evacuate, there's nearly 500 shelters open in florida today. we have reporters in place across the state of florida covering all the angles of this

story. to begin, we're joined by phillip mena live for us in ft. lauderdale. the winds and rain have certainly picked up since we spoke. >> reporter: they have. the rain is coming down hard. the national weather service just issued a new tornado warning for this area. it's an area that's now affecting a million and a half people that are now under that tornado warning. as far as those power outages, which are right now the biggest issue in this area, we have an up tick in the power outages at least in miami dade. they have 164 thousands outages reported and that's not to mention here in broward county there's 74,000 outages. so we're talking a quarter of a million people just in this miami area that are now without power as the storm starts to intensify. >> so right now, phillip, you

are exactly in this eye of tornados. as if the rain, the winds, the hurricane wasn't enough. it's my understanding that broward county where you are are under the tornado watch the next 12 minutes officially which means one could come at any point there. a tornado, a funnel, is that something that you would expect to hear? i've never personally experienced one, so i don't know what to expect when one is barrelling your way. >> reporter: well, it's certainly not anything we're looking forward to. the most dangerous part of all of this, alex, is it's the middle of the night. if these tornadoes do come, we cannot see them. that's why it's so important for people to stay inside. governor scott tweeted people reminding people about that, to stay indoors. go to an interior room and avoid the windows. the tornado warning is very real

and under way. because it is under the darkness, we cannot see them if they do come. that's why it's so important to just go indoors right now if you're not already there. >> so to that end, it's making me nervous keeping you outside considering you have tornado warnings for the next 11 minutes or so. we'll release you and hope you find some shelter phillip. we'll talk with you again. we'll go to ft. myers, florida. good morning, what's the situation where you are now, kristen? >> reporter: hey there, alex. the winds are picking up. we've seen gusty winds and rain as they've gone through the overnight hours. we're expecting that to get worse as we go through the morning hours, to get steadier and steadier with the winds. the other huge concern out here -- we're on ft. myers beach is the storm surge. forecasters now calling it a

potentially catastrophic storm surge. they're throwing numbers like 10 to 15 feet in some places in southwest florida. and that really could be devastating. think about what a first floor ceiling is. if you have a 10 to 15 foot storm surge at your house is at sea level, that means that your entire first story is going to be filled with water. that storm surge expected to come in sort of on the backside of the storm, as it goes past here, we should start to see the winds then pushing the water on shore. it comes in kwquickly. officials say you will not have time to get out. it's going to come in quickly and it's going to take a lot of things away. some big concerns here as we go through the morning, alex. >> kristen. joining me steve sauce that. help me make sense of this. we just saw kristen right in the path, the directed path of what

you've predicted for this storm. we saw phillip mena in the ft. lauderdale area. he's dealing with tornadoes coming his way. you saw the winds. we could see the rain. it was loud. >> two different worlds. it's these tropical rain bands. we call them feeder bands. they move very quickly. i'm going to zoom you in on the radar and show you where those bands are right now and where phillip's live shot was. he's in the ft. lauderdale area. there's the tornado warning in effect. these aren't like your typical texas tornadoes sounds like a freight train for a while and you have a visible tornado for you. so, this is why you need to be in your safe place and just stay there here throughout the duration of the storm. but when these warnings are issued, you want to be away from glass. you want to be in the lowest

floor of your home. and away from windows here because even though there are weaker tornadoes, still 90, 100 mile-per-hour winds can blow out your windows. kristen was on the western side of florida into the ft. myers area. look, not a whole lot happening. but this band is working its way towards the west. so these bands are coming in from east moving to the west. so if you get these tornado spinups, they're from southeast to northwest. this is very concerning. this is the eye wall. it's not far now from the wee west area. let's put the distance tool on here and we'll track that outer eye wall. we've been watching it get closer and closer now. it's about 35 miles, that's where the real, real destructive winds, we're talking about 130, possibly gusts of 140 miles per hour. it's approaching areas like south of marathon, grassy key, anywhere south of iomorata.

that's where you'll get the devastating storm surge and also get the destructive winds. the three hof hour loop, the eye is getting closer. this was our worst fear. the storm weakened over cuba, reorganized itself and is now strengthening over the florida straits which is some of the warmest water temperatures that you have in the entire east. so this is why we have a really bad situation on your hands, not only for the keys but upstream now for the areas of south western florida. ignore that graphic. that's an old graphic here for you. here is the eye wall. it is now moving on shore here, barely into areas like key west, but they're getting the really heavy rains and winds right now. and that eye will continue to pass off towards the north and west. the storm is moving at about 6 miles per hour now. it's a category 4 storm. winds of 130 miles per hour. it looks like on these latest images this may be going through

