocked our satellite off the air. right now the rain has sort of let out a little bit and so has

the wind. it's the pattern since 4:00 a.m., our team has been out here covering all elements of hurricane matthew. we saw it intensify at 8:00 p.m., and now it's slowed down. we're outside of a hotel where a lot of people have decided to take cover, take evacuation. local residents have listened to state and local officials and tried to take cover, get out of the areas that are low-lying, in major flood zones. the concern is as this wind continues to pick up throughout the early morning hours and the overnight hours, pieces of we did debris behind me, that palm tree, imagine that whipping around at 60, 70, 80-miles-an-hour, that can create some really damaging effect on these buildings. 2 1/2 miles, way is palm beach, suffering the significant brunt of this damage. we were there earlier, a mandatory evacuation zone and we had to get out of there. some people decided to stick behind and the mayor gave an

ominous worning sayiarning say be able to tell you, and by all meteorologists, we're expecting it to intensify by the morning hours. >> thank you. i want to go back to our cnn meteorologist, tracking hurricane matthew from the weather center . in terms of the storm, about how many people are in the path? >> right now, anderson, under any watch or warning there's 26 million. if you want to say power outages, there was a power outage forecast that was given yesterday for seven million americans to be in the dark by the end of the weekend. it's a forecast that comes from a few universities. university of michigan, ohio state, texas a&m, they've upped that to 9.6 million in the dark. tens of thousands of trees are going to come down, they're going to be up rooted and snapped so the power outages will have to be snapped and

heavy machinery will have to get in to repair the inlets and dunes and buckled streets, those washed away, sinkholes, not to mention power crews coming in from every state from around the area and building materials after thousands of homes may be inundated with floodwaters, will have to be gutted, lumber, drywall, roofing. this is just the beginning of what's to happen in the next couple days. >> you can explain for us again this about possibility matthew could come back and hit florida a second time and what's the likelihood of that? >> usually it's easier to forecast a track than the intensity. with this storm, it's been the opposite. when you look at the entire region, this system may not affect miami just yet, but we've got to keep in mind, even with cape canaveral, possible land off around 6:00 a.m., that's $11 billion station there. the system, if it does come around, again we're still working on a land fall tonight but the computer models are

hinting at the fact that some hug the coast, some move inland. i think worst-case scenario, there's another hurricane, its name is nicole, it's 1,000 miles away. they could interact with each other. it's called a hemoproria effect. this is a typical pattern, anderson. there are 18 models here. 14 of them want to carry the system back around and possibly effect miami, that may miss it mainly on the first one. so, days ahead now, those that have already evacuated may not be able to return any time soon. this is going to be going on for a while. >> and you mention cape canaveral, is that the best guess of where the eye might make land fall? >> yeah, there's several different models but mainly around 6:00 a.m., some of the models put it near cape, whi canaveral northward, the hours ahead of time, the pounding wins

and heavy rain will be compounded by seeing the strongest eye winds make their way upward so it's going to be a frightening night, no doubt about it, into tomorrow. >> yeah, already is for an awful lot of folks. som sader, preerpappreciate it. we'll be right back. an opening night on broadway is kind of magic. i'm beowulf boritt and i'm a broadway set designer. when i started designing a bronx tale: the musical, i came up... ...with this idea of four towers that were fire escapes... ...essentially. i'll build a little model in photoshop and add these... ...details in with a pen. i could never do that with a mac. i feel like my job is...

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i was able to take three months off to take car of my family during a family tragedy. the extra income that i get from airbnb has been a huge impact in my life. . our coverage continues tonight with "cnn tonight with don lemon." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >> thank you, anderson. much more on the breaking news. this could be the strongest storm to hit florida in more than a century. florida governor, rick scott, with this very blunt warning. >> this storm will kill you. time is running out. we don't have that much time left. >> this is "cnn tonight," i'm don lemon. here's what we know right now. the very latest, hurricane matthew, an