when mueller will finish everything. and that could probably take a while. we keep hearing a year, perhaps two years this could be going on for. >> they could go on and on and on. good reporting. thanks very much. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. cnn special breaking news coverage of hurricane irma continues right now with erin burnett outfront. outfront next, breaking news, a new forecast for hurricane irma putting miami in line for a direct hit. we're tracking the latest on this deadly monster storm. let's go outfront. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> and good evening. tonight the breaking news, a direct strike on florida. at this hour hurricane irma heading for a direct hit on the united states. could make land fall on the three most populus areas of florida. home to more than six million

people there alone and 37 million americans could be impacted by this deadly hurricane as it moves up the east coast. the scale of irma is hard to grasp. the storm is the size of texas. if you look at the most destructive storm in history to hit the state of florida, we can show you hurricane andrew in 1992 on the left. and there is irma so much bigger on the right. here is just a bit of what is coming florida's way. this is the turks and kay koes, which irma is beginning its onslaught there. haiti, not prepared for this massive storm, seeing torrential rain falling right now and in florida it is a race against the clock and against this record breaking storm. no storm in history anywhere has spun this fast for this long and evacuations are underway for miami beach and coastal areas of miami.

31,000 people have already left the florida keys. families lining up in cars desperately trying to beat the storm north and irm a's possible historic hit is not the only hurricane tonight. jose is trailing in irm a's wake on its path and hurricane katia is in the gulf of mexico. our teams of reports covering this are with us. i want to begin with tom satyr, who is tracking the latest track of this storm. and, tom, where is it going? >> well, it looks like the worst of it right now in the turks and kay koes. they are looking at possibly a 20 foot storm surge. on these islands, that's devastating because they're not much higher above sea level. when you talked about this covering the size of texas, you can fit two hurricane andrews inside here. it has not really budged much in its strength. 5 miles an hour but you can't tell that.

we're going on hour 60 with this being a category 5. this is a big deal today, erin. the national hurricane center placing a hurricane watch. they do not do this lightly. they just don't slap it up without considerable information. they know it costs millions of dollars to do this. not only for federal, state and local sources to get the resources in there, the aid and equipment but the evacuation procedure. businesses closing. this is a big, big deal. it will become a warning in the next couple of days. we're about two and a half days out. once that watch becomes a warning, we'll watch other watches getting posted up both coasts of florida. at the same time, these are kind of hugging the coast a little bit and all the models come together around savannah, georgia. but there was a difference today in the track. yesterday we noticed the shift eastward about 60 to 70 miles.

today the track at 5:00 p.m. shifts back westward about another 15 to 20, which places miami in the worst possible place, and takes it due south and due north across the entire peninsula. when you have an eye right now that's 23 miles in diameter, that's where the winds are the strongest at 175, 180. don't think everyone in the state is going to feel that, but that is like a category three tornado on the ground for hours and of course that diameter and just outside. the hurricane force winds extend outward 100 miles. so that is going to be catastrophic for all of florida if this continues to be the case. the european model -- >> obviously it looks like we just lost tom's audio. when we get him back, we will get more and he will be getting more information as the news comes in. we will be going back to him several times. but you heard him say turks and

kay koes right now could be getting the worst of this with a possible storm surge of 20 feet. these are islands not 20 feet above sea level. let's just let you take a look. >> oh, wow. >> we're heading inside. oh, god. i've got to go. oh, my god. it's bad. i've got to get in. i've got to get inside. >> rose is outfront. she took this video right outside her hotel. she is stranded on the island tonight along with her friend. and rose, look, thank you. i know it is not easy to stay on the phone. i know you are both for colorado. you are there for work. you tried to get out. you weren't able to get a flight

home before the storm. we are showing some of the video that you and kelsey took earlier. what are the conditions right now at your hotel? >> it's unbelievable. it's just -- the winds are horrendous. we went outfront and i had to come in. >> and i know you are both about, what, two minute walk from the beach and, you know, you're at sea level, if not below. obviously, you know, we're talking about storm surges of 20 feet. how high are you all able to go up. are you safe where you are? >> actually, we went up. we were 60 feet up. we actually went inland and went up on a hill. so we don't have to worry about the surges right now. >> it is more of the wind we're dealing with and making sure that everybody here has food and water and preparing as much as we can.

