captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, september 9: florida prepares for the worst as hurricane irma closes in after blasting through cuba and the caribbean. >> we haven't been hit in years, but if we do take a direct hit, normally a cat 3 would put my office 15 feet under water. >> sreenivasan: next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.b.p. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill.

barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for joining us. the mayor of miami beach calls irma, the powerful storm approaching florida, a "nuclear hurricane." irma is now a category 3 hurricane, with winds exceeding 125 miles an hour, and it remains wider than the florida peninsula. today, florida governor rick scott asked another 700,000

residents to flee the oncoming storm for a total of 6.3 million evacuees, almost a third of the state's population. landfall on florida overnight. today, it continued to move across the caribbean and struck cuba. newshour weekend's megan thompson has more. >> reporter: hurricane irma is now blamed for more than 20 deaths across the caribbean. it made landfall overnight in cuba as a category 5 storm. 155 mile-an-hour winds battered the island's northern coast, and the storm surge reached 12 feet in some areas. in the small coastal town of caibarien, irma downed power lines, pounded buildings and filled streets with debris. today, france deployed more than 1,000 recovery workers to aid residents of the french caribbean island of st. barts and of st. maarten, which is controlled by france and the netherlands. irma caused more than $1 billion worth of property damage and destroyed 70% of the homes on

st. maarten. following right behind irma is the category 4 hurricane, jose. the national hurricane center warned jose, with its 145 mile- an-hour winds, could make landfall on st. barts, st. maarten and other parts of the caribbean in the next 24 hours. heeding the warning, all 1,600 residents of the tiny, already battered island of barbuda evacuated today to nearby antigua. while hurricane irma was downgraded to a category 3 storm, it's expected to gain strength before making landfall tomorrow morning in florida. today, florida governor rick scott said irma could be florida's "most catastrophic storm" ever and told residents in mandatory evacuation zones to get out now. >> this is a major, deadly storm, and our state has never seen anything like it. millions of floridians will see major hurricane impacts with deadly, deadly, deadly storm surge and life-threatening winds. >> reporter: as strong winds began pounding miami and the

florida keys, the state had opened up more than 300 shelters for evacuees. even the miami zoo placed its pink flamingos inside a fortified concrete bunker. farther north, georgia governor nathan deal ordered evacuations along the atlantic coast. residents of savannah lined up to catch buses out of town. and at camp david, president trump and his cabinet members received briefings on the planned response by the federal emergency management agency, fema. >> sreenivasan: the southernmost part of florida and the united states is key west, and it's currently in irma's direct path. the keys are a group of small islands connected by bridges, and they're closer to havana than miami. some 80,000 residents were ordered three days ago to evacuate. but staying behind is craig cates. he's been the mayor of key west since 2009, and joins me now on the phone. first mayor, the decision to stay, why stay? >> well, you know, we had to be here after the storm, and we

want to make sure we were here right to-- at least right up to the storm where we could tell all the residents to keep them going into shelters. we open shelters at the last minute here. and we put a lot of residents in there, and we just need to be here to make sure that we do everything we can for our citizens and their properties. >> sreenivasan: we spoke to you a few days ago, and you were trying to make sure that people evacuated, got out to the mainland, perhaps to miami. now you're saying there are some residents that decided to stay, and how many people are with you in these shelters? >> well, we think that maybe less than 20% of the city stayed. there are 25,000 permanent residents, so a lot of them in the shelters now. we don't have exact numbers but we have three shelters open right now, but there are a lot of people in them. and a lot of people didn't have transportation. we ran, you know, 16 buses to miami for two days to get residents out, but not everybody

could get on there. so, the ones that stayed thought it was going to be okay, and then they got nervous at the last minute. that's the way people are sometimes. and so those are the ones that are going to the shelters. >> sreenivasan: now, how susceptible are you to the type of storm surge numbers that we're seeing predicted? >> well, it depends on what direction it comes from. our local service, national weather service, is saying it won't have as large an impact with flooding as we had with wilma, which did a lot of damage back in 2005. some areas will get flooded, but we're looking that it's not going to be near as bad as that. but the problem is the wind, and this storm is going to be a wind event for us, mainly. and, you know, we've got a lot of boats all through the keys and key west and the harbors. they're secured. we're afraid they'll be damaged pretty bad. but the structures, we're hoping that we're not going to get that

much structural damage because of the ways the buildings are built. obviously, they'll be out a bit, but we don't believe you'll see the damage here that you see in other places because of the construction. >> sreenivasan: and you mentioned that you had bussed people out of the keys up into miami. where are they now? are they all safe in a shelter there? >> yes. florida international university is our monroe county shelter out of the keys. and we've bussed many people there. or they could have drove themselves and went there, a lot of people drove up there, or a lot of people kept going, as you know, as they keep evacuating. but the ones that were bussed up there will have to stay there. i believe it's a category 5 building with no chance of flooding. so that's a safe haven for our residents. >> sreenivasan: mayor, what's your biggest concern now? i know you said you're concerned about the wind. this will be more of a wind event for you. but over the next 24-48 hours as this storm moves across your islands?

