and willie geist and chris jansing continue our coverage. >> the first direct hit since a major hurricane since 1921. the storm weakened to a category 1 at 2:00 a.m. but huge and wide reaching. good morning, breaking news. irma turning its theory on northern florida after pounding the southern half of that state. this morning millions without power. widespread damage coast-to-coast. streets turn to rivers. the storm downgraded but the destruction for the over today monday, september 11th, 2017. >> announcer: from nbc news, this is a special edition of "today" hurricane irma. with mat lauer and savannah guthrie from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. >> and the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. devastation in the state of florida.

good morning, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of "today" on monday morning. >> we're coming olt an the air t early. we want to bring you the latest from overnight. it has weakened to category 1, still 75-mile-an-hour winds. >> this storm causing a record number of power outages. right now nearly 5 million people are in the dark. warning customers this won't take days, this will take weeks before things are fully restored. >> a major concern a storm surge of over 10 feet was recorded in the low-lying florida keys. in names late last night, a federal tide gauge reported 7 foot rise in water levels in just 90 minutes. >> here are some of the other things we know. president trump has now approved a disaster declaration for florida clearing the way for federal aid for victims of the storm. >> we mentioned our

correspondents spread out across the state. we'll check in with lester holt and al roker but let's start with dylan dreyer. she's in gainesville. dylan, what are the conditions there? >> good morning, savannah, we're in gainesville. we have been dealing with winds and rain all night long. winds gusting over 60 miles an hour. we've picked up a foot of rain. can you see it now. we're so close to the back edge of rain. now that irma went over land, it's moving very quickly, 18 miles an hour. that doesn't mean we're not going to see some of this, we have tropical storm warnings that extend to atlanta for the first time ever. even areas like jacksonville faa florida, nearly 500 miles away from key west, they have seen wind reports up to 86 miles per hour. that's how expansive this storm

is, affecting literally the spire state. we drove around a little bit this morning. we've seen some minor flooding on the streets. we've also seen downed trees. there's a lot of this area without power. while we will see the heaviest of the rain come to an end here, we're not in the clear. even this far inland we've been seeing significant effects. guys. >> dylan, that map says it all. >> you have the comment that atlanta going under tropical storm warnings for the first time ever. >> atlanta with a tropical storm warning. >> exactly sfchlt nearly a million people without power in tampa bay. lester holt is in tampa where he has been for a long time. lester, good morning to you. >> matt, good morning. the eye blew past here about 5:00 a.m. as you can tell it's still delivering a punch here. winds are heavy, rain squalls continue to hit us here.

you're going to hear a lot about dodged a bullet today when it comes to places like tampa. very vulnerable city. the punch wasn't what we thought it was. there's a lot of gratitude here. that's not to say there isn't damage. they have seen damage. so far nothing catastrophic. keep in mind, it's dark. first responders haven't been able to get out to examine what's below wreckage, what's below any damage to come. they didn't see significant flooding, certainly not downtown here. kind of surprising for those of us out here in the height of it, thinking they might lose it. the lights are on. again, this isn't over -- you can't feel, i can feel winds blowing around me right now. power lines, trees, still a significant risk. arcing wires through the night, things popping not too far behind us, couldn't find exactly where. still a lot of danger here.

still a lot to review. they are feeling, again, like they dodged a bullet. i'm not feeling like it right now. >> you're in it, lester, and al, your pal right by your side. al, an update on where the storm has been and where it's headed. >> that's right, guys. it's still holding on. it's just barely a hurricane now. but it's still packing a heck of a punch. let's show you where it is and what it's doing. starting off category 1 hurricane. up through northern florida and into georgia, 75-mile-per-hour winds moving northwest right now. as you can see, it starts -- we're going to be watching this now, category 1 storm moving on into georgia this morning, 50 to 75-mile-per-hour winds. a storm surge of maybe 3 to 5 feet, 3 to 6 feet.

