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welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. as we continue our coverage of hurricane irma. i'm michael holmes in tampa, florida. >> and i'm isa soare with you live in florida where it is 2:00 in the morning. stay you for staying with us on cnn. >> we continue coverage in tampa. i can tell that you hurricane irma is giving the city a bit of a battering. rain is high and horizontal at times. the river behind us, interesting watching water pulled out of this river as winds have driven it out to sea. of course the big fear of the city, seen as a vulnerable city. when the water starts to come back in with, there are concerns about what damage it could do, what areas it could flood. build-up areas close to the

water. low-lying areas in this city. in last hour or two we have seen that water start to rise. karen is in the international weather center. i don't know what you see on the map but we have noticed the water has gone up aappreciatably, karen. >> yes, it is that dramatic and that noticeable. i was thinking the winds have shifted there, they are out of the northwest there and still pret pretty brisk. we have 89 mile per hour winds. this is the late ef information we just got this information in from the international hurricane center. it is category 1 hurricane. moving rap lid to the north northwest and its position puts it just slightly to the north of tampa. so what now? now the winds start coming in from the northwest and we start filling in those bays. filling in those canals.

that's an good thing because on top of that the tides, they will be high tides have between 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning. add the storm surge which could be two or three feet, then low-lying areas that are very vulnerable, back bays that fill up and there could be a considerable storm damage. all right, show you this. this is interesting. did you see sara sidner? she was in daytona beach. she was nearly being blown down. if you didn't see it, it was one of the most compelling things we have seen all day with just how strong the winds have been. why? why there? that is in that very dynamic quadrant of the hurricane that we always talk about. but there is the added component that now we are seeing dry air intrusion further south. so that is actually enhancing this moisture from some of these outer bands coming into off the

atlantic specifically right in through there. so in between that corridor, jacksonville, amelia island, daytona beach, even the kennedy space center with wind gust reported of 80 miles an hour. they baton down the hatches there a long time ago. they don't want any of those things to be ruined or somehow compromised. so they took precautions there. this is the forecast radar going into monday. can you see much more clearly, intrusion over land, but because it is over land we see dryer air, ripping it apart. not sitting over water. just kind of feeding from the very warm water temperatures. what i am primarily concerned about now along with this storm surge, from tampa st. pete to clear water, crystal river, now some of the enhancement of that

heavy precipitation from georgia to jacksonville, savannah, bufford, charlston, south carolina. and the city floods and heavy thunderstorm. if you see significant rain bands moving across that area and into hilton head and bufford, south carolina, then you're looking at very severe flooding there. what about some rain fall totals? what can we expect over the next couple of days? in this i-95 corridor, in the corridor along interstate 4 between daytona, orlando and tampa, up towards jacksonville and lee city, we could see significant rain fall totals between 10, possibly as much as 20 inches. but because irma is moving so quickly now, maybe it won't have a chance to see those staggering rain fall accumulations.

michael? >> great information there, karen. the eye is about 25 miles northeast of where we are here in tampa, in florida. as it's weakening, as karen was just saying there, as it is weakening, that's a lot of relief of tampa. the eye going west of the city over water, the fear was of a big storm surge in a city vulnerable to that because it's got so much expensive property right on the water and a lot of it low-lying as well. there are fears that parts of the city itself would flood. good news that it is weakening a and that it is east of the city and hopefully the storm surge will be much lower and have a much lower impact. we shall see. we have seen waters rise over the last hour. they will continue as winds move around and push the water back

in land. isa soares in miami, what's happening there? repo >> reporter: mike, pretty impossible, isn't it, talking to karen, trying to second-guess irma. while you're starting to feel some of those strong winds and the rain, really here, it is about the day after, trying to assess damage and pick up the pieces. i want to take to you punta gorda, and talk to ben, a storm chaser. thank you for joining us. i was hearing our correspondent miguel throughout the day right where you are and he was talking about winds as strong as a hundred miles per hour on top of that, the storm surge we keep talking about. give us a sense of what you see throughout the day and also the

damage on the ground? >> yeah, good morning, isa. from the banks of the peace weather, we are in pubnta gorda. they are watching that storm closely. water turbulent still this a.m. but not quite amount of water they expected, which is good news. this is only six pete feet above sea level. they expected this area to be the worst of the damage. >> give us a sense, ben, if you can, of what you have seen on the ground, in terms of the damage. >> isa, we have seen the entire city without power tonight and people are trying to figure out what to do next. we've seen people with flash lights, almost in a state of constituti confusion and how to put their lives back together. they are finding fuel and food

and beginning to make the next steps. >> and i'm guessing majority of people from what i heard correspondents say earlier in the day sought shelter. they had time to go to shelters and hundreds of shelters for florida in place mean jort and majority of people go to shelters? >> yes, very close to being filled with capacity. general feeling on the ground is that the state and government officials did a good job of getting the word out prior to the storm's arrival. keeping many people safe that might not have been otherwise. >> absolutely. all about preparations, isn't it? ben, give me a sense, if you can, of what officials are saying on the ground in terms of when people may be able to start leaving shelters, hotel rooms, friend houses, and start making their way home. what are they saying?

