>> forecast for florida you growing ever more grim. >> hurricane making its way after tearing down the caribbean. >> storm back up to category 5 storm again. rick scott is warning residents to get out now before it's too late. >> it's wider than an entire state. you can be the survive this. >> the entire state, the entire peninsula will be directed impacted by this and if catastrophic way across the south. >> 5.6 million people have been asked to evacuate their homes. >> have to get out now. we can rebuild your house, we

can't rebuild your family. >> we will come back stronger than ever before. >> we are straight to a fox news alert, hurricane irma soaring back to catastrophic category 25 storm now on florida's doorsteps just hours from making landfall and the state braces for a direct hit. >> governor ordered largest evacuation in u.s. history, 6 million people told to evacuate. >> the monster storm gaining steam and will strike the keys, naples and miami. >> this one is engulfing our entire state. storm surge on the west coast is going to be 5 to 10 feet. you think that's your entire first floor of your house. you can't survive this. >> irma blamed for at least 26 deaths so far unleashing on cuba

and pounding the bahamas. >> islands bracing for round two, category intensifies. live team coverage for you all morning long. we begin with griff jenkins in little havana where it's a race against the clock to board up homes, griff, good morning. >> good morning, guys, that's exactly right. take a look at little havana, shops and businesses boarded up. i can tell you it is truly animus, the largest community of cuban exiles in the nation because we we wanted to find out if they have had any contact with relativities in cuba as irma slammed into cuba as

category 5, 150-miles-per-hour winds, 20-foot waves on north side not from havana obviously as it bears down on us here and the real concern for the safety obviously of those that stayed behind in miami is also the power outages, reports now from florida power&light, fpl, you will hear a lot about them in the coming days. they say upwards of 9 million people in this area could be without power for days if not weeks, part of the reason why that's going to happen is because so much of the power grid is on pulse and if we had those winds like cuba is getting lashed with right now, it will cause catastrophic damage and may even be difficult for the fpl crews to get out and into obviously the concern now we have power, you see the lights, we've even seen some of police and fire trucks and emergency services still doing things but that's going to shut down as we

head into today, tonight and into tomorrow certainly we are going to lose power, the emergency services are going to have to go to a different mode and different street out here. meanwhile we will stay in little havana and see if we can get real-time reports from relatives, obviously the best communications we can probably get with what's happening on the tinny island community, guys. abby: griff jenkins live for us all morning there. pete: tracking where it matters when you talk about storm surge and the path, rick is on top of it tracking this morning. good morning, rick. >> guys it matters a lot because there will be right-hand turn we don't know when the right-hand turn will happen, all of the guidance is shifting farther and farther to the west again and putting west florida way more at cross hairs than has been talked about at all. a lot of people are waking up this morning looking at a way scarier situation than they had.

if you look overnight, the storm has gone right along the coast here of cuba, the center of it has been wrecking cuba with cat 5 hurricane for about the last six hours here, just in the last minute back down to cat 4 storm, doesn't matter, 155, 160 is the same thing but we will go back to water and get reorganized. it weakened because it had interaction with the coast. there's the latest in the track, shifted towards the west. a couple of things to know in the cone, miami, you're out of it. you certainly still will and have the -- but the center of it where the most destructive of storm surge comes on is going spare miami. it also means it implements the west coast florida and a lot of towns are prone to dangerous zone, port charlotte, port myers, tampa, st. pete now.

warning for tampa. people that evacuate today east on west side unfortunately who are now here thinking, oh-oh, what do we do, i don't know if i have an answer for you, makes a later landfall of the storm because of that. all right, there's just one -- we are back. you notice everything has shifted towards the west, nothing back on that east side, georgia and south carolina, you can breathe a sigh of relief on this, take a look at what the winds do. here we are tonight, 120-miles-per-hour wind gusts in marathon key, key largo, 50 in miami, go through tomorrow morning, roughly when we are ready to come on air, 140 key west and this just keeps flipping towards the north. tomorrow morning, still during our showtime, 104 in miami, the