as we move spot afternoon hours we're going to be looking at this as a tropical storm most likely. still affecting charleston and savannah today, 60-mile-per-hour winds. you can see storm surge. 30 to 50-mile-per-hour winds, rains. you've heard we still have a tropical storm warning for atlanta. this thing just continues to push on. the rainfall forecast, the heaviest rain, will go from atlanta to savannah, charleston, montgomery, alabama. we're talking anywhere from 3 to 7 inches of rain is possible as this pushes on through. so it's not quite done yet. luckily though, as lester mentioned here in tampa it went to our east. so we were not on the strongest part of the storm, guys. still, we've got tropical force winds at least. every now and then, we get something that just about

noxious off our feet. >> there's no advantage to being tall. >> hey, guys, and al, mostly to you here. we talked a lot yesterday morning about conditions being right, all the conditions being in place for that awful storm surge, that extremely vulnerable area where you are. is the reason it didn't happen that jog to the east on the part of this storm. >> the jog to the east. because it came in early and stayed over land, it weakened a bit. that combined with positioning spared tampa and really a lot of places, naples and ft. myers. the bulk of that storm surge that didn't happen. ft. myers and naples, talking about 15 feet and ended up closer 4 to 5 feet. that was great news. >> we'll take that every time.

i'm sure folks down there will take it as well, guys. great to see you again. we'll see you throughout the morning. nice job over the last 24 hours. >> thanks, guys. >> thank you. >> we're joined now by the tampa mayor bob buckhorn. mr. mayor, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt and savannah. >> you had the famous line quoting mike tyson saying everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. i don't think anybody down there would say you didn't get a punch but maybe not the punch you're expecting. is that fair? >> that would ab fair assessment. it was a glancing blow. we're still standing. we're thankful for the fact we're still standing. it was long night. i think when dawn comes and the lights come on, we will find we were very, very lucky last night. >> you were. are you still expecting a storm surge and is it one you feel ready to handle? >> we do, savannah. all of our police officers have been deployed since 2:00 last night. fire rescues out there were doing a sweep through the city

right now to determine where the standing water is, where the power lines are down, where the debris needs to be cleared. the surge, as you saw on the chart, is yet to come. high tide is yet to be finished. we're on the pack siback side o storm, so we're getting bands coming through now. all things considered, we'll probably have some surge impact but not nearly what we anticipated or planned for. >> mr. mayor, you mentioned dawn and its arrival. you mentioned first responders there trying to assess the situation. are there certain parts of your city that you're more concerned with, certain housing developments, certain places where you're worried you may find people who tried to ride this out? >> we are, indeed. we have a number of high water vehicles stationed on bayshore boulevard, which is very close to where al was. some of the low-lying areas there tend to flood on normal storms. davis island, harbor island.

the river has yet to crest. but i think all things considered, this could have been a whole lot worse. as our officers have been reporting, there is not a lot of standing water yet. so we're hopeful that the surge will be minimal. but we're anticipating that we will need to go in, barricade some of those streets, keep people out of the standing water, and let the water recede. >> mr. mayor, do we hear correctly the power is on, lights on there. >> there are parts of it. we have a lot of parts of our city that are dark right now, savannah. where al is and the folks downtown, looks like the lights are still on, but we have entire neighborhoods where there is no power. mr. mayor, we're happy for the good side of this. we're keeping our fingers crossed you don't get the bad side. we know you're extraordinarily busy. >> thank you. >> thank you, too. irma rolled ashore as major

category 4 in the florida keys. at one point flooding covered the only road in and out. nbc's goti shorts was part of it. [ inaudible ]. >> next to a large -- on the highway. there are mostly home. the east side storm surge came up and swept out a lot of these homes, mobile homes. in fact, we were talking to one man yesterday. in the mobile home park where he lives, maybe 100 mobile homes, about 70% of them were gone. he was in the process of calling people, notifying them, that

they had lost the mobile homes, the water over the foundation and came spinto the homes or knocked them off their foundation. the turnout right now, a couple of people out here. in fact, the boat we're next to, the engine is missing. a hotel owner nearby given shelter in his hotel badly damaged, people going around cutting engines off the back of these boats. other people are going around and scavenging for anything they can. mainly gas and propane because those are hard commodities to come by. it's pitch dark right now. very hard to see anything with the exception of maybe emergency lights. we do see emergency crews going up and down the highway going to check on any fatalities or injuries. we understand people were able

to get out of isla mirada, not one of the hardest places hit. there are places further south. we're going to make our way south. we're going to try to go to marathon and make our way down to key west. matt and savannah. >> all right. thank you so much. we'll keep checking back in with you as the morning goes on. >> meanwhile irma's western shift spared miami from a direct hit but pounded with 100 plus-mile-an-hour winds. mariana in miami beach for us where she was all day yesterday. mariana, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, matt. i was here talking to you guys. here in miami beach the violent winds toppled trees and power lines. just look at the entrance to south point here. this the southernmost tip of miami beach with high-rise condos. you have big palm trees completely toppled over. as we made our way to downtown