>> when you all have seen when this was coming towards you, the islands were levelled. i know you are up on high ground, but how afraid are you? >> well, we try not to watch that news. >> we actually didn't look at it at all because it is terrifying. >> we're prepared as much as possible. >> i know you have got to be eager to get home and see your families the minute you can. what have they told you about what comes next when they are able to determine the devastation of this storm where you are about getting home? >> well, we have been talking to american airlines and we have a flight going out sunday at 3:49. if we can't get that, kelsey's dad is working on getting a charter flight for us to get out. >> and i know it's got to be so

scary. thank god you guys are together. that's the good thing, that you are not alone and you are together. >> well, and we're in the house with some locals and they're great and we had a great meal. we're sitting in the dark, but we're trying to save on our batteries on our phone so we can text our families and friends. >> thank you so much, both of you, for being with us. our thoughts are with you that you will get through this safely, this hos toric moment in history. thank you. and that's the turks and kay koes which is about to feel the brunt of it. they are going to be perhaps the record scene, 20 feet or higher. haiti, which was crippled by hurricane matthew last year is now bracing for the most powerful storm ever recorded in terms of the amount of time it

has been spinning. paula in haiti, this will be a major hit. >> reporter: it will be a major hit. and even though the interview you just had, we're on the southern end. haiti, erin is not going to take a direct hit. that doesn't mean there won't be catastrophic conditions here as the storm continues. we have got a lot of bands going on. we've heard reports of flooding. the most alarming to me is we've had officials say we are not prepared for this storm or what happens after the storm. especially when it comes to flooding and the risk of those mud slides. those mud slides that literally swept away entire families after hurricane matthew last year. and that's what they're getting ready for here. haiti was lucky that storm did veer north and east. this country so ill equipped to handle. they have already been through so much. there were many preparations here.

authorities telling us even the evacuations centers they have set up, we have heard a few people have moved into them. we've got a few hours to see how this is going to shape out and they have dodged the worst of this storm and if anyone needed to, haiti was a country that really needed to stay out of that eye wall and stay out of the horrific winds. >> and that eye wall spins at least 70 miles from the eye of irma. the warnings are as serious as they come. but not everyone is heeding the evacuation orders. outfront live in miami. you have been talking to people who have been through this, and, yet, they are not going anywhere. >> reporter: there are some people who are choosing to say and that's astonishing. this is a community almost

decimated during the 1992 hurricane. we heard tales of people who escaped death who almost were killed, especially for them, for some of them it is a day to get out. >> irma destructive and deadly turning right towards homestead florida. me linda racing from window to window, house to house. >> if you are financially stable and able to get out of here, get out of here. >> remembering this is what hurricane andrew did to homestead 25 years ago. the cat five nearly wiping his hometown off the map. this is a picture of his childhood home completely flattened. they only survived by hiding in a neighbor's concrete house. he is boarding up homes for free. >> it is traumatizing, you know. this ain't no game. i feel for a lot of people that i can't help that i can't get to because i'm only one guy and my

brother and i, you know. hopefully i make some type of change or i save a life or two. that's all that matters at the end of day. >> people packing up, crowding roads and airports to escape the hurricane. options in homestead 30 miles south of miami are dwindling, right with the gas supply. one by one gas stations closing and boarding up. stay at your own risk says florida's governor. >> we cannot save you once the storm starts. you need to tell us now. >> i got the big pens, the little pens, everything. >> she is not heeding that order. she was not alive when hurricane andrew ripped through. >> my plan is to just stay here, see where it takes us. this house stayed here for andrew. i'm pretty sure it will hold. >> she has weeks of food for her

15-month-old. >> could you be wrong? >> i could be wrong. >> what happens if you are wrong and it is too late to get out? >> i just have to think positive. i have everything ready. >> so what you're seeing behind me is something that we have seen at gas stations, if they're open. you can see the long line of people who are waiting here to try to get gas. we have seen it fluctuate from two football field lengths down to one but there has always been a line here because this is one of the few that's open. many are closed. you do need gas to escape. erin. >> that's the crucial thing. once that's gone, as you know, if you are in an evacuation zone, there is no out. i want to go back to our meteorologist. tom, just before we lost you, you were talking about the other two hurricanes and one of them of course really tracking right behind irma. >> absolutely.