another eye wall replacement cycle. the storm may be trying to reorganize itself again but not out of the question we see further intensification before it hits areas of south western florida. the storm surge warning in effect from big ben now new as 11:00 p.m. saturday night all the way down through the keys. it's been suspended just north of miami but then picks back up again as the inflow from the storm happens as we head through the day sunday and into monday. we're really worried about this inundation of water. this is why we told people to evacuate. 10 to 15 foot storm surge above where the water usually is. and don't forget, there's breaking waves on top of that. this is why we urge people to evacuate. based on the trends of the storm intensifying. if you haven't evacuated in southwestern florida, there's still time. there's heavy rain and strong winds. but you still can kind of get out of the surge zone and mover

towards the north. this is where the inundation of water is going to happen. now that we have a cat 4 storm on board and the storm is still very expansive in size. the wall of water will work its way up the coast. tracking the storm each other, where does it come on shore? does it come on shore? and how far north does it make itself as an intense hurricane? all questions we have to answer throughout the course of the morning. alex? >> it's overwhelming all that you have to deal with. storm surge, wind, the tracking where it's going and the fact that it is so huge this irma. bigger than the width of the state of florida. it's extraordinary. thank you. the winds have been picking up and crews in some parts of southern florida are scrambling to secure items like garbage cans before they become projectiles. there's some things they can't get to at this point.

>> city and county workers picked up i believe more than 700 tons of trash, bulk trash throughout the streets miami beach, the city of miami, and miami dade county. they've been working really hard to get debris off the streets. we saw three of these signs blown away in miami beach off of collins avenue so far. this one staying put for now. we saw a few awnings, a few signage from businesses that are gone. we saw a lot of downed trees, a lot of very palms and coconuts flying around and also construction cones ending up in the middle of roadways, people's doorsteps, but so far not a whole lot of major debris so far, just the transformers and smaller things that are flying around the area. but as you know, they can be very dangerous projectiles if you're outside. >> for sure. >> luckily we have not seen a

whole lot of people. we see people walking their dogs in the high-rises. we have more than two dozen very large construction cranes right now in the air, which we can show you one right now. each one of these construction cranes because there's a lot of construction, lot of building in miami, weigh at least 30 tons. right now they are just swaying around in the wind like a pendulum. construction crews cut the power to them and left them up because they take two weeks to deconstruct. right now they're swinging and swaying around the wind and people live in the high-rises near these construction towers. we're watching them swing around. they're designed to sustain winds up to 145 miles per hour. those will be put to the test today. the mayor of miami did caution people, urge them to evacuate if they live near one of the construction cranes. i saw a lot of the lights on in a lot of the towers near the

cranes. it will be interesting to keep an eye out to see what happens. >> interesting and little fright anyo enning there. still ahead, the biggest challenge for the city officials in naples right where irma is taking aim. ♪

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it's so fluffy! look at that fluffy unicorn! he's so fluffy i'm gonna die! your voice is awesome. the x1 voice remote. xfinity. the future of awesome. 16 past the hour back here on msnbc live tracking hurricane irma for you. here is the very latest. irma's storm surge has begun to impact key west. the national weather service says the water level is two feet

above normal with wind gusts up to 8 4 miles per hour. tornado warnings are in effect. for north ward there broward county and palm beach county. let's head west now to naples and bring in jacob. jacob with a good morning to you. what's it like there? not feeling the full effect of hurricane irma quite yet. in fact, it's pretty calm. not rain coming down, not very much wind. in a matter of hours, it will be an extraordinary feeling to be a part of here in southwest florida. 10, 15 foot storm surge that could envelope many of the communities that are built up along the southwestern portions of florida, places i was throughout all the day today from here in naples to cape coral and ft. myers beach. the local fire department was going door to door telling people to evacuate. obviously there's no time left for that. now is the time to hunker down. the problem with so much of this region is that it is very low

lying, almost near sea level. in cape coral where i was, it was a community that was built to have accessibility to the water for many if not all of the homes. 179,000 people in that very low lying region. the hope is that the water does not flood that home. we have to wait and see. but the storm is approaching fast and is approaching furious. at this hour, all we can hope for is that people are safe and they are ready for hurricane irma to hit. alex? >> thank you so much for that. let's head south to the area being most greatly impacted. i'm being joined on the phone by the may yr of monroe county. that includes the florida keys. mr. mayor, with a welcome to you, sir, on this very precarious night for you in your community. first of all, may i ask you where insure. >> i am in marathon, staying at a private residence, a very

heavily fortified house. we can hear the wind howling outside. however, we're not feeling any of the effects inside the house. but we can tell that it's blowing. i think the winds are 109, 110 miles an hour right now. >> that has got to be pretty frightening and pretty loud if you're able to hear it there. talk about what you expect to see when you are able to open the door of the house in which you have hunkered down, what do you expect to see in terms of remnants after storm surges? >> well, before i came up and while the sun was still up, i did a little tour of a couple of the neighborhoods to see what was going on, and there was already some tree damage and we were all experiencing 30, 45 miles-an-hour winds. so i expect to see a tremendous amount of tree damage, signs down, in the aftermath of this