miami, we saw heavy flooding in the biscayne bay area and two high-rise cranes that collapsed because of the violent wind gust. as we made our way back into the beach this morning, we saw the bridges to the beach heavily patrol by police. as talking about in the southernmost tip of florida, the same threat of looting is happening at the beach. there's still a curfew in place as authorities begin to assess the damage in miami and miami beach. matt and savannah. >> all right. mariana, thank you very much. let's go to the western side of florida, kristen dahlgren in fort myself. kristen, good morning. what do you see there? >> good morning, matt and savannah. we are hearing that the roads are blocked here. some neighborhoods still cut off from trees. rescue crews working to get to those people to make sure everybody who rode out the storm

here is okay. you can see behind me a lot of trees down. this one down on power lines. many, many waking up without power this morning. to give you some idea, here in this county, 234,000 customers without power, that's out of only 259,000. just some 25,000 customers survived this storm with their power. so a lot of people without power and without water this morning as those rescue crews go out. we heard our first chainsaws working at 3:30 the next morning. we're going to hear a lot of that over the next few days, guys. >> kristen, thank you so much. turn to the mayor of ft. myers. mr. mayor, good morning to you. >> good morning. thank you. >> i know it was a long night. how did ft. myers fare? how did the storm surge that had you and so many worried. >> i've reviewed substantial

flooding. we have weathered the storm pretty well. i heard the earlier reporter mention chainchainsaws, we'll ba massive mode to restore our city. it's amazing quite frankly that we have any power at all. i'm just now early morning hours getting my phones restored to power myself. where i am there's no electricity. i'm happy there are random areas in the city that have electricity. >> other than electricity, mr. mayor, what do you need the most? what is your most pressing need? >> right now i think manpower will be the most pressing need. as we move through the city, it's going to be safe for me to move. i'm getting ready to start moving about the city and making sure that we can deploy resources, human resources and other resources to areas to

restore. >> when can people start making their way back to their home? is that something they can do today? >> our curfew will be lifted at 6:00 a.m. what time -- just about this hour. we believe it's unsafe for citizens to begin to return to their homes. we're in the moment trying to make sure we can get pathways restored so people can make their way back to home. hays going to take some time yet. i think the last word i got, we prefer people take caution starting early this afternoon. hopefully we can do it sooner than that. >> i know you guys have sustained major damage down there. mr. mayor, it's interesting how the storm came to the west and spared places like miami and west palm beach. maybe just that little push to the east later in the day spared you folks in ft. myers and naples and tampa the worst of the storm as well.

a lot of times it's just luck. >> i think the random nature of this storm is what has made it most challenging, to plan, strategize, move people away from harm's way, make sure we're doing the best we can to preserve life. yes, i agree that random nature has been challenging in some ways because it went a little to the left or west, i should say, looking north, we will now have a more clear path to get resources to us quicker from the east coast. it was once thought it was irma may move up the center part of the state that the entire peninsula would be difficult to get to with provisions. so somewhere in that there's some silver lining. >> absolutely. it's random but seems like it has worked for many parts of florida this morning. ft. myers mayor randall henderson. thank you so much for being with us. we'll check back in with you later.

thank you. >> thank you. >> let's go back to tampa. nbc's joe fryer is there. joe, what do you see? >> yeah. good morning, guys. in the last hour or so is when authorities and deputies have really been able to get out in the tampa bay area and start assessing the damage just west of here in pinellas county the sheriff's department reporting trees down, power lines down. they are seeing street signs in the road, which is why they are urging people to still stay indoors. it's not safe to be driving around. they want to assess the damage and get things cleaned up. this is the best scenario, millions without power but it could have been worse. a few hours ago we thought it was going to work its way up the coast and create a huge storm surge situation for an area vulnerable, that hasn't seen a hurricane in nearly a century. we spent the night with a family riding it out in tampa.