let me go backwards a little bit more if i can just to show you. this is that european model puttiput ing miami and all of florida in the wrong position right now. yesterday was well off the coast. this is not good to see this kind of commonality when you are only two and a half days out. when it comes to our storms, katia do not worry about. but it's going to push katia down. the big concern is jose. yesterday it became a hurricane with katia at the 5:00 p.m. hour. it is now a major hurricane, category three. it will move to the north. but unfortunately, this is kind of frightening and sad. category three now, we have got hurricane watches for the same northern islands that were decimated with the prime minister of bar bay does saying it is uninhabitable.

the winds extend outward enough that they do not have anywhere to go. they don't have a civic center. they barely have buildings that are in one piece right now. you have to keep them in your thoughts and prayers for protection. with all the debris for all the buildings, one, they can't just take a flight out because the airport is damaged. they are going to have a lot of problems here the next couple of days. so it does skirt away. but it is too close. can you believe if you were in texas and harvey hit 24 hours later you get another hurricane watch. >> it's unbelievable and all those lives at risk. tom, thank you and tom is going to be back with us later as we get information on this track. obviously everyone hoping against hope there will be a little bit of a tweak here to avert a major catastrophe. next, the getting out.

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florida bracing for a direct hit from hurricane irma. millions in its path. miami right now directly right in the center our tom satyr saying what will be the worst of this storm. the florida keys, one of the state's most vulnerable locations is under mandatory evacuation. bill, what is happening where you are. >> reporter: erin, a whole lot of nothing. it is a beautiful night it is shaping up to see as you can see the sky one of your typical key west sun sets. people send their vacation savings on to watch with a drink. but it is a ghost key as they have seen evacuation levels unmatched in recent memory. and we're here between two of the keys. if you have never been down there, it is a feed of geology and human engineering.

these were not created by vul canos. this is an ancient coral reef and we're talking about a storm surge of 20 feet. let me tell you why this is perhaps the most vulnerable neighborhood in the united states right now. this is a survey station and just to monitor the water as it comes up, the top of this screw is 19.725 feet. we are at the everest of the florida keys here. this is about as high as it gets. so a storm surge as you can imagine, some folks have been marking their cars alongside these bridges but there is not a lot of space. as you can see, the highway is virtually deserted. just a few folks scurrying north to get out of harm's way. >> thank you very much. as bill said, people heeding these warnings as they should.

let's go to the florida senator, marco rubio. i appreciate your time. i know you have been getting briefed and getting constant forecasts. how bad do you think this is going to be? >> we're putting up shutters in my home, too. i think we have to be prepared for perhaps the most significant storm event certainly since andrew and it may be worse in terms of its trajectory. it is pushing water from the south and east that if it strikes the way it is projected to today, it will have a huge impact whether it's on the florida keys and just listening to that report it accurately described what it is like down there. south beach, all of the areas there are vulnerable to that storm surge. palm beach county and extending out to the southwest coast as well and then it leads all the way up to this massive lake which holds, you know, a bunch of water and you also worry about the impact that wind has

on pushing the water north. we have a lot of vulnerable communities south of that. there is a lot to worry about with the wind and with storm surge in a state that's already very low and even at it's highest point we have mountains in florida obviously. you can do things to protect yourself from wind. it's very difficult to protect from the water. you basically have to evacuate and we're hoping people are heeding those warnings. there is still a lot of areas that remain that i'm worried about it. >> i know this is personal. what is your family doing? are you and they going to ride out the storm? are you going to evacuate? >> it's an excellent question to ask. we've been having this debate all day long. i want to be in a place where i can be helpful after the storm. we also want to be safe. my mother is elderly. luckily i'm not in the coast or in a flooding area, so we kind