>> well, our big concern is that we closed our hospital. they evacuated, so we have no e.r., no hospital. so, if anybody gets injured, we have no way to help them. so, obviously, we will not be sending our first responders out in this kind of weather to take a chance of them being hurt. so, we'll have 911 calls. if we have them, we'll be recording them and write them down, but we won't be able to go out and help them until after the storm. that's my biggest concern. >> sreenivasan: all right, i hope you don't have too many of those. mayor craig cates joining us from key west tonight. thanks so much. >> all right, thank you for having me. >> sreenivasan: after the miami- fort lauderdale metropolitan area, tampa-st. petersburg is florida's most populous area, with 2.5 million residents. the tampa area-- lying on the state's western, gulf of mexico coast-- has not sustained a direct hit from a hurricane in 96 years. but in tampa and central florida, storm preparations were in full swing, as newshour

weekend's p.j. tobia reports. >> reporter: boarding up and moving out. this is not a drill. >> this morning's been all about preparation. we're in a mandatory evacuation zone, so we have to get out of here. >> reporter: long-time tampa resident michael o'rourke has been fortifying his house ahead of the coming storm. >> boarding up, sandbagging, moving furniture, musical equipment from downstairs to the upstairs, wrapping as much stuff up as we possibly can and just preparing to leave. >> reporter: a few minutes from o'rourke's house, downtown tampa, normally buzzing, is a ghost town. >> this is a violent, deadly weather occurrence that stretches the entire length of the state. we just hope it moves quickly. >> reporter: mayor bob buckhorn says irma poses massive risks for his city. we spoke in tampa's emergency operations headquarters.

>> tampa hasn't been hit in 90 years. but if we do take a direct hit, literally a category 3 in downtown tampa would put my office 15 feet underwater. >> reporter: over the past decade, tampa has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on waterfront development, land threatened by irma's storm surge. the mayor says construction standards have improved since florida's most destructive storm, 1992's hurricane andrew. >> people want to live on the water. that's why they come to florida. building codes have increased significantly since hurricane andrew. the construction process now is much better than it used to be. elevations are required above 100-year flood zones. >> reporter: tampa is a 90- minute drive west of orlando, the central florida corridor where so many evacuees from south florida have gone. >> are you worried about the hurricane? >> yeah. >> you feel safe, though? >> reporter: the ryan family from the miami suburb of doral managed to book rooms at an embassy suites in orlando. business executive chris ryan said he wasn't taking any chances with his wife and two kids. >> i was living in miami for

over 20 years and never had experience of a cat 4 or 5 direct hit in miami. i've been through a few hurricanes but nothing at this strength and having it hit directly into miami. and i know people that lived there during andrew, and i have family that live in houston. and so, they were insisting that we leave. >> reporter: ross left his home in miami with a few belongings and his dog. >> you've got to err on the side of caution. we got a big storm coming. >> reporter: the closest hotel room he could find is in georgia. it'll cost him more than $300 a night. >> hotels, you can't find anything. i was on expedia trying to book a flight, and it'll tell you how many people are on. there's 2,000 people searching this hotel right now, and i'm like, you just keep going. >> reporter: central florida wasn't far enough north for becky dykema. her family left their home near melbourne for the cheapest hotel they could find in alabama. >> we're leaving here to evacuate from the hurricane irma, to get safer away because

we live in a trailer park. >> reporter: today, leaving orlando by air was not an option-- the city's airport, shut down; tourist attractions like disney world, closed. an hour east of orlando, on the atlantic coast, officials moved to their highest level of mobilization. >> this is our emergency operations center, and we are at level 1 activation. >> reporter: brevard county's emergency management center is housed in a 50-year-old building. officials there will ride out the storm sleeping by their work stations. >> we than conditions may be bad enough that if they do leave they can't get back in. we need them here so we have them stay here. >> reporter: tampa's stunning waterfront draws millions of visitors and the occasional super bowl. but as irma takes direct aim at florida's third largest city, this bay also becomes its greatest threat. tampa fire chief tom forward says the system of bridges and causeways that connect the city might flood to deadly effect. >> when the bridges shut down,