storm is so large while we are saying the center doesn't go towards the east, that doesn't matter, miami, 104-miles-per-hour wind which means you will have storm surge but the worst of the storm surge is going to be right here in across southwest part of florida and up in some of the bays, these are areas that are difficult to deal with. one spot that will have a lot and can deal with it better is right in there across parts of ever glad, once you get up to nams, fort myer and tampa, very dangerous situation. i feel like we haven't talked about it enough, that's probably the place that's in play on this. abby: important point to make, rick, unbelievable. hard to know where this thing is going to go but maybe more to the west coast of florida which a lot of people thought might not be the case. pete: do you drive back east or not, where do you go? >> you look at those numbers,

140, 130-miles-per-hour, it's jg that most people if not all people in the country never experienced. abby: stretches far larger than the state of florida, at least the tip gets covered. those life-threatening surges forcing the largest evacuation ever as we have been talking about. >> speaking of large number r5 .6 million people told to get out now. pete: julian live in miami where water could rise as high as 12 feet, julian, good morning. >> good morning, guys, i was listening to rick's report, he mentioned a couple of key things, to reiterate, we got into town wednesday afternoon, we were staying in hotel in miami beach. that's where we are located right now. a couple of feet. we were evacuated as of thursday because of mandatory evacuation that went into effect. a lot of people were staying out west to get a hotel. just to get you up to speed now,

a couple of days later we are staying inland from miami, 30-minute drive, we took the trip here this morning, saw one car on the road that one car someone evacuating from miami beach, leafing heading over the bridge, it's basically ghost town in this area, starting last night, we try today book hotels in tampa area and we found one that still had rooms, it's impossible to get rooms along the west coast of florida, so if people have evacuated to east coast and went out west, they're in a tough situation right now as you heard rick mentioned. if people are trying to evacuate from homes along the west coast and trying to find hotels, that's going to be such an issue, we were just denied after denied. any phone call we made yesterday, so it is definitely a challenge out here for people trying to figure out where to go, you guyed mentioned 5.6 million people evacuated out of florida, at this point you have over a half a million people asked to leave out of georgia, everyone is trying to get north but north is is going

to get hit too. it looks like the entire florida, entire state of florida is going to be hit at some point, so it's just right now trying to figure out where to go, trying to watch weather reports, trying to get updates so people can know their best plan because at this point, everybody feels that they are not safe, the storm surges are going to be one of the biggest problems in miami beach. we are expecting storm surges 5 to 10 feet even worst in state of florida. i know you can see behind me palm beach swanning, it's definitely getting windy at this point. we haven't seen any rain. i know a storm band went through and we are expecting to see more. i will tell you, way off the coast, we are starting to see some lighting out there in the distance and we will keep you updated on the situation. abby: i saw you posting on social media, beautiful videos of miami beach, amazing how much it changes in just a matter of hours, i can't imagine what tomorrow will look like. >> thank you, julian, stay safe.

pete: this is histor nick the size of evacuation, size of storm, the florida state has seen a lot of this over the couple of years. abby: it's important that you put in perspective. when you look back at hurricane that is have hit the united states, ten major hurricane that is have hit florida, for example, since 19992. the strongest was on labor day, 1935, we had the facts from our amazing brain room that pulled this up, costliest was andrew, $45 billion and the deadliest was 1928, that's just kind of puts in perspective. the last time has been over ten years. >> look, from 1928 we have much better prediction measures now so that we don't have close to 2,000 dead. in hurricane andrew so much has changed both with predicting and how we help people to get out of their areas that could be

compromise. obviously much different situation following an true, following katrina, we operate in a much heightened state of emergency right now and we get people out. abby: specially after harvey. i think it's a huge wake-up call. >> it's a preview of haiti, take the warnings of officials seriously, andrew was a warning. everyone -- you talk to floridans, they remember andrew 25 years ago and building codes, construction, the way they do things in florida is completely different. it doesn't mean this won't be as difficult for to ride out but they learn a lot of lessons from that and that thankfully will be to the benefit of citizens there. you can stay, evacuate, either way it's still going to be -- abby: you're so right. andrew was in 1992. i have a lot of family there. many have been there for a long time. they all lived through hurricane andrew. at that point miami had population 2.02 million, now it's up 700,000 more people.