of gotten our shutters up in our home and perhaps intend to ride it out there, but you worry. you look at the map. my house might not be flooded but basically all the streets around it could be. not just from winds -- not just from the rain but canals overflows nearby. it is still an open debate and it is not clear there is anybody you could go in florida to avoid this. it could impact the everglades, up to broward even into central florida. this is a big, ugly, powerful storm. a lot of people i hope are heeding the warnings and getting to higher ground. >> and senator before you called in, we had a report from homestead which was decimated from andrew. we heard from a young women with two children, she is not evacuating, even though of course it is under a mandatory evacuation. i know you didn't get to hear it. i want to play a clip of her

rational. >> my plans is to just stay here, see where it takes us because since this house stayed here for andrew i'm pretty sure it will hold this hurricane for now. >> senator, what do you tell her? she's getting to the point where if she changes her mind, she's not going to be able to get out. >> i think it's a bad idea and i hope she's watching so she knows why. andrew was a different storm, devastating in its own right. but all these storms are very different. this storm is coming from the southment i don't know if she's near the water areas or the coast. and because of the size of the storm, that's the other point, because of the trajectory in the size of the storm, getting assistance into south florida is not going to be in the first six hours. if that storm is brewing in the central part of the state, agencies cannot get here until the pathway, until those roads are safe to knave gait and until

the storm is totally cleared. so she could find herself days before emergency workers and supplies and things can get to him. so i think she needs to put all that in perspective and understand that's a significant threat and storm because it has a unique aspect. >> there is no place i feel comfortable telling people is not going to impacted. how do you get energy crews and medicine down until the storm is cleared and the roads are opened. >> senator, i appreciate she hears you. i hope anyone else who is making that wrong decision hears you as well takes advantage of these last hours to get out. thank you again. i hope you and your family and your mother are safe. thank you. >> brand-new video of the devastation in saint thomas. we're just getting this in off the aircraft and then inside

irma, a man will tell you what he has seen inside the center of the deadly hurricane.

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breaking news. hurricane irma tearing islands to shreds. these are brand-new pictures and video just in from saint thomas. a cnn photographer was up in a plane going over all of the damage. you see the debris. you see the downed trees. you see the debris literally everywhere near. giant pieces of wood. this is a very popular vacation spot, very high end vacation spot and you can see it, obliterated. this is one spot that meant nothing to a storm as giant as it was. didn't slow down. the brand-new forecast outputs miami right on the path, right exactly in the center. and the way the track is right now, in the worst possible angle of the storm, that could change. but that's the forecast right now. and outfront now, our meteorologist is stranded on a tarmac in puerto rico.

he road out hurricane irma there. i know you have been waiting for hours. you were there in the category five storm. we have some video that you were able to get when you were in the midst of the storm. what were conditions like? >> well, we were actually very lucky. the storm that passed 25 miles to the north of us. but there was high winds and heavy rain and hundreds of thousands of people here without power at the moment. even the airport, we're on generator power and as you said, we've been on a five hour delay to get a flight back. a lot of tree damage and infrastructure damage. but the damage in terms of homes and property was relatively minor compared to what it could be. >> it makes the point that the 25 mile shift can make the

difference between catastrophe and obliteration and something that is devastating but survivable. you saw irma when you were there and obviously now that storm is getting ready to turn towards the florida keys and miami. what should people expect? you are someone who's been in the midst of this storm and many others. >> well, get out of the way. that's the biggest thing. we had crews on saint thomas during the hurricane and they lost a root of their hotel when the hurricane struck. i was in texas a couple of weeks ago and we dealt with hurricane harvey as it hit. the devastation is seemingly pretty similar. and you can lose your life if you do not heed these evacuation orders, these warnings to have supply and fuel. you just need to get out of the way. >> there are some choosing to ride out the storm. we saw one young woman with two young children. she says she's got baby formula and food for them and she's

going to ride it out. how big of a mistake is she making? >> well, if she's anywhere in coastal sections, i'd say that is a pretty big mistake. >> she's in a mandatory evacuation zone in homestead. >> that's absolutely one of the worst places to be. if you get a hurricane andrew type wind field, that is actually a death wish. i would not wish for anybody to be in that area. i would evacuate. >> i appreciate your time. thank you very much. safe travels back. good luck. i know that obviously is incredible delays as thousands and thousands of flights are going to be canceled. i want to go to the former director of the national storm center who has witnessed firsthand some of the most powerful storms in history and now this one, the most powerful by at least one measure has been going at 185 miles longer than any storm in recorded history. i want to take a look at the size of the storm to give people the sense here at the urgency of