people cannot move any further. and the last place you want to be is up on a major highway, byway or thoroughfare, in a parking lot with no movement, and no one to come save you. and at that point, there is very little that anyone is going to be able to do for you. you've gotten yourself in a situation where flooding is apparent and actually occurring. that's a very, very dire situation. >> reporter: chief forward says that while the storm hits, emergency responders will likely be grounded. >> once the storm is right on top of us and we start getting winds, especially sustained winds that are in excess of 39 miles per hour, once they move into 40 mile per hour winds, our emergency responders and resources are not going to be moving out into these conditions. so, that's why the public adheres to the evacuation orders, get out of the area as quick as they can.

those that have made the decision to hunker down, they need to make certain that they have all the provisioners that going to need for the next three days to manage everything they've got. >> p.j., you covered hurrican harvey just a couple of weeks ago. residents there were told not to evacuate. is there a sense in florida that was a wake-up call? >> reporter: absolutely. a lot of people talked about how haeive was a wake-up call for them. they wanted to start early and prepare for this storm, so much so, that today, a homeowner we talked to had trouble finding plywood to secure his home with. he talked about getting the plywood as though it were some black market affair. the stores-- home depots, lowes, the big department stores, hardware storeses-- were out of that type of thing. a lot of people also left town a couple of days ago, and i would remind you that the evacuation order-- we're in the middle of it now, but people-- mandatory

evacuation isn't until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. so people really heeded the call and took the advice of harvey to heart. >> sreenivasan: p.j., as you stand there in front of tampa bay, and i know you talked to the mayor today, what are some of the infrastructure concerns they have? >> reporter: part of the challenge of this place is the beautiful bay that surrounds it. one of the biggest hospitals in the state, tampa general, it's the area's level-one trauma center. it's a very important medical facility in this area. it's built on an island, on davis island. the only way on it or off it-- off that island to the hospital is a series of causeways, bridges that go over the bay. and the mayor assured me that the island could be self-sufficient if and when those causeways flood, and if they have enough fuel, food, and generators to subsist for a couple of weeks without contact with the mainland. but it does speak to the special challenges that tampa bay is undergoing as this storm makes way for it. >> sreenivasan: p.j., you and

our crew traveled pretty much across the state this morning. what did you see? >> reporter: well, roads were empty. people-- anyone who wanted to get out, i think pretty much has or is in the process of doing so now. it's not the kind of mass exodus that we saw a little bit earlier in the week-- again, the lessons of harvey being learned and taken to heart. but a lot of store shelfs are empty. most gas stations are closed. when you can get to a gas station, a few pumps will usually be closed, meaning they are out of fuel. and when you do try to fill up it takes a long time, showing that the tank near that pump is nearly empty. >> sreenivasan: p.j. tobia, joining us from tampa today, stay safe. >> reporter: thanks so much, harry. >> sreenivasan: track hurricane irma in real time on our web site at www.pbs.org/newshour.

>> sreenivasan: just two weeks ago, a line of reporting came out of houston warning of the environmental dangers lurking at e.p.a. superfund toxic waste sites and what could happen after a catastrophic storm and flood. well, those sites are not limited to houston. they're in florida, as well. jason dearen has been on the story the last couple of weeks and joins me now from miami. jason, give us an idea of how many superfund sites are possibly affected by irma. >> well, there are more than 50 superfund sites in florida alone. in miami, we have identified with the help of a 2012 e.p.a. internal study, as well as an external study done by two researchers from american university, which of those sites are actually in the flood plain, so the most prone to flooding. and, since wednesday, i visited six of those sites to see, you know, kind of how they appeared before the storm and what was

being done, if anything, to prepare them for the expected storm surges, flooding and winds. >> sreenivasan: and what is being done? >> well, the e.p.a. told us they were securing the sites. they have staff who are monitoring them, checking in with people on the ground. when we went to them, they were in various stages of cleanup. so, you know, some had been cleaned up, and there's nobody around. in one case, i found barrels of contaminated soil and water from one of the superfund sites that were still stored on the site. e.p.a. said that they would be removing those barrels before the storm came when we called them. so, it depended on the site. another is, you know, a 2,000-acre air force base down in homestead which is the lowest lying of all the superfund sites. it would only take about a foot of water to flood that. there are communities around there who could be impacted by

that floodwater should it be contaminated from the air force base. so, there are a lot of questions about how these sites will handle the storm surge and winds from irma. >> sreenivasan: so, give us an idea of what makes a superfund site a superfund site? what kind of chemicals are we talking about? how dangerous are they? >> they're superfund sites for a reason. they are all dangerous chemicals, some more than others. for example, the site i mentioned, anadine, which had the barrels out yesterday, had been contaminated with d.d.t., other pesticides, chemical solvents. many of the sites here in the miami area had chemical solvents involved, usually the aircraft industry, used to clean parts, and those were dumped into soil and down into the aquifer here in contaminated groundwater. and so, that's one of the big concerns. when you have a lot of rainfall, storm surge, flooding is those

chemicals being transported off the site, off the superfund site, down into the water and into the nearby communities. and so, that's what the e.p.a. is going to be looking for, if they say, and what we'll also be looking at. >> sreenivasan: and how do they measure is that, especially if the barrels had been dumped years and years ago. we don't necessarily know how strong those barrels were, how watertight those barrels were and if the water kind of seems down there during a flood, whether it kind of picks back up and goes somewhere else or it actually seems down into the aquifer. >> each superfund site is different. some have contaminate mechanisms for the pollution, like a pond. so, for example, if that were to be breached, that could spread contaminants. some have a cap of clean soil over old... older, contaminated dirty soil. and, you know, the worry is if there is significant flooding that can be removed and all that commingling and moving off site. in the case of these barrels, those barrels were new barrels.

apparently, somebody who works on the site told us that they had been filled within the last month, last few weeks, by crews who were out scooping out contaminated soil and taking testes of water beneath aquifer. so, each site is very different, has its own complications, and it will take extensive close monitoring after the storm of each of these sites to see if the contamination has spread. it's a complicated and long-term project. >> sreenivasan: as a result of some of your reporting out of houston, the e.p.a. came back and said to all reporters and everybody else, "do not trespass on any of these sites. it could be incredibly dangerous and harmful to your own body and person." the sites that you went to in miami, were these closed off areas? >> most of them are closed off areas. one was a private business, and they were clearly marked "no trespassing." so, as far as we could to those fences, we didn't trespass by those fences. others were not fenced off, and

there were no "no trespassing" signs. and in those cases, i walked into them and photographed people who lived and worked there. about their knowledge of the site, and if people had been in contact with them to warn them about any contamination cashes from the flooding. >> sreenivasan: all right, jason dearen joining us via skype from miami, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: mexico is coping with a pair of natural disasters today. hurricane katia came ashore overnight on the gulf coast but quickly lost steam and weakened into a tropical depression. two deaths are blamed on the storm, and the national hurricane center warned it could drop more than a foot of rain, triggering floods and mudslides. this as rescuers searched for more survivors from mexico's strongest earthquake in more than 80 years. at least 61 people have died in

thursday night's 8.1 magnitude quake centered about 40 miles off the pacific coast. most of the victims were in the southern town of juchitan. mexican president enrique pena nieto visited there today and said one-third of the town's homes are uninhabitable. federal officials say more than 80 wildfires are burning today across ten western states, including california, oregon and montana. together, these wildfires have consumed 2,300 square miles of forests and grasslands. montana has the most large fires with 26, including the so-call"" caribou fire," which has burned 20,000 acres in a forest near montana's border with canada. that fire has destroyed ten homes and 30 other buildings and is only 10% contained. in asia, the united nations says refugee camps set up to shelter thousands of rohingya muslims fleeing myanmar, formerly known as burma, are "more than full." the u.n. says 290,000 refugees crossed the border from myanmar into bangladesh during the last two weeks, joining 100,000 who fled before.

the myanmar refugees are fleeing army attacks on their villages and alleged persecution by the country's buddhist majority. u.n. officials say fights have broken out in the camps among refugees desperate for food and water. today, north koreans celebrated the 69th anniversary of their country's founding, with the leading state-run newspaper calling it "an invincible nuclear power." in the capital of pyongyang, many performed dances and laid flowers at the statues honoring north korea's first two leaders, the late kim il sung and kim jong il. last year, north korea marked its founding with a nuclear weapons test, but there was no nuclear or missile test detected today. >> sreenivasan: more help will be on the way to florida as soon as hurricane irma passes in form of national guard forces from up north. ohio, wisconsin, indiana and michigan are sending some 7,000 guard troops to help with security and to rescue people

stranded by the storm. and finally today at the u.smed open tennis champions, sloan stephens beat madison keys in the straight sets for the women's singles title. it was the first all-american women's title in 15 years. tomorrow join us on air and online for tank coverage of hurricane irma. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more. pbs. be more.

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