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people are prepare today help them. abby: yeah, there's still time to evacuate. pete: absolutely. really briefly, do you have any sense of who has or has not evacuated? is there any sense of that or something you will have to determine in realtime? >> no, we will have to determine in realtime. a lot of shelters, reports we are getting that some of the individuals that are moving into shelters were in zones that weren't initially planning to evacuating and when the storm tracked, they are now. another on the drive north and have decided to just stop wherever they're at and move to local shelter, i can't tell you where the individuals necessarily came from. pete: general rebas, thank you. abby: florida officials urging to evacuate and some people choose to go ignore mandatory

orderers and ride out the storm. we will talk to one of those people and why they're not operating. that's up next. >> this is a rolling water coming in. it flushes in and it flushes out. you can't survive this. i tell everybody if you're in the evacuation zone anywhere in the evacuation zone anywhere in our state, you have to get out go ahead, spoil yourself. now. experience amazing. can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. that's why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. so that you can spend time on what really matters. marie callender's. it's time to savor.

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alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. abby: we are back with headlines starting with a fox news alert with hurricane irma on the way, the happiest place on earth is closing its doors. this is the only the fifth time, if you can imagine that in disney world's history that they have not opened. most of the attractions set to reopen on tuesday, universal studios and sea world will also be closed. irma keeping crew ships away too. dozen of cruise ships canceled

or modified to galveston, texas. >> this is a devastating storm. i'm so concerned. we've got the unbelievable storm surge, it's going to pound the keys to start with and this is a rolling water coming and flushes in and flushes out. you can't survive this. i told everybody if you're in evacuation zone anywhere in our state, you to get out now and if you're if southern part of our state, don't get on the highway after midnight, you will never make it where you wanting to. we are opening shelters, we will do everything we can to help yourself safe, we are not going to spare any expense but you have to be prepared and you've got to evacuate. abby: even the with the warnings florida residents are still choosing to ignore mandatory evacuation orders and ride out the storm.

>> he's planning to wait it out himself, he joins us now, mr. lay, good morning to you, i'm going to ask the 64,000-dollar question, why are you deciding to stay? >> good morning, how are you? >> well, in the beginning as of yesterday, my purpose on stayingtous help rebuild the community. i know what's going to happen. i have been through this before. have i been through something like this before, no, the biggest one i have been through is wilma. we are prepared. we are not being stupid about it. we are going to be safe, we have a place to go to, our local government is doing fantastic job making sure that everybody has to get to where they want to get, shelters and things of that sort. we are listening to the governor's office. at this point we are past your hour, what we are going to do is be where we have to be by 11:00 o'clock this morning.

pete: are you shelters at home, do you have a depends plan, walk us through your plans? >> we have contingency plan, my friends and family, we will have a meeting. there's a few of us that stayed. probably 10 to 12, employees and friends and things of that sort. simply they didn't have anywhere to go. we are going to get together in about an hour and the plan is to be at our shelter by 11:00 o'clock this morning. we have moved supplies over to that shelter as well. we have backup at my house. another shelter here in town. pete: when you say a shelter? >> cat 5 rated building. abby: say that again? >> cat 5 rated building. brick building, buildings that

our first place is in the middle -f surrounded by other buildings of concrete and up high. and up high as well. abby: you know how strong the hurricane is, but overnight it was category 5 again. you know what key west specifically is likely to expect with the heavy winds and the rainfall. as the governor of florida has been saying, it's not a safe place to be and they have places where people that don't have no where to go, i'm sure you've had family members that are not happy about you staying behind. >> yes, i had some families but they do understand because at the end of the end the storm is going to come through and hit us no matter what, you know, so it's going to come through and the minute it's done, first thing we are going to do is get ourselves together, start getting this town together. >> seems like you have very good accommodations, if you will, for when irma hits with a category 5

protective structure but for those who don't and who decide to stay, talk to me a little bit about the threat that they create for first responders who basically putting their lives in jeopardy because of their decision to stay? >> my message to the people who don't have the resources that i do is to right now get to a shelter immediately. this is no laughing matter. some people think that i'm taking this at a joyce. my reasons were staying were basically for community and ourselves, we thought we would be safe. i know it's going hit, i'm 100% believe that we will be okay, but those people who don't have the resource that is we do as far as buildings and shelters and things of that sort, get to shelter because tonight will be a long night. >> you have two restaurants, martini bar and bar in the area

and staying around with a dozen other people. bill lay, thank you very much. >> thank you, guys, have a good one. abby: he has a big heart and he has to rebuild the area. pete: you have to survive. abby: we have to stay in touch with him to make sure that everything is okay in 24 hours or so. pete: our next guest is flying his team right into the eye of the storm, joins us next. >> rick is going to brake down the differences between the two hurricanes and he has latest on irma's path, do not go anywhere. polo! marco...! sì? polo! marco...! polo! scusa? ma io sono marco polo, ma... marco...! playing "marco polo" with marco polo? surprising. ragazzini, io sono marco polo. sì, sono qui...

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>> 23 minutes after the hour now and we are back with fox news alert. hurricane's irma raft aiming straight for florida. the monster storm set to slam keys and miami in just hours, nearly 6 million people across the state told to get out.

this is the largest evacuation order in u.s. history and the most powerful atlantic hurricane in recorded history already blamed for at least 23 deaths and leaving unprecedented damage across the caribbean. abby: we bring rick who has been following this warning a week ago about the hurricane and rick, seemed stronger than we had predicted. >> yes, it is, unfortunately. certainly stronger, we also weren't exactly sure where it was going to go. sometimes we have storms we know exactly where they are going to go, we know it's going to make the right-hand turn, it's just where that happens. unfortunately that moves it parallel to florida, 100-mile wide peninsula and makes a difference, everything at this point looks like it's trending much farther towards the west. it's moving towards warm water. it made landfall in cuba, then it's going to move back over

water, the amount of time to exit here from cuba and get up towards florida is about 24 hours to the key, that gives you plenty of time in really warm water here and that's why the broadcasting brings to cat 5. that's the satellite picture, the center of it cutting down the coast. 156 is a cat 5, we are barely down. also, now we have the rain, so the florida keys getting in on some of the rain, first rain band about to move towards the miami area. this just pulls up throughout the north today. this is the forecast, everything, all of our guidance had shifted towards the west, the west coast of florida much more into play than we had talked about a bit. i had a friend that said i think i'm going to go to naples,

naples will watch the storm going right over it and getting close to tampa, florida. all of the beach community, inland bays that are in this area pummeled. florida has grown tremendously since we had a storm like this. when you talk about hurricane andrew which had $26 billion of damage, a really tinny storm. the population of florida 13 million, it's 21 million, the population has gone way up and this storm unfortunately is going to go all the way up florida and i think the entire width of the state will deal with hurricane 4 winds. extend out 70 miles. 140 miles, peninsula 100 miles wide and cover the entire state, guys. >> i know pete is missing political reason for that.

there's baby boomers that move to florida to avoid state tax. one of the reason that is you have population growth like this. abby: also a beautiful place. >> one man and his team braving the storm to track irma, get this 45,000 feet over the ocean in south florida. pete: joining us right now with up close perspective is flight director with noah's hurricane hunters, national ocean ik administration, from what i understand, you're in flight right now, am i correct? >> that is correct. i am on the east side of hurricane irma. we are approaching in cuba and we have been sampling the high pressure system that's been directing irma to the west and helping the national hurricane center help determine where and when that is going to break and

allow irma to northerly track in florida. abby: you fly around hurricanes to get measurements and sense of the size of the store, looking at irma as we are trying to get a sense on the ground, how is this hurricane different than the ones you've seen in the past. >> every hurricane has its own unique personality. i think the difference for this one for me, i've been doing this for nine hurricane seasons, my home is under -- in the cross hairs, so to speak of this particular hurricane and this is kind of the first time that's been the case for me and, you know, it's not just about me, it's about 21 million other floridans that you mentioned, the folks in georgia, south carolina, north carolina, everybody who has been watching, we are up here flying trying to get the best information so we can get the best forecast, so people can get out of the way if

they are in harm's way. >> great point. we were talking about what it is like for you to physically fly in and around the hurricanes. can you describe to the viewer what that's like? >> you know, it really truly is a grind, it takes a toll on your body, the turbulence can be severe at times, it could be like riding a roller coster that just doesn't seem to stop and, you know, it's for a good cause, we are all happy and proud to be doing this and, you know, we just want to make sure that everybody is safe. >> what information are you getting that say a drone couldn't or i don't know anything about this, a weather blown, why drive into it? tell us what the benefit is there? >> yes, you're absolutely right. there's an instrument that we put out there. it's just like a weather blown except it doesn't go up on the

ground, we drop it from the airplane, this information is telling us exactly where the currents are and how strong they are and feeds into the computer models and can take this information and get a better forecast out and so these tracks as they've been shifting west, they have been using our data and they've been help to go hone in on the west coast of florida and east coast of florida and over time it seems that it will be proven true. abby: anything you can tell us about the storm itself, about the hurricane that as we have been talking about is barreling towards florida where you live. this hits really close to home. what can you tell us about the specifics of this hurricane? >> you know, i could tell you that it's still a very healthy storm, yes, it's interacting with the island of cuba for a short time, might be maybe weakening a little bit, but as you guys mentioned, i was listening to you, it's going to

have 24 to 36 hours over open ocean, very warm water conditions. the conditions are still very bearable for the storm to strengthen. we see that it's a powerful hurricane, we see it still has potential to become a category 5 after it makes it into the florida straits. >> under statement to say safe travels. ian, thanks. >> that's a job. abby: you don't think about jobs like that and how important they are when a hurricane like this is coming towards so many people. >> what's your title, hurricane hunter? >> up to 9 million people could lose power during this storm. abby: fight to save lives would be nearly impossible for first responders once irma makes

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♪ ♪ >> that will not be any time soon because they are indoors. abby: we are getting brand-new video overnight of hurricane irma slamming cuba, florida bracing for category 4 storm packed with winds of now more than 150 miles per hour. pete: monster storm leaving 23 people dead after unleashing path of destruction across the caribbean. >> once a paradise get away looks unrecognized. more than 90% of island of barbuda, gone. abby: gas stations with major

shortage. pete: lauren is live at downtown orlando gas station, lauren, what's the latest there? >> reporter: yeah, hey todd, abby, pete. they have until noon to get out. after that, they couldn't guaranty there would be anybody left to save them. the largest evacuation in state history. 5.6 million people have been ordered to leave, areas in irma's path, 25% of the state's population leaving behind ghost towns in south florida. slightly good news for drivers, gas prices have stabilized because of declared state of emergency, the governor urging drivers to use crowd-sourced mobile apps to find out where gas is till available and behind me, even though it's boarded up and looks quite dead, behind me 7eleven still open. they are completely out of premium fuel, so folks

definitely using those apps to find out where gas is available and guys yesterday as my crew and i made our way down the state of florida, we were actually using those apps because it was the only way for us to find where we could find fuel. abby, pete, todd. abby: thank you very much. >> they could have enough gas. pete: they opened that up for anyone who could bring it, they will take it. abby: unbelievable. pete: state officials say up to 9 million people could lose power during the storm. how will first responders deal with the fallout? abby: joining us vice president of international association of firefighters in the 12th district. great to have you here, sir, very busy time for you. >> good morning, yes, it is. a lot of preparation in place. abby: seems like not every single perp -- person is

evacuating, what's your advice as there's still time to get out? >> if they are in the danger area like in the keys it's probably a little too late but if they're if southern florida region, yes, there's still time to get out. roads are packed as you said earlier, gas is very difficult to find, but they need to find safe harbor. >> can you describe the resources that firefighters like yourself are deploying throughout this region? >> well, we have upped staff a lot of our stations throughout the region. we have double crews on, additional staffing, more units, but obviously we can't get to people when the hurricane force winds come. they will be made after the storms pass before we get out there and respond. so we are also putting resources on the ground to help our firefighters and their families

out. >> that's the question i was going to ask, what's your decision point, what's the miles per hour or situation where you can respond, is it -- you know, because if you have fire that is can break out, even though there's hurricane situation, search and rescue, what is the point at which you head out into a storm? >> well, every department has got a slightly different policy but on average i would say 40-miles-per-hour winds where first responders are going to have a difficult time responding out of their quarters. abby: are y'all prepared for that? >> well, we train every day for these type of situations and so our men and women are very well prepared to deal with whether it's water, gas leaks, we have a

number of scenarios that we grow on. >> of course, any possible contingency could come about in a moment like this. any particular area you're most concerned about, sir? >> well, i think right now based on the latest forecast, the southwest florida region is going to have severe flooding. they are going to have a very difficult time over there, so that's where i see the biggest problem right now. abby: that's where a lot of people evacuated originally thinking it was going to be a safer place to be. a long few days ahead and maybe weeks and months. thank you so much. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you. abby: florida, georgia and carolinas all bracing for irma's impact. we have a breakdown of your disaster essentials, you don't want to miss this. after the break.

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abby: florida braces for the impact of hurricane irma in states like georgia and south carolina now prepare for inland flooding. what do you need to include in the disaster kit for emergencies like this. pete: here about that important information weather and preparedness advisor is it couple minutes? >> yeah. you said it right. pete: a lot of it you had to buy already but there is some things in your own home that you need to think about. >> right. as hurricane mayor approaches, hopefully you have your kit in place, if you don't, things have you in your house, gather all together and put them in one spot. one thing people may not think about is money, single dollar bills of at least $100. i say that because after a storm atms probably won't work. people don't have change for a 20 so you want single dollar bills. another thing to have is a

cell phone charger because if you lose power, which many people will, you want to keep your devices charged if they still work that is how about a whistle. if a tree falls on your roof and it caves. in you are yelling for help. you lose your voice. you have a whistle to draw attention to yourself. abby: we wungts have even thought of that. that's a great idea. >> exactly. a picture of you and your pet together to prove ownership. if you get separated. you never know what can happen. rabies vaccinations and other paperwork as well. this you can't necessarily do at the last minute. people watching in other states who want to prepare for hurricanes is a couple minutes residential generator. it's a stand by generator it hooks up directly to your house and turns on the second power goes off. and this is great to have, too. because it's not portable. you don't have to worry about filling it with gasoline. it's going to be there for the duration of your power outage. abby: you may have millions of people without power through the storm. it is to help people here if power goes out. >> flashlights and batteries, of course.

i have a cool little glow stick light here. think like as a fan with a water bottle spray. abby: you would love that pete. pete: give it to me now. >> we should have tried ton him. great to have. mask. never know what the air quality is going to be like. can i go on and on. abby: is there a place people can go to get these tips? >> yes, home generators couple minutes.com-ahead the storm has all the information. abby: we will put that on our site as well. pete: only thing i would add is a gun. can't have one in the studio. tracking hurricane irma as it barrels forward. rick has the latest on the storm's path next. oooooohhh! you stopped! you're gonna leave me back here at year 9? how did this happen? it turned out, a lot of people fell short,

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>> florida growing ever more grim. >> hurricane irma quickly approaching the state of florida as a category 4 storm. >> officials urging before florida hits. >> engulfing our entire state. wider than our entire state. you can't survive this. >> take it seriously. >> entire state. the entire peninsula will be directly impacted by this and in a catastrophic way across the south. >> get to a shelter immediately. this is no laughing matter. >> 5.6 million people have been asked to evacuate their homes. >> strengthening even more which is very scary. >> got to get out more. can you rebuild your house. i can't rebuild your family.