>> local police and fire officials, no one will be leaving their homes this morning but when first daylight comes they will send out teams to assess damage and try to make sure those neighborhoods are safe. lift manned toorrydatory evacuas and people are returning to their home. >> i know you are las storm chaser. and you go where many of us really run away from. so what did you see? what did you feel? did it meet the expectations of so many people in particular when we heard about the hurricane shifting? what did you see when it passed by you? >> when it first came on shore in naples, we had mobile home parks damaged. thankfully for florida there was a decrease in some limbs as the storm moved inland.

good news. and didn't cause quite as much damage inland as expected. but along the coast especially in naples area which will take floridians many years to recover from. >> absolutely. and we just, you know, only starting to assess the damage. thank you very much for joining us there on the phone from punta gorda. this will take time now to really get a sense of how costly it is in terms of damage. can i tell you 4:00 a.m. here, this is the financial quarter. the water was up pretty much waist deep throughout the day. as you can see, it has receded pretty quickly as we've been hearing from my colleagues in miami beach. trees are down. there is no electricity. no power. but the majority -- the up side to all of this of course is that it hasn't taken that many lives here in california and that is

the most important part. michael, back to you. >> all right. isa soares, thank you very much. initially right in the path of hurricane irma, now sort of being side-swiped if you like. winds are high. rain is still coming down. stephanie elam is out in the thick of it. stephanie, what are you seeing out there? >> well a couple hours ago, i couldn't even stand and look up the street here because it was coming down at me so much. now it is reverse and the wind is coming the other direction. it is a bit like a car wash in the sense that it started off with a lot of water and now it is more winds. i feel like i might be drying out my jacket here a little bit. an bad thing. this is a much better outcome than what they expected would

happen here in tampa. i know for a lot of people, it may seem like it was much of an overdone example and people saying you have to get out of florida, you have to get out of tampa, you never know how you will get hit. i came here directly from texas after harvey. i think the images out of texas for a lot of people, it influenced them not to take the chance. you never know what storms can do. but yes, now that we are -- the storms past us, the winds have shifted direction and now it is more aftof a spritzing of rain. least where i am in tampa. and it is way more about the rain at this point here. i checked in with police here in tampa. they said that lots of calls about maybe downed tree answes power lines down. they aren't going after these calls just yet. but they will wait for rescues.

so far, fingers crossed, much better turnout with the storm than previously expected by a city. hasn't been walloped by a storm in some 90 years. much better turnout for folks in tampa. a lot of work to get out of the city, but all in all it is worth it because you never know how storms could turn on a dime, michael. >> that's right. stephanie elam here in tampa with us. stephanie pointing out that winds have started to turn. the eye of the storm is about it 5, 30 miles northeast of where we are and as wind, as further north it goes, the more those winds will start to turn around. what happens then is all of the water over the last day or so half day going out will start to come back in. as stephanie says, not as bad as first feared. and hopefully the storm surge, if you like, will not be as

severe as those first anticipated. and certainly concern to me and everyone is tampa. because it has gone east of tampa, it is closer now to orlando. which initially thought would escape the brunt of the storm. hit hard in the end and jen hbrs been there the last few hours and let's have a thick of it. let's listen to what she was saying there. >> reporter: we're in downtown part of orlando where there are tall buildings. that is just creating wind tunnels where sheets of rain are coming at us with strong wind gust. earlier we add fraction of what we are experiencing. we saw a bright blue skyline that means that transformer blew. we saw a bunch of emergency vehicles. it was safer for them to go about streets and when we

inquired about what they are racing towards, it wasn't the transformer but someone in their car and crashed. when emergency vehicles responded, that person died. one of orlando's fatalities according to the fire chief here and a storm related. of course investigators couldn't really investigate that because of terrible conditions. but just goes to show to you doesn't take much for the storm to be super dangerous. and even with orlando being in the center of the state with people on both coasts coming to evacuate, we're certainly seeing conditions be pretty difficult. i also want to mention here in orlando at the convention center, housing thousands of emergency vehicles ready to respond all across the state and vehicles coming across the country and but it will take a while for the storm to die down before they can get to anywhere and see where the damage was

from the storm. back to you. >> bren there in orlando which has been pummelled. we will have more coverage of hurricane irma we we come back. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and.