storm. and then of course the most worrying thing is the storm surge that because we're boarded up and everything and of course it's dark, i can't see what the water levels are doing at this point in time, but it's a serious storm. >> look, mayor nugent, i've been speaking with state officials, with meteorologists throughout the last 24 hours or so, and we talk about the storm surge. i have to wonder, there in marathon, which is expected to be hit pretty hard if irma stays on track right now, they've talked, sir, about storm surge of 10, 15 feet potentially. can anything with stand that? can where you are with stand that? >> reporter: yes. where i'm staying we're approximately 20 feet above sea level. i'm not as far as my personal well being concerned about the

storm surge per se. that sounds a little higher than we've been told. we've been told to expect 6 to 8 feet of water surge which would be equivalent to what we experienced with hurricane -- actually it was tropical storm wilma back in 2008. have you heard anything from key west? >> it's funny you because i have people with whom i work, some of my colleagues who have been in touch via facebook and they just spoke to me about this in the commercial break. last resort. and the folks that are there in key west are those who either could not or those that are just sort of die hard residents who

do not want to leave the area or could not and had to take shelter there. that is all identify heard from key west. we have been in our control booth trying to reach out to places we know were supposed to be still populated and we have not been able to get through. other officials i know they've been going to voice mail. that is all i can tell you at this point. that again is through a colleague of mine who has been reaching out on facebook to people that he knows down in that area. so, what are your concerns about key west? >> well, key west is south and west of marathon and i thought that they might be experiencing something a little ahead of what we will be experiencing. we have a similar situation in marathon where the high school was set up as a shelter of last resort. and i toured there late this afternoon. at that point in time there were a lot of people coming in who

had not left for whatever reason and we were providing them. that's a category 5 storm building. so they should be safe when they're all in the building. but i was just curious about key west. we opened five shelters of last resort throughout monroe county, one in key largo, one in marathon, one in key west and one in sugar loaf. so, we'll find out when the sun comes up exactly what kind of damage we have. but i think everybody is going to be safe. i think that most of the storm surge will not affect the lives of people from as far as fatalities or drownings, but it will certainly destroy a lot of our homes. >> yeah. i'm going to tell you an personal note, i have family who

has a home and we are very curious to see what will happen after the storm, what we will go back to. i'm very emotionally right there with you. it does concern me that power is reportedly out. do you have power there in marathon? >> no, i do not have power. i would think if -- it's close to probably county wide that we don't have power. >> that's what we have been told at this point. do you know of anybody up towards maybe key largo that still has power or would you all be on the same grid? my last report is everything south of florida city was out and even we've had live reports from a reporter in florida city who we watched the power go out because of transformer blows while she's been reporting live on the air. so what do you think about power anywhere in the keys? >> i would think that it's out. the only power that's available are generators that are

privately provided or by the government in some of the buildings. but i doubt very seriously and i think that report is probably right that there's no electricity from florida city south. >> major nujent have you contacted any of the local officials there in these different keys communities. have you been getting updates from anybody on the phone? i have not to date. i just came down when i got your phone call and i'm checking my voice mails and seeing if any one has called. everybody has pretty much hunkered down waiting for daylight to get here. >> mayor george nugent of monroe county. there you are in the middle of it all in marathon. our thoughts and prayers are there with you. thank you so much. we'll stay in touch with you and get updates there. let's go now to steve. we're talking the keys.

it's all about the keys right now. what are you seeing? >> right. it's only going to get worse over the next couple hours. i'm concerned about this eye wall that will be coming ashore. this storm is huge, from the start of the rain band all the way down to the bottom part of the storm over 400 miles. that eye wall will come on shore. bad conditions. >> bad conditions certainly and then storm surge we've talked about that very quickly. once the eye passes, they still have storm to deal with, right? that surge. >> that's right. because the winds will come wrapping around from the other side from the south and west. instead of getting it from the south and east, the storm will wrap around the winds from the south and west. this is why the keys are very vulnerable as well as southwestern florida. again, they still have time to evacuate. based on the intensity trends of this hurricane, i would get out if you're in a storm surgery vulnerable area in the keys, hunker down. have a mattress on top of you. wear a helmet and make sure that you always keep yourself safe from flying debris. >> we were listening there to

the mayor who said that he hears the wind howling and he said he was clocking them over 100 miles an hour. thank you for that. we'll take a look at what lies ahead for florida's west coast now that irma keeps shifting. now an explanation why this storm surge is so dangerous. keep it here on msnbc.