they escaped miami area, came here thinking this is where they would be safe. they felt like irma was following them up the coast. in the end tampa ended up being a safe place to be. they are wondering if their home had any flooding. they are struggling to find answers about that. >> that's a story you hear over and over again. families moving from the east coast of florida over to the west to get away from irma only to find the storm headed toward them. by that time it was too late. maybe some got north to orlando but not many places to go. >> hard to outrun a storm. joe, the president made federal funds available for residents throughout the state. he also says he plans to visit soon. let's check in with nbc national correspondent peter alexander. good morning. >> savannah and matt, good morning. president trump delivering a clear message at the white house that his administration is prepared to deal with the

aftermath of irma after returning to the white house from camp david. spent the weekend monitoring the storm, conducting a series of teleconferences. the president said as you noted, he is going to be going to florida very soon this morning. he's scheduled to get another full briefing on irma. the damage that it caused. he said we may have been a little bit lucky in his words that the storm veered from its original course after it moved a little bit further west. he still called this some big monster. he has been in close contact with the governors of florida, georgia, alabama, tennessee as well. there you see he and melania, the president and first lady arrived at the white house late yesterday. he deflected questions about the billions of dollars the government is going to be asked to spend to rebuild large swaths of florida and other states, houston, texas, as well. right now as it relates to irma, it's lives, not the cost. he and the first lady melania trump will be leading a moment

of silence at the white house. this is 9/11. they will be remembering the leafs lost on 9/11. they will head to the pentagon to participate in a 9/11 ceremony there as well. i'm tolls by sarah huckabee sanders it's possible the president delivers some remarks this morning as well. matt and savannah, back to you. >> peter alexander at the white house. thank you. >> probably a good idea if we stay in washington. that's where fema is headquartered and they are trying to get their arms around this situation with irma. nbc's tom costello is at their head arrest. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning. fema command center running 24/7 for two weeks. keep in mind they were on the ground dealing with hurricane harvey in texas. before that they were dealing with 30 various emergencies around the country that simply don't get a lot of news coverage. here is where we stand right now as it relates to irma. we've got more than 5 million people across the state of florida right now without power. that is a priority. florida power and light is

moving out into the area. we have seen long lines of utility trucks from the east coast down i-95, down into florida staging in advance of the storms, which is standard procedure you know. whenever there's a major event involving power loss utility crews from across the country, across the region, sometimes even canada come in. 10 million without power right now. the priority is going to be restoring power. not just power stations but substations and emergency facilities. hospitals, for example, anything that's critical infrastructure need. 192,000 people according to fema right now in shelters. that's of this this morning. 590 shelters across the entire state. we can also tell you they have 2,000 feds on the scene. 32,000 federal employees, including the national guard. keep in mind they had to shift resources over to texas. they had 30,000 on the ground in texas. they had to leave some personnel there and shift over to florida

as well. in terms of staging meals, they have got right now 10 million meals ready to go in the area, in florida and the surrounding states and about 13.5 million liters of water. they have generators, shelters. they have cots, all the things they have learned they need after dealing with emergencies over the last years. they are not the lead agency. the state is in charge. fema comes in as a back-up support role. we saw this time and time again, they become decimated and need immediate help from around states and the fed. back to you guys. >> thank you very much. dave price joins us now. imagine being the person who has to figure out how to stage all these resources, close enough to the storm they can get in in a hurry, far enough you don't put food trucks and supplies too far

away. >> how doug about pri-- do you prioritizing, miami, do the peninsula around florida. everyone out of power. everyone needs it tomorrow. the ceo of fp&l says this is a multi-week process now. remember, they are going to begin by assessing where that need is greatest. hospitals, major areas of infrastructure, municipal government buildings. by the time it it seeps down into individual residential neighborhoods, we could be talking about weeks out. there is a very big difference between ending a curfew and allowing people back into neighborhoods and making those neighborhoods actually inhabitable. we have a very long process. we talked about how we dodged a bullet. without a doubt. we could have seen surges up to 15 feet.

we still have weeks and weeks and many millions of dollars worth. >> all right, dave. thank you very much. stick around for the morning. if the subway club were a club, it'd be called the subway club club. and everyone would want to get in for the turkey, black forest ham and roast beef. and dance music. ♪ turkey ham turkey ham. (high voice) roast beef. subway®. so much sandwich.

♪ i wanna destroy you ♪

morning everybody. we are back with a special edition of "today." the devastation caused this hour by hurricane irma. >> look at pictures of boats on roadways, some close to marinas. as we witnessed with hurricane sandy, sometimes the boats come from a mile or so away and end up in someone's yard. people are trying to find the bits and pieces of their lives. >> this is day one of a very long recovery. >> here is the latest on this storm. it has weakened. it's a category 1 hurricane, 70-mile-per-hour winds. those winds can still do a lot of damage. the center of