its approach. 300,000 square miles. it covers the entire northeast. put it over europe. it's bigger than france, including parts of germany and italy. the size of this storm is stunning. how alarming is that alone, bill? >> well, that magnifies the risk because more people will be impacted by it as it makes land fall. it is right now going through the turks and caicos where it must be incredibly bad. and the center is 50 miles, either side of that front running part of the eyewell is the extent of the hurricane force winds. >> that is the thing so hard to imagine here. you are talking about the entire state of florida. i mean, if you compare irma to

past hurricanes to get a sent of what is about to happen in miami and south florida, irma is bigger and more powerful than hurricane andrew, which devastated florida. hurricane katrina, you had 1,600 people die. the hurricane force winds there though were 86 miles out from the eye. irma is about 70, we understand. when you put all that together, are we looking at a catastrophic hit or not? >> yeah. i think we are. i think as a meteorologist, it's just to me surreal that we're watching me inin ining history last couple of weeks. harvey of course and now the big winds and surge or irma hitting a highly populated south florida. >> so, reed, when you think about for a moment the fact that

we're saying it is already because it's been spinning with the wind strength of 185 miles an hour for longer than any storm in recorded history, what does that alone tell you, that it has been able to sustain that strength? >> well, it's absolutely unprecedented. not only is it the strongest hurricane to ever be recorded in the atlantic ocean, it is sustaining it for an incredibly long period of time and it will pile up that water for a long period of time. hurricane harvey intensefied at the last second. this one is strong for a long period of time. and here you can see there is all kinds of people still filling up with gas right behind me. a gas truck had just come in and now everybody is piling in here filling up with gas. we spoke with some of the people here, too, and they are concerned about this recent shift in the track, which would put this area underwater even more. the absolute worst case scenario. so there are a lot of people

heeding those evacuations and getting out of here and getting out of the path of this thing. this is a deadly storm. it's like andrew, except it is massive. so the impact is going to be that much more widespread. >> when you look at the eye of the storm and talk about it could be striking where you are, 25 miles wide and we look at it from space and those pictures that are impossible to turn away from. it is easy to see. what does the eye tell you about what is about to happen where you are? >> well, this storm is also undergoing eyewall replacement cycles as well. it could be going an intensification stretrend, but has a perfect eye. the storm and the convection around the center, you can see gravity waves emanating out from it. if you are inside the eye, you can see the wall of convection around it. if it was at night you could see the lightening in there.

it is headed toward south florida, but the impacts will be very different. if you're outside of the eye wall, the impacts will be different than the catastrophic impacts received right in the immediate eye wall. it is such a large storm that the impacts will be widespread. >> it will be widespread, but the reality of it is to the point that reed is making. 10, 15, 20 mile shift one way or the other could make a huge difference. >> well, yes, it will as far as the absolute line of the worst impacts. but again given the size of that eyewall, it's not going to make that much difference. it's going to get damaged all the way down through that eyewall. >> i appreciate both of your time and of course reed we will be talking to you. thanks to both of you. and next florida taking hurricane irma extremely seriously. florida not ignoring the warnings. i will talk to a mayor in the

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breaking news. florida preparing for a massive and direct hit from hurricane irma. people have seen the power of this storm already. it has nearly wiped out entire islands, crushing 95% of the island. although, miraculously so far only a reported death there. the wind and waves as powerful as the strongest tornadoes, flipping boats upside down. and tonight another hurricane is strengthening in irm a's wake. hurricane jose, expected to turn north. >> reporter: hurricane irma leaving a path of death and destruction as it barrels towards the u.s. homes now piles of debris. power, communication wiped out. winds reaching up to 185 miles an hour and rain cutting off

caribbean islands completely from the rest of the world for hours. >> our sister island is still under threat. we have lost all communications. >> one of the first government officials to establish contact called it. >> heart wrenching, absolutely devastating. i have never seen any such destruction. >> reporter: devastating and deadly. the category five hurricane claimed a life. >> we had one fatality. it could be worse. >> the prime minister expressing shock more lives weren't lost. in saint martin, even more deaths flooded cars and debris found all over the island. the airport known as a tourist attraction while beach goers watching planes land now being called unreachable by the dutch navy. the clean up is expected to cause hundreds of millions of dollars and all of this may not

be the end of it or the caribbean. >> there it is. the roof just went, jess. >> reporter: these island may soon get hit by hurricane jose, now growing stronger in the atlantic. and the prime minister is expected to make a decision tonight on evacuation orders. so tomorrow we could hear if they will have mandatory evacuation orders for barbuda. for many of these islands in the caribbean, the path to normally is not given. more than one million people without power right now, without water, tens of thousands of people and authorities are already saying that it could take weeks, possibly months before that power is restored. erin? >> thank you very much, leyla. and now the mayor of marathon,

florida, which is part of the florida keys. mandatory evacuations and looking like you could take that direct first mainland hit, major. we all hope that changes but i know your citizens have taken this incredibly seriously, as they should. they are heeding those warnings and getting out. have people in march than done as you have asked? are they out? are you worried there are how old -- hold-outs? >> we have had a unified message from monroe county to tell people to take the drive and stay alive. this is a monster, deadly hurricane with a storm surge that no one knows how much it will be when it hits our town. so we have felt the bulk of the residents have done as we asked. many of them are on. we ran out of gasoline at many of our fuel sections on tuesday. governor scott and his staff were here. we had a press conference, gave

them a briefing. he was able to persuade the fuel companies to bring tankers here and refuel our stations. we even had a couple today. people are heeding. people are listening. people are leaving and that's the important thing, is leave, go to the mainland, stay alive. >> and we know in other places we talked to one woman who isn't planning to do that. we hope she will change her mind and heed the orders. what happens, mayor? you have been through this. you have lived there a long time and now we have this history making storm coming through. if someone stays, what will happen? how dangerous it could be? >> well, our hospitals in monroe county closed today. tomorrow morning the key west hospital closes and our trauma star, our helicopter emergency system seizes action tomorrow and the helicopters will be

flown out. if someone what has a problem, they are really in trouble. we just simply will not have the facilities left to take care of them. but we have warned people for many, many days about this and continue again. we even asked deputy who is are bilingual to go through neighborhoods today and do sweeps to tell people, please go. please save yourselves and your family and go to the mainland. >> all right. well, we hope they are going to heed those warnings and obviously that they can't do so, if they have any issues, they are able to call. i think the governor has made it clear, they cannot rescue people. but right now if anyone is in need of help to get out, call now. they can come and help you. mayor, thank you for your time tonight. >> new details about irm a's path. tom satyr will have the whole forecast here. and breaking news this hour on

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right now. irma, category 5, heading directly for florida from the latest forecast. i want to go back to the weather senator and tom sader. tom, obviously any little tiny tweak can make a big difference. what is the latest? and when you look at the exact track right now, where it's going to hit in miami, what sort of damage because of the eye positioning are you looking at? >> we're waiting for the latest update from the national hurricane center, erin. it should come at any minute. we're talking about tropical storm force winds, when those winds will approach, you do not want to be evacuating on saturday in southern florida. because you don't want to be evacuating with tropical storm force winds when they can snap tree branches, or down a power line. that's dangerous enough. now, when it comes to the maximum winds, 175 miles per hour with gusts to 215, that's around the eye wall. again, that's not going to be fanning out across all of florida peninsula.

the color of white, however, you can see how large that is, that's over 100 miles per hour. now, i don't want to scare anybody, but i think it's good to know, if you decide to hang out in a high-rise, the winds increase the higher you go off the ground. the forecast right now in miami is about 145-mile-per-hour winds. if you live in a high-rise around the 30th story, those winds increase by 20%. because it's not dealing with the friction of the earth. so that 145 is 174. if you live a little bit higher, let's say toward the penthouse, that wind becomes 189. many are saying, in miami, we don't have 90 or 100 stories, but you do have 70s, up to around the low 80s. you get the idea. i covered a typhoon three weeks ago in hong kong and these high-rise buildings lost hundreds and hundreds of window panes. erin, this is something we really have to watch because the

winds are really going to be a big factor with this. >> i'm glad you said that about the high-rises. people may think the flooding. but when you make the point there and the window panes can break, that can be deadly. people can understand, that is not a good place to be. when it comes time to hurricanes hitting florida, the comparison everybody is talking about here is andrew. you can fit several andrews inside of irma. but there are other ways in which irma is now different. >> i think the biggest is this issue, erin, when you have a path coming from the south to the north, you've got a lot more real estate, that's going to have some damage. if you go back and you look at the path that we had from andrew, 25 years ago, it came in from the due west, and sheered off the bottom section of florida. so even though it devastated homestead, florida, and changed build'ing codes, not just for florida, but all of the u.s., $26.5 billion worth of damage and we still had 65 fatalities.

the storm surge of 17. coming across the south, that real estate of florida is much different than moving directly across the entire state. the other storm that we can compare it to is matthew just last year. we got extremely lucky as it came across freeport in the bahamas, it made a little wobble when it was going through a reprocessing cycle, instead of plowing into miami, or excuse me, into florida, it made its way up the coastline. still, $15 billion in damage. historic flooding up in the carolinas with that landfall. this one can still do that, but we're still heading to more of a landfall on miami, unfortunately. >> thank you so much, tom. as we await that next forecast from the hurricane center. i want to go to more breaking news. cnn exclusive this hour, the special counsel robert mueller wants to interview white staffers about the meeting between donald trump jr. and a russian lawyer. mueller is specifically interested in staffers who were onboard air force one, when the

misleading statement was written about the meeting. that statement which claimed the meeting was primarily about russian adoption, turned out to be untrue. because e-mails revealed trump jr. expected to get dirt on hillary clinton. that statement, of course, was led by the president of the united states. pamela brown is "outfront" now from washington. what are you learning from your sources? >> we learned there are ongoing discussions between the white house and special counsel robert mueller, erin, trying to set up meetings, interviews with investigators working in special counsel and some of these white house aides that were aboard air force one when that initial misleading statement was released earlier this summer. that statement was crafted, we're told through sources, aboard air force one on the way back from g20. as you recall it was misleading initially. it said the purpose of the meeting at trump tower with trump jr. and a russian attorney had to do with adoptions. then we found out about the purpose was the incriminating information that the russians had to turn over about hillary clinton. so robert mueller wants to

interview some of the white house aides who were aboard air force one. he wants to learn about what these people knew. we know the president had a hand in crafting the statement. he wants to know what they knew as part of the obstruction of justice probe. we're told through sources that the interviews haven't happened yet. and there hasn't been a request made to interview the president as part of the probe. but, of course, that could happen. this probe could go on for another year or two, we're told, erin. >> pam, in terms of donald trump jr. himself, he met with senate investigators today, that is crucial. that is something they desperately wanted to do. they now had a chance to ask questions. what did he tell them? >> that's right. he was behind closed doors on capitol hill for five hours today, erin, and what he said to the people on the hill is that he never told his dad, now the president, about this meeting between him and someone who was advertised to him was a russian government attorney who had this incriminating information about hillary clinton. he said he never told his dad. he said he wanted to go to this

meeting just to scope it out to see if it anything that could go to the fitness of hillary clinton being president of the united states. he claimed that he was skeptical of it in the first place and even if it was given to him that he would consult with lawyers. now senators on capitol hill, democratic senators are pushing for an open hearing. >> thanks, pamela. and thanks for joining us. anderson starts now. good evening. one of the strongest atlantic hurricanes ever, one of the longest lasting category 5 storms ever, potentially the most destructive hurricane to hit in decades. and where exactly will hurricane irma hit hardest. we'll try to get closer to answering that question over the next two hours. we already know what it did to the islands in the caribbean, st. martin. you can see the damage extensive there. four people we know have died. four dead in the u.s. virgin islands. another person died on angila and one on barbuda, now under a w