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irma. i'm isa soares coming to you live from miami. we have seen irma be very unpredictable in the last 48 hours and it continues to pummel the state of florida. let's get more now and joined now to sara sidner who joined us from daytona beach here. she has seen some ferocious winds, sarah? >> it has been more of a -- [ inaudible ] you know this sounds less tampa. more rain than wind. we are about 215 miles from tampa st. pete. the winds are intensifying.

we understand from our meetology department that the worst is to come about 4:00 a.m. i was standing on this spot very seasly, now it is so strong i'm lean mig enti leaning my entire body. this is an incredible show of force of what mother nature can do here. packing a punch and slamming into daytona beach right now. this wind is just -- it feels like very little dabs of salt water hitting my face. and it is like little needles hitting your space.

it is about 200 yards way. this is getting hard it stand up in. i'm going to leave here and get out of the wind a bit. so you can hear me better. but this is incredible. the wind was mild at best. it was 30 miles an hour gusts. then went up to 40. and then kind of stayed in that range. 40 to 6 0. this feels much stronger. i was here with hurricane matthew about a a year ago. this is far more powerful than the winds that came where we are standing with matthew. we are on the fifth floor of a hotel. looking down -- [ inaudible ] and it's just -- [ inaudible ] i can tell you that people are not expecting winds to get this strong here in daytona beach.

we know there are about 500 people in shelters here. we also know that just an hour up the road, about 60 miles away in brevard county where cape canaveral is, where glass has the space huttle, there are two confirmed reports, two confirmed touch downs, sorry, of a tornado. and 40 tornado warnings. this is a massive storm. and we can still tell that because it is still pushing across florida. so much of the bottom half of florida. now coming up further north and still packing an incredible, incredible wind. [ inaudible ] >> sara is just so deceptive, isn't it? as you are telling us exactly

how quickly it's changed. those wind gusts. please stay safe. we will touch base with you in the next hour or so. sara was saying it changes so quickly. that was category 1 and it is so powerful. such a strong, strong hurricane. it doesn't matter which way you slice it. it is damaging and it is very worrying. it is important you seek higher ground and you stay away from those strong winds. we want to show you footage of what hurricane irma has done in miami. we have seen some of the damage of trees being uprooted. take a look at this. normal streets turned into rivers. covered in floodwaters as miami was battered with powerful winds sara was seeing. stronger in fact and heavy rains. we are starting to get a

firsthand look at damage here. as stun rises, we will get a better sense of what happened. look at this dramatic video. this is the moment the roof was ripped off a two-story apartment building. this is downtown. then we have been talking about these cranes. 20 cranes in miami. this construction crane couldn't with strand the strong wind. collapsing on to the high rise building beneath it. two construction cranes in fact fell off here in miami. they were -- they were tied into the building. but nevertheless, officials telling us and in the lead up to irma making land fall they would take five to seven-days to take them down so that was almost impossible. a huge concern here in miami too. as can you see, water is subsiding.

assessing damage. trying to power up. millions of people without power. in morning hours officials will come out at 5:00 in the morning to assess damage. to try and move some of these trees he. derek van dam, you and i have been together the past 4 will hours or so. you saw strong winds that we've been seeing now in daytona beach. talk us to a bit more, you're seeing miami beach in terms of the damage. >> generally, i believe residents will breath a sigh of rehe leave. for the most part it was a glancing blow to miami beach. not with that said though, still a lot of clean-up effort under way in the next coming days. look behind me and can you see a large tree fell on to one of the electric will poles here.

this is significant. this is one of the reasons why three quarts of miami-dade county is without electricity as we speak. over 850,000 residents without electricity and all because of situations just like this. they closed roadways that con noekt barrier island in the peninsula near miami. this is for a few reasons. they need to check the structural integrity. they want to prevent people from returning home to miami beach region. they want to prevent looting. there is no electricity. alarms aren't working properly. lights aren't on. police are patrolling streets making sure that no one is looting in the area. there were 28 arrests in miami-dade alone. not only are we having electrical problems across the area but we have watermain breaks. tell me how significant it is with the trees being completely