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welcome back, everyone. i'm alex whit here in new york. you're watching special coverage of hurricane irma. right now that hurricane sa massive category 4 storm. it is nearly 400 miles wide. it is aimed right at the very slim and narrow florida keys. the national weather service is now reporting that storm surges have begun there. water levels are already two feet above normal levels. the keys could see storm surges up to 10 feet before this is over. and parts of florida's coastline are expected to get storm surges of up to 15 feet. the impact could be devastating in cities like naples and ft. myers. the storm now has maximum wind speeds of 130 miles an hour, widespread power outages are among the effects already being felt in florida's panhandle. more than 271,000 people have already lost power. officials say that number is expected to be into the millions once irma has hit the state

entirely. let's go straight to nbc's julia bagg. julia, you may have heard me talking with the mayor of the monroe county area there. it was mayor george nugent. i spoke to him. he is down in marathon in complete darkness. i told him about you when we last spoke. you were seeing power outages that had just happened. the transformers blowing. it looks even darker where you are now. >> indeed, alex. we, in fact, tried to move up a little bit to be able to show you a little more. where an area was lit just as you were speaking, not 60 seconds ago, the lights went out here again in this parking lot. it just makes things so dang trous be out on the roads. the good news is most people are not out here. we are being very careful. we actually sought shelter under an overhang. you're looking at u.s. 1. alex, you mentioned it, hundreds

of thousands of people without power. absolutely in marathon, that's a scary place to be right now. florida city also a scary place to be, but certainly not as fierce as marathon, but still pretty fierce in its own right. you look just at the trees that things are being blown around. there's all kinds of debris. then i've been looking across u.s. 1, if you look with me, you might be able to see it a stop sign just kind of spinning around like a toy, flopping back and forth. one side is a stop sign, one side is a do not enter sign. every time the wind kicks up there. whoa. i don't know if you saw it. we had another green flash. as far as i can tell on the east side where we are of u.s. 1 things have gone out. only emergency lights here now. on the west side it appears they still have power. in fact, if you look at this stoplight, this stoplight still on. to theouth of us, that's where it's changing to total darkness now. street lights are out.

again, not very many people on the streets. that's a good thing. we did see someone taking shelter here. a man just behind me who is just trying to hide behind and lying down on the ground here. i did talk to him. he said he doesn't want to go to a shelter. also checked in with first responders to just to let him know he is here just in case of anything, but this is not a safe place to be. most people are hunkered down as the winds continue picking up. i don't know if you can hear it, but it is certainly quite howling a lot right now, alex. >> can totally hear it, julie. i'm worried about the projectil projectiles. you showed that stop sign, things of metal nature including that gentleman you saw with whom you spoke is lying down right now, he has a bike there. are you worried about that being picked up with the winds picking up? >> alex, i'm worried about that and him trying to hide from

these winds because there's really very little way of hiding from anything. you're absolutely right. everything can become a projectile from what you see on the ground from palm frauns to light poles at some point. we've seen them shaking in the dark, the ones that have gone out. it's hard for you to see that, but you're right. it's dark right now. that is the biggest danger is when things can come hurdling towards you in the wind. anything that's not secured down is going to be launched first. that's what we're watching for right now, alex. >> yeah. i have to ask you on a personal note. you're composed and reporting beautifully, but when you are off camera, how nerve wracking is this to feel the winds, hear the howling, feel all the rain and not being able to see what is coming your way? >> reporter: alex, it's nerve

wracking both on camera and off camera. so we're just trying to be very careful about where we are. right now we're on the western side of a building that's shuttered up here, so that helps us out. what we're looking at all of that being blown generally away from us. so as things get so much stronger here, this is critical that we find a place. we shelter ourselves against a wall so that we don't have to worry about that. when we were talking to you further south before, we were very careful that the area on the other side of the street was just an open area that was vegetation, that there weren't -- there was not anything that could be a projectile as far as we could tell. but you're right. that's exactly what we have to watch out for especially now. >> julia bagg, be very careful there in florida state. thank you for your live report to you and your camera crew. back here in studio. irma is where right now relative to what we saw with julia there?

i mean, it's still got to be over 100 miles away and look the ferocity of the winds she's experiencing. >> she's in florida city which is still far from the eye wall. this is where you see the most intense winds. that's where you'll see the wind gusts of 130, 140 miles per hour. these northern feeder bands definitely have strong and damaging winds with them. even in her area you'll start to see that increase as these bands continue to pivot in off the ocean. there you go. you can see some of the heavy rain band activity coming in just north of key largo. homestead devastated during hurricane andrew back in 1992. they're getting the heavy wind and rain right now. this break in the miami area is not doing it at all. it will pick back up. you're just in one of the breaks. but there you see the shot in ft. lