always great to come on. >> i know you are on the air 99 hours a day. as we wrap it up here, we are going to go straightaway to shepard smith. >> shepard: it's 10:00 a.m. in the west coast, 1:00 p.m. in florida where we are still tracking the remnants of hurricane irma, now of a tropical storm but still causing plenty of trouble. for folks around jacksonville, this afternoon could bring plenty of rain. >> it's bad now, it's going to continue to get worse. >> shepard: a major flooding threat in a metropolitan area home to more than 1 million people. across central florida and south florida, we are getting an idea of the damage irma left behind. more than 60% of the state has no power. many still have no idea what happened to their homes. we are tracking the destruction and still waiting to hear how bad it is in certain parts of

the florida keys. governor rick scott heading there to assess the damage after a warning of a humanitarian disaster from local officials on the ground. let's get to it. >> live from the fox news debt. deck. >> shepard: powerful irma is moving into georgia after leaving destruction and parts of florida and the keys. more than 7 million homes and businesses have no power in multiple states as forecasters worn conditions will remain dangerous and life-threatening. the flooding in jacksonville has already reached record levels in the water is still rising. officials say if you are living in a high-risk area, get out now. if that is not an option, people need to find a house with a second story. floodwaters could rise to epic levels, jacksonville's mayor

said today the flooding is unlike anything he seen before. >> if you need to get out, please put what represents a white flag of somewhere on your house that can be viewed visibly from outside. we have search and rescue teams ready to deploy. >> shepard: more in a moment on jacksonville, we got this drone video showing the extent of the damage and flooding in naples. it is not far from where the storm made its second landfall yesterday. officials say some people could be in the dark for weeks. the storm made its first landfall as a category 4 hurricane leveling homes and businesses. local officials say the destruction and the keys is a looming humanitarian crisis and that is a quote. he said "disaster and mortuary teams are headed to the keys apparently to help identify victims." one person who rode out the

storm said it sounded like a war as if explosives were going off. local officials say there is no fuel, no electricity, no running water, no cell service. they say supplies are running low for many people. another person who stayed behind in key largo said of the waves were coming right into his home. >> we were in the house down the road, a hurricane proof house but it was very windy and the waves were coming in the living room of the downstairs. we will make it. >> shepard: irma downgraded to a tropical storm over florida, forecasters say it is still packing winds near hurricane force as it moves up and into the state of georgia. the national hurricane center reports that tornadoes are possible today near georgia and south carolina coast. hundreds of thousands of people under mandatory evacuation in georgia, alabama, and the carolinas. levin jacksonville, peter, apparently it is still wet.

>> it's really wet, shepherd. this is main street, two blocks in. the water looks like it's about to go into this bar and grill, this marketing agency, this broker's firm. they don't have sandbags outside, jacksonville was never really talked about as a place that was going to get the full force of a irma here we are with about 90 minutes more of rising water. you can see on neither side are there sandbags. this looks like it was either somebody's garage door or a storm shutter, laying wasted in the middle of the street. the latter has been rising not only since we got here but since the power company got here. there are three trucks and you can see where the gentleman parked, this utility truck parked. the water is already rising to the point where it's going to be tough for him to get back in. you look further down here, can

we take it off for one second? just to come down to look at this hotel. you can really get a sense of how much the water is still coming in when you look down at the hyatt regency. i am told by somebody who answered the phone it is closed indefinitely, they may not be open until friday. st. johns river is basically out of sight on the other side of that hotel, that is a riverfront hotel. obviously the river is now on the wrong side of it. you can see if you look to the right here, the stop signs and parking meters are almost completely submerged. the water is still rising, the jacksonville they mayor said this morning that the water could be rising 4-6 more feet. if that happened it will be up to about here and they are saying around 2:00 is going to be the highest water level around here, they wanted everybody out before but you

heard them telling people, if you did not get out in time, hang a white sheet and they will try to get you, a lot of people have already been calling for help, last update 600 calls so far, they don't have much of a breakdown in terms of how many of them are calling for rescues. an hour since the water started rising, it is still coming up. >> shepard: this is a causeway in south florida, look at this. this is the eastbound lane of the julia tuttle causeway. going into miami beach. i guess cars were stuck on this thing so they've got people eastbound and people westbound all in what appears to be the eastbound lane. these pictures are from our south florida new station. at the recovery in south florida has been more difficult than maybe some people thought once the storm was passing just this

time yesterday, i guess it hadn't passed by now, it was certainly on the way. some difficulty with traffic and flooding in local areas, we have been watching this throughout the early afternoon, helicopters have been finally back up after the wind passed. our local station has been interviewing people on the roadways as well. they have some damage, naples area. and where i think the biggest effects of the storm right now are where peter doocy is up and jacksonville. i see the winds still howling there, peter. >> the wind is howling. the mayor said this is a category 3 surge. the storm did not hit as a category three but the water, it looks like you are standing on the bank of obey or a river or the ocean. it is coming in with so much

force. the level is still rising. we've been here about 90 minutes so far, the water has moved a couple of feet. we haven't seen a dramatic rise in terms of how deep it is here but this is one spot. that's a lot of places for the water to go. that is not what they are expecting in every residential area. a lot of residential neighborhoods they want people out of, businesses don't seem to be that much of a problem because we have been driving all around and it doesn't seem like there's anybody open and the only people who are out are a handful of police officers and some curious folks who came out as soon as the rain stopped. we don't really see anything open so business is not a big concern in terms of getting people out to safety. that is residence. while the safety of business owners or customers may not be much of a concern right now and you can see the wind whipping this water up and as we know

there is not just water, there's a lot of stuff on the street that is now in this, too. there's going to be some serious damage, i was speaking a little bit earlier, the water isn't into these places just yet but you have to think it's only a matter of time until it starts seeping in. no real protective measures taken because jacksonville was not ever mentioned as one of the places that was going to get a lot of damage. this is the first emergency responder we have seen come through here, i have no idea where he may be going, it does not look like there is a ton of urgency right now as a truck leaves, this pickup truck. we saw these gentlemen pulling a stranded car out a few minutes ago. it looks like the water may be too high for the jacksonville fire department as well right now. >> shepard: peter doocy and jacksonville, they just reported a 52-mile-an-hour wind gusts to bear. let's get to the mayor of jacksonville beach.

mr. mayor, how are things this afternoon? >> we are hanging there, we are not as bad as south florida. >> shepard: what is the immediate concern? >> we've got historical flooding in the area. >> shepard: 27 inches of rain was not the prediction for anyone. >> if you look at any reservoir or lake or retention pond, they have all flooded into the street. we have massive flooding and our residential and business areas. >> shepard: were people ready for this? >> we are as ready as we can be, we were able to keep our sewage and water on the line during the storm.

our customers are down about 90%. we've got a significant amount of work to get done. last year at matthew we had a significant breach of our dunes and had to pay to rebuild them and only finished a couple of months ago. i'm happy to say it looks like they held up pretty well. right now we are telling residents to stay inside as we continue to do our damage assessments. we want to make sure there are no electrical issues or concern concerns, we want to do our very best to clean up the roadways, there is no potential traffic issues. hopefully we can coordinate with the city of jacksonville. >> shepard: the jacksonville

beach mayor, charlie latham, never seen the likes of this. i want to go to miami now, see these signs? it turns out, this is people trying to turn to miami beach. they will only let you in if you have a driver's license that says "i live on miami beach." they had shut down miami beach until noon today, they weren't going to let any residents get back in there. people are trying to get back into miami beach but everybody can't get in there, you have to live there to get back in there. they are very worried about keeping about keeping law & order. this is the hard rock stadium, they now call it where the

dolphins play. some serious damage to the roof, they are working to assess how bad that damage was and what they are going to do about returning to football in the western part of the county ther there. there's a lot to watch this afternoon, down in south florida it is damage assessment and trying to get the power back on. down in the florida keys, they are working to make sure all their bridges are structurally sound and to get there electricity back up and running. and to find out if there's anybody they haven't been able to find who needs help. in southwest florida they are trying to get everything back up and going, this is from one of the local airports in the miami area. you can see a bunch of planes overturned there on the tarmac. the choppers have only been up for a short period of time. you can only send them out when the winds are safe. we are starting to see all that damage across the region.

we will take you to the choppers throughout this news hour. i'm shepard smith in new york with continuing coverage of the devastation of irma, we will continue it after this. that one's actually yours. that one. regardless, we're stuck with the bill. to many, words are the most valuable currency. last i checked, stores don't take "words." some do. not everyone can be the poetic voice of a generation. i know, right? such a burden. the bank of america mobile banking app. the fast, secure and simple way to send money.

you don't let anything lkeep you sidelined. come on! that's why you drink ensure. with 9 grams of protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals... for the strength and energy, to get back to doing what you love. ensure, always be you. >> shepard: 16 minutes past the hour, local coverage now in the southwest florida area. let's listen.

>> we are about of foot from the ground level to where i am now, it goes up to about 18-20 inches, it looks more like a canal. kind of pushing it to the limit, that's kind of the case here. they have so much of that water surging through the night, a very hairy situation to say the least. one of the neighbors in the area was nice enough to join us. i guess you are was about 3 feet on cinder blocks, what was going through your mind? tell me this type of scenario, we have not seen ever before. >> i was hoping it would all be there, i knew we were in a safe place so i wasn't that worried about the house, i came back and it was all good. >> let's get back to the

historical nature, you said you bought it after charlie. you might have been in close situations in the past but nothing this close. >> i am born and raised here, i've never seen water levels like this, i was here through charlie. this is by far the worst i have seen yet. >> some of your neighbors on this road not so lucky. just to give you a frame of reference, charlie's house is the second one on the right of your screen. he was talking about our neighbors house that is a little further down the road, maybe kind of explain what he's dealing with. >> they flooded all inside. this is a time when you see these types of things hit your neighbors, maybe you are lucky enough to not be affected, this

is when communities come together. >> i have a generator at my house and a cord going to the neighbors house so they can charge their phones and we all just kind of work together. i've got a lot of good neighbors. >> neighbors like the one we are talking about are going to need a bit more help from you guys. >> shepard: at the bottom of the screen, this is actually in a small town, that's just south of fort myers and naples. really right across the interstate from florida gulf coast university. a local reporter from our fox station in southwest florida showing the locals around, they talked about hurricane charlie, that was back in 2004. the locals refer to that as

their bellwether. them main overseas highway, only way in and out, officials are not letting anybody back and until engineers can inspect all the bridges and tunnels. how are things? >> pretty bad in a lot of parts of the keys, especially here in key largo. this man over here we just met, you are okay you said, right? he just came out of his trailer. it is everybody okay back there? how many houseboats were destroyed in here, how many homes? >> four, five, six. h. >> glad you are okay, be careful. eight houseboats back here, we'd tweeted it out for fox news,

that's what's left of it. the people that started your show that talked about the water in their homes were down the street over here, we met them this morning. they went up to the second story. to my right, you can see all up and down the ocean side, that one there is broken in half. the man we saw a moment ago said there were eight houseboats in here, i guess that is a houseboat there. you can see the destruction all down the coast is pretty extensive. on the base side which would be the west side you see mostly wind damage and trees down. the hospital still is not open, they have to assess that. they are not doing emergency services, no ambulance services for some time. the sheriff's department is trying to figure out which roads are passable.

the national guard will start moving out trees and debris to be able to check on people, they are checking their bridges, right now no one is allowed back on the keys, if you have a chance to get off they will not let you come back. no electricity, no cell service and to be honest i am not sure when that's going to come back. there are lines down everywhere. humanitarian crisis, very significant. no doubt a marathon to the west, that's where they got the worst. a lot of concerns about how marathon went through there. i know some of the emergency folks of common from a number of different federal agencies and are flying down this afternoon. >> shepard: we will get back to key largo, still closed, the florida keys. look at this new video, this is from east naples. naples is the second place that

the storm hit on the southwest florida coast. it came ashore some where in the 4:00 hour. two people, griff jenkins and steve harrigan were in naples when it hit, this is east naples on the other side of interstate 75. inland from naples proper, this is video we shot with our drone down there once the winds got to a point where we could do that. this is obviously a manufactured home community, there are a lot of those in southwest florida, mostly inland. a lot of retirees come to that region especially from the midwest and now frankly a lot of more of them are coming from the boston area because the boston red sox train in southwest florida, and in an absolutely beautiful stadium. a lot of new englanders have made it their goal to retire down there.

the red sox haven't always trained in this region but they have for the better part of the last couple of decades. now new englanders come down and a lot of these people i'm sure are new englanders and midwesterners, traditionally midwesterners have come to the southwest florida coast as snowbirds and later as your rounders once they are in retirement. a lot of people who were down here on fixed incomes, they retired, they have a plan for retirement, homes cost a little more in the northeast, you save up and make a plan and decide to live in one of these manufactured home communities once you retire. there's not a lot of extra money to go around, you just hope that everybody down here has insurance. i'm not going to guarantee you but there's a very good guess that a lot of these people are elderly folks who have retired, we are so thankful not to see complete destruction here.

remember when the storm was at 185 miles an hour, that's not the storm that hit here. it was between 110 and 115-mile-an-hour winds. a smaller airport in naples regional at 142 miles an hour and that was somewhere around 5:00 eastern time yesterday afternoon. i'm going to look it up so i know exactly where that is. this says it's in south naples, so i can give you an idea of where this is. if you go south on 41 from naples, highway 41 is the highway that starts on the west coast and makes its way all the way across to the everglades and crosses and connects up with

at highway 90 to go across the coast. south on 41, you get to the resort past naples manner. in small community, henderson creek drive it is off and this is one of the side streets. and all manufactured home community, a lot of damage there. griff jenkins was in naples when irma pounded the city. it's not complete destruction but you've got a mess there, don't you? >> we sure do. people are thankful that storm surge did not materialize into the devastating result they thought there is nothing like that. we are down by the coast, a little flooding, some minor structural damage. inland, look at these trees, the roads are littered with these

trees, the sheer force, how impressive total grip this 30, 40-foot tree. we have seen not only trees but the power lines that have been reported elsewhere. a lot of florida power and light trucks out trying to clear the trees and power lines, power is certainly an issue. when everybody woke up here it was 90% of the county without power. the streets were really impassable, they've done a remarkable job of getting that done. marco island police department just waiting 20 minutes ago that they finally let some residents with identification get back on the island. we've been driving around all day trying to see what it is and it's exactly as you just sort of mentioned, it could've been a lot worse inland and in that self naples area you are

mentioning down by the airport, certainly destroyed a lot of homes. some drone footage we had shot earlier, a good amount of flooding due to the rain fall. the real story here is going to be power restoration and clearing some of this junk but the storm surge, they dodged that bullet. >> shepard: we were mentioning this yesterday, the storm came ashore. everything south of naples got a pretty bad a storm surge. steve harrigan was standing out in the pouring rain and the pounding winds yesterday after 4:00 eastern time, we were watching the eye of the storm come up on local radar and of the eye of that storm has been very well formed and it's been completely circular and everyone who experienced it prior to that time experienced a real eye of the storm. you look up and they are blue skies. after he crossed over marco

island, we were watching it, the back half of the eyes started to fall apart. inside the eye of the storm it looked like there was clouds or something. the back half of the eye brings in and allows for the surge, the storm surge to come in for some reason that the back of that wall broke down. we were watching it as it was happening. we can see the eye, you should be experiencing the eye of the storm now. this isn't like an eye of the storm, the sky is not blue, the rain hasn't stopped all the way. there's something strange about this. we looked on the radar, there it is. the back end of the eye has collapsed for the moment. the hope was that might mean going forward, the storm

wouldn't be as bad. alas, that was not the case. some new drone video coming in on our feet, this is out of marco island. marco island is a place, first the at 9:00 in the morning eastern time, something like 100 miles south of marco island with water in the middle. if you look at the tip of florida, the keys jot off to the left if you look at a map and a due north of where the storm came over is marco island. the storm had been moving north, northwest at that point and it took jaunts to the north, is this a one-time bubble or has the storm moved to the north? the national hurricane advisory was that they believed it had moved to the north. marco island and naples in the national hurricane center was

exactly right. for the next four hours the storm continued on a due north track, straight up over the water there and slammed right into marco island. this is marco island. a residential section of marco island. the producers tell me this is marco island. the worst of the eye came ashore as a strong category 4 hurricane. by the time i got to marco, the winds had diminished a little bit and by four, 5:00 in the afternoon we were down to a category 3 storm. but a very strong category 3 storm. still a major hurricane capable of widespread destruction and a huge storm surge. there is a lot of damage to roofs here in the marco island area, a lot of shingles on the ground and that sort of thing. you expect shingles to fly often category 2 storms.

category 3 you expect a little more damage. we were speaking to the mayor of marco island yesterday, moments after the storm came and he still could not go out obviously because the winds were so strong and the rains were still pounding but he had a lot of questions about what would happen with a bunch of homes in marco island that were built before hurricane andrew. the building codes, across the state, they were rewritten because they found out what some of the strong storms could do. a lot of homes on this island were built before that and the mayor himself was worried what exactly that would mean. now we are learning, the drone is up and we can see there is some damage to the taller buildings, i wouldn't call it a high rise, looks like it is

about six or seven stories tall there. while we are looking at this new drone video from down in the southwest florida, we are seeing new damage from the upper keys. remember, the brunt of the storm was down in the middle keys in monroe county. 7 sky force is flying over the upper keys. the correspondence and the anchors are talking about where exactly this is. let's listen to local coverage. >> we will see more as the day goes on. it shows you the intensity. if you are just now listening to us, if you are looking at these pictures with us, what we are looking at is some of our first look at the damage of the upper

keys. broward county we have heard throughout the day seems to have fared fairly well. >> shepard: broward county is fort lauderdale. >> a lot of us, over 80% of us in south florida do not have power. pardon me, go ahead. >> first off, where are you? >> i just came back from checking on some property, i'm on my way back to my house. >> where did you stay during the storm? how are we able to get you at

mile marker 60? >> i have built a three level concrete house. it's all concrete. i drove my four-wheel-drive truck down there. it was an obstacle to get down there. the asphalt is washed out, 3 feet of sand. it's not easy to get down there. i took my phone down there and let them call family. the damage is pretty extensive. we will come back, it's more

than anything mess. anything made out of concrete and steel is standing in anything that's not is flattened to damage on the side. >> if you can express may be to some residence, expressed of those folks who want to get back down how dangerous the situation is and why they need to stay put until crews can clean this debris out of the way. >> there is nothing that can be accomplished down here right now. other than calm down and wait for the cleanup to begin.

whatever happens is already happened. >> that's great advice. if you can describe again for the people who have homes and businesses in the keys and want a visual on what it looks like, you were saying there is 3 feet of sand, the asphalt is washed away, can you paint a picture for them? >> that's in the south end of the island, just before you get to the channel 5 bridge. an area right on the ocean. it brought with it a lot of sand

and debris at the bottom. as you go north from there, things are improved. the snake of creek bridge forward the damages less and less. if you have a concrete or sturdy structure built high, it is a pretty good. i can't say how things fared south, i expect it was much worse. the damage is here, it's more of a mess.

>> what was it like to write out the storm, you described your home as 40 feet above ground. what was it like for you? >> i was very secure in the construction, it's an insulated concrete house which is basically styrofoam blocks full of concrete and steel. i was very secure in it. i just anticipated the worst and plan for the worst and that's what i was fully expecting to deal with. thank god i did. i can't stress enough, you have

to do things right. it's like the story of the three little pigs, don't build it out of hay or water, build it out of concrete. >> i just want to let people know what they are looking at right here. these are aerials of the upper keys, you can see some of the damage that was done by hurricane irma, a lot of boats moved up onto property. if you can, two questions here. the storm surge, what do you estimate it was and secondly, are you hearing any word of damage out of key west? >> i haven't heard anything from key west, or south of islamorada i haven't really heard anything. south of that, i haven't heard

anything. as far as the storm surge, we are very fortunate because the dash we didn't get the storm surge we were expecting. what happened is during the storm all the canals emptied. it was very ominous, in the back of my mind i was thinking it was like a tsunami. it empties only to bring back a huge surge, that never happened. i was in contact with friends on the oceanside, this was true all the way down to long key.

on the golf side, it's empty all the water. we are fully expecting it to come back and where i'm at, the water came up to the top of the dock around 6:00, 7:00. beyond that, high tide was at 2:00 in the morning. and i thought it would come up under 2 feet. it never came over the bank, very fortunate. everybody in plantation key anyway -- >> shepard: jack is from islamorada, this is the florida keys, the tip of florida, 100 miles from key west up to north key largo. he talks about a small key, there are a number of them that are so small you have to zoom in

very far just to see them. the storm came in right here, here is sugarloaf, here's key west. the eye of the storm was right about here. you talk about water coming in on the ocean side, he's talking about the water coming in. the storm is like this, it's counterclockwise, all of the storm surges pushing in. he gave a number of keys in there, all the way up to marathon key. we are talking mile markers down in the keys, the bay emptied out on the other side.

the gulf of mexico side, all of this side emptied out and they expected it to come back as it made its way north toward marco island. here's where it came short, straight up north to marco island. they thought the storm surge may come up. let's get back to the live aerials right now, we are showing pictures from the florida keys. listen again to jack who is on the phone, luke jones is from key largo florida which is the far most northern key. >> we are putting stuff in piles so people can get through the roads. >> what was it like to write out the storm and key largo? we heard from mr. garcia, it must've been treacherous and scary for you as well. >> it's not my first hurricane

but this was probably the one -- i was three during andrew, this is the one that i remember that was probably the worst. the only way i can describe it, a lot of people in florida know of disney world and space mountain and being inside space mountain constantly for about ten hours. that's what it felt like, things rushing by, one of the palm trees fell down. there are a bunch of railings that are bent over, hearing noises in the middle of the night, we are all boarded up, you can't really see anything, it's an unknown factor. a bunch of wind, a bunch of win wind. my house is all concrete, we are

in a three-story building, the first story is our garage, it received some flooding from the storm surge. about 14 inches, in the backyard we have a pool. i think the best part of mao was watching my dad try to catch a barracuda out of our swimming pool, silver lining. water was everywhere, we got our cars out. it was a concrete fortress, i had a lot of friends who were getting ready to leave saying i was crazy for staying down here but we had faith in this building. we had shutters up. >> shepard: luke jones is on the phone with our local station wrote it out in key largo, we

had some crews there yesterday. a barracuda in the swimming pool today, called out a silver lining, his father trying to catch that now after the storm. there are always a million interesting little stories. phil keating is one who wrote it out, down in -- you are in miami-dade. how is it today? >> today is a day of a massive cleanup effort. more than 30 hours for south florida of pounding wins, 70 miles an hour, gusts up to 100 miles an hour and driving rains oh 4-14 inches. this huge one, the diameter of the truck two and a half feet on the winds were so strong, ripped off the concrete sidewalk. a lot of these trees blocked so

many roads, 60% of the utility signal still don't work. we drove around some neighborhoods looking for the effects of the storm surge and oh, did we find one. storm surge for south florida, miami-dade county, 2-4 feet, this is one of those places, the neighborhood of dog heart is today just trying to see what he can make out of his house, floodwaters inside were 5 feet high, starting to recede but still it's all putting him to the breaking point. >> i've never been through this storm surge flooding in 40 years, this is unbelievable. i wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. >> strike force of 17,000 florida power and light workers

prestaged with eric trump before hurricane irma arrived, they have started working and restoring electricity to homes and businesses last night. there are still a lot of people without electricity, about 1.5 million households, two people for household. no electricity, no power, no air conditioning. about 900,000 remained. still a big job, utility crews moving just like the work crews, coming in with the buzz saws, chopping the trees down, quickly pushing over to the side of the road, moving onto the next job. >> shepard: phil keating in miami, let's go to jacksonville where the local station, this is cbs 47 jacksonville. this is right in downtown jacksonville, the st. johns river runs right into downtown

jacksonville, you get up into jacksonville it self, i-95 crosses over to the south of downtown jacksonville, that's where this is, do all county. >> the two girls there live in this apartment over here, trying to make sure their stuff was on higher ground, this took them by surprise. it took a lot of people by surprise, we know that because of high tide coming soon, waters will continue to rise. just again, setting the scene, we do expect more crews to come in. the waters mostly remained about knee-high here although it gets even deeper over here. just debris, trash cans floating in the water, all kinds of garbage here. again, the concern in areas like

this in downtown as well is that water levels will continue to rise with high tide coming soon. we are trying to get to those areas where more people are being rescued to make sure they are okay and when we learn more we will bring that to you on air and on social media. for now -- >> shepard: that's kevin clark from fox 30 up in jacksonville. we went to phil keating in miam miami, up to jacksonville, the distance between san marco and key west is 507 miles were you to drive up the highway. 507 miles of that kind of destruction and it continues going up into the state of georgia. let's go back to jacksonville, this is westside and do all county, just south of jacksonville there. i'll let you know where in a moment. the surge is still coming here.

>> it is really amazing to see. i think cars trying to drive through this would not recommend doing that, be careful where we step, it looks like a little part of a sidewalk here. if you walk over, do not trip. i think trucks trying to go through this as well might stand up a little better in these types of conditions. walk this way over here with me. take it slow. this is unbelievable, there is a bench right here, i'm getting water in my boots. if i sit on this bench, i am basically sitting in water, this is how high it is. it is crazy to see. walk over this way with me. you have people walking out her here, taking in the sights after hurricane irma. come this way.

there's some grass. >> shepard: for those of you watching on fox news channel, this is the west side of jacksonville on the west bank of the st. john's river which has flooded the streets. >> it may take us a little bit to get there, keep on coming, this is filling my boots. i'm committed, i'm already in the water, come on. be safe. what is this? is this a door? or is this plywood? what is this? [laughs] okay, this is what you have to be careful about when you walk through here, there are nails in this. this looks like part of a sign, part of a sign to my right.

this is really unbelievable to take in, we will have to watch out for that because there's nails in there. we will stay out here to monitor these conditions, i'm going to go check on those cars over there, i think i see some taillights, someone might be in there. i will send it back to you guys, i'm going to check on those people over there. >> shepard: we are dipping in on local coverage, still showing aerials in south florida now, listen for just a second. >> the infrastructure, the roadways, the health hazards they find prior to being able to open the gates and allowing the residents to come in, it's a great responsibility on their part and we cannot take that lightly, we've got to take that responsibility very seriously and that is what they are doing at this point. on top of that, talking to them,

they are having difficulties with communications, communication has become a big issue. within intergovernmental's, the intergovernmental has to be in contact with the sheriffs office, everybody has to be able to have -- >> shepard: talking local concerns in south florida, ben jacksonville the concern is, this is neptune beach into ball county, very near jacksonville. >> look, what you don't see is water between the home and the dunes, that means the dunes officially remained intact through irma, there are some areas chipped away, some waters getting through and some of the dunes across the beaches. you can see how the sand from some of those dunes blew over this beach walkway here, a couple feet tall, let's get closer. because again, the big story

after hurricane matthew was the dunes, will they remain intact during irma? the good news, they are. there is some erosion, about 4-. just how deep the erosion is, for the most part, as you keep walking out, the dunes are intact. the waves are still brushing up on shore here. you see the cresting waves ther there, very impressive and obviously still dangerous at this point. looking up and down the beach, one thing you won't be able to see, the good news it is still there. the jacksonville beach pier, we saw how the damage was sustained in hurricane matthew, a concern if it was still going to be

structurally safe after irma. it was still standing in and id not look like there was any major damage. these walkways themselves, i almost fell in it, my photographer fell in it earlier. the good news is, the dunes for the most part look like they are okay. the wind has been dying down after hurricane irma. >> shepard: neptune beach, if you are off to the right from jacksonville on the beach, the first thing up, what we learned is there is some beach erosion. the jacksonville beach pier had a lot of trouble in previous storms and was able to survive this thing, there is some beach erosion in neptune beach and jacksonville beach.

winds are still coming through there. the landing at jacksonville, we are looking at life pictures there. after the storm, local reports -- let's listen to this. >> the water is about 4-5 or even 6 feet higher than it normally would be. we are now one minute away from high tide here at the bridge. some of the tides again, high tide here in one minute, we will see our next high tide at 2:32 in the morning. >> shepard: the biggest concern with the storm surge is that it had at high tide, which combines effort and can go causes lots of problems with the locals. we just got word from a news conference in monroe county, the officer letting us know that tonight there is a curfew from dusk until dawn in monroe county.

for all the florida keys, no one is allowed into the florida keys until further notice but those who remained behind, about 25% of people who live in key west remain behind and anyone through the rest of the keys remain behind, there's a curfew from dusk until dawn in the morning. just not sure about the structural integrity of the bridge is down there, there is no power throughout the florida keys and authorities are warning people there are a lot of hazards. most of the people who live down there have done this for many years and are pretty clear about how to ride out to these storms. remember, the storms came ashore to the east of key west which means the dry side of the storm hit key west but there are areas of greater concern and we are expecting to see pictures and live aerials out of their coming

up within the next hour. though storm continues to turn to the north end has georgia on its mind. it's 2:00 in south florida and across georgia, i'm shepard smith in new york and this is fox news channel continuing coverage of the devastation of hurricane irma. alive look, this is alive look coming to us from jacksonville. that's a fox news camera that's just watching the waters rise? it's high tide at the bay bridge there. we are waiting to find out what that brings. it we can to tell you the storm is continuing its northward path