uprooted and that broke a watermain and flowing across the sidewalk and into somebody's drive way but really again, they spared the area quite significantly. we talk about what happened in the florida keyets region as well. we had a quick opportunity to talk to the mayor. this is what he had to say about destruction in miami beach region. >> i think miami beach did relatively well. thank god our pumps held. raised roads did very well. very minimal flooding. especially in areas we approved for sea level project. there are power lines down. branches and trees. different roads across the city. maintained curfew. no one allowed to be out past 8:00 at night. no one can come back to miami beach for at least a day or so. w haven't decide yet. we have crews coming in at 6:00

a.m. we will clear out our roads and make sure we can get back on our feet as soon as possible. >> isa, curfew remains until 6:00 a.m. in the morning. a glancing blow but several days of clean-up as can you see behind me. back to you. >> absolutely. all about preparation. thank you very much. much more on our continuing breaking news coverage of hurricane irma and its path along florida's west coast. that's coming up next right here on cnn. it only takes a second for an everyday item to become dangerous. new tide pods child guard pack. helps keep your laundry pacs safe and your child safer. align, press and unzip.

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welcome back to our view in the united states aep around are world. i'm michael holmes. the wind just died down. it has been blowing pretty hard here. wind dwusts in excess of 50, sometimes up closer to 60 miles an hour. and the rain has also remarkly stopped. we have been watching water drop the level and go literally out to sea. wind have switched around and we have seen water levels here rise markedly, probably about five feet or so in the last hour or two.

quite extraordinarily. the good thing about the path of the hurricane is it made the risk of storm surge here not go away but less than if the eye of the hurricane stayed west of us here out over the water. karen knows a lot more about that than i do. joining us now, it's been remarkable watching this water go up, karen. it's been so fast. >> yes. and remarkable that you have the vantage point that you can observe it in realtime. you also watched it go out and marvelled at how low the water was. now that the winds on the back side of this hurricane are starting to force that moisture, now we see the storm surge associated with hurricane irma, which by wait is now category 1. it has been over land for a while. it is losing some of its energy. as michael just said, that doesn't mean it diminishes anything. in fact there are enhancements taking place.

one of them being, look at this long line of storms coming in off the atlantic. just kind of aimed at jacksonville and another line, kennedy space center. we had a pretty strong wind gust there. then this little band of heavy rain fall along the northern edge of the eye. right now in the vicinity of orlando towards spring hill. but for tampa, the reason michael has seen that water rise is now we're on the back side and now the wind is coming in from a northwesterly direction. and it will shift even more as the center of circulation of irma moves more towards the north and moving fairly rapidly. we will see that even more so move in from the west. maybe the storm surge on the order of three feet, i see some reports if they are estimating as much as five feet but a high tide. that high tide brings in about

an additional two to three feet across that area as well. we have a lot to tell but because it isn't just right around where the eye of irma is located. but also over here on this northeastern coast of florida. it has been very dramatic. look at this. this long feeder band with this enhanced precipitation right around daytona beach. you see sara sidner, she was holding on for dear life. producer told me she is safe. she is fine. but nonetheless stunning to see someone holding on like that in the band of intense rain and intense wind. some of that is moving up into central carolina. georgia coast isn't very long but we see wind gust 35 to 40

miles an hour. tampa is really going to see it over the next couple of hours but not just in tampa. clear water. new port richey and towards crystal river. so is all of those places water rises going into the next three to five hours, michael. >> yeah, it's going to be interesting to see this water continue to rise. amazing. just as you described, karen. once winds shifted around and going up, how far it goes up is the key thing. karen, thanks so much. there was a lot of concern here as i said earlier about storm surge. that is a city vulnerable to that kind of thing. water comes in and basically right into the heart of the city. there's low-alooiing areas there. expensive housing built on the water's edge in recent years and the fear was a lot of that would

be flooded. the mayor was worried that parts of the city could be under water. that has been alleviated now and while there will be a storm surge, not going to be anywhere near where it would have been as it has and of course causing irma to weaken somewhat. i want to go now to john brewer who is in naples florida. john, you're on the line for us. watching chris cuomo there earlier in the day, went through punishing wind and rain before the eye past over. tell me how it unfolded for you. >> i'm staying at my parent' house which is just a little east of i-75 for a lapd mark. when the eye wall was going

around about 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., it was the most intense wind and rain i've ever seen in my life. just astounding. >> tell us more about that. were you concerned for your safety? i mean, i know what it sounded like here. but it was worse in naples, i know. >> yeah. wind gust i believe tapped out around 140 to 142 miles an hour. it was, i wasn't really worried about any type of physical harm because the house i was in was very structurally sound. you know, doors were barricaded. there was shutters. so all that was taken care of. it was more of the stress of watching all the dewree and everything flying around outside

and wondering when things would get back to normal. my own house is closer to the coastline. so i still haven't made it back there. hopefully when they lift the curfew in the morning, i will be able to check it out. but going through the time leading up and no power pretty much the entire day, leading up and until the eye wall, was very odd. >> i can imagine. talking of winds in excess of 100 miles an hour. we have gusts of maybe upper 50 miles an hour. that could be quite daunting too when you double that. so i can't imagine. john, thank you. naples hit hard earlier today. there is a lot more to come over the next few hours as we watch irma creep further north. we will take a short break.

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you are watching cnn's continuing coverage of hurricane irma. i'm isa soares, and you're joining me live here in miami. miami is about picking up the pieces, assessing the damage. but in other parts of the state, it is become quite drastic. just the amount of damage that hurricane irma caused. particularly as it starts moving northwest, isn't it? now i want to show what you the damage has caused in florida keys and it is just astounding. our correspondent bill weir went with his team to a restaurant in the keys then he returned to see the impact. take a look at what he found out. >> i'm about to show you

something that has shaken me unlike anything i have seen in 25 years and 8 other hurricanes. i interviewed bar called snappers and a bunch of festive key west residents who were debating whether or not to evacuate and stay. peter at that time was determined to stay, hole up inside his bar. he changed his mind. good thing he did. it is completely gone. look at this. gone. the entire bar. right here. where i sat and had shrimp tacos with my crew after a live shot and hung out with these amazingly warm gracious people. gone. shoved up bit storm surge into the side of the fence of the neighboring businesses here. this was the bar. you can see they tried to board it up with plywood but the storm, winds blew through it. and then inside the restaurant shoved everything up against the

western wall of this place. and your heart just breaks. peter, the owner of this place, i just left him a voice mail. one of his employees told me he had aaa insurance. i hope that's the case. because this is a total write-off. these were slips for jet skis that have been shoved up. blown into the restaurant. hugely popular place on the atlantic side of key largo. an institution for many years. peter's from the netherlands. he bought it a couple of years ago, expanded it. but if this is a sample of what we find in key west, you know, paradise, southern paradise of the united states as we know it has fund limt changed. >> bill weir was saying as well, the torrential rain was so strong it actually felt like you had a power washer basically

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well wcome back, everyone, cnn's coverage of hurricane irma. further north through the state. and leaving behind a wake of damage behind the way. mary lou, we will talk to her on the phone and she made a harrowing drive from davy in florida. i'm not familiar with those places, mary ann, but tell us about the drive and what it was like. >> well, west of fort lauderdale. even more west of fort lauderdale. it was only a 020-minute drive but a scary maze of trees that had fallen on the road in some places. even driving on the opposite side of the road to arovoid tre. but we made it. our place lost power since yesterday morning so we went to

my future in laws place. they had power, no wifi though. and just now the lights flickered. >> no wifi. first world problems with no wifi. can i understand how frustrating that is. but power, nearly 4 million in the state without power now. a major issue going forward getting that back on. what was your experience of the hurricane itself? >> it was scary. we have covered windows with plywood last week. because we don't have shutters. bought a lot of canned food. other food as well. and tried to hunker down in the storm. but when the power went out, we weren't sure what to do. we stayed as long as we could.

tried to get power yesterday. so it was scary yesterday. we had tornado alerts that kept coming on the phone over and off. you could hear the wind blaring through. >> sounds like a drive what must have been surreal driving through that storm. you were meant it leave friday. what are your plans now? >> it was actually saturday. i was trying to leave saturday. then tried to make it friday. i kept trying to do all these different flights. first saturday, then it became friday. then it became monday, then tuesday. then i found out that my tuesday night flight is cancelled. so we would try to get out wednesday. but i mighting stuck here for a little bit.

>> mary ann, thank you. we will leave it there. there is a trail of damage and left people with indelible damage and experiences we will you with now. >> we have experienced least 80 mile-an-hour winds. now another strong gust. seems like no matter what we do, it gets tougher. >> what that is, if you can see the globes that are the glass globes around the street lamps, those are crashing down on to the streets. >> it wasn't pretty. but we were prepared and i'll tell you, this is where government matters.

people can complain about government and the efficiency of government but when you need government particularly at the local level this is where we are at our best and we are are prepared to do that. >> stay inside, stay safe. be compassionate. look out for each other. if you need us when the storm passes, we will be there for you. >> that will do it for us at this hour. early start is up next. >> i'm isa soares in miami. thank you for staying with cnn. please, stay safe. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures.

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breaking news as hurricane irma continues to show no mercy on florida. communities from coast to coast now without power as strong winds tear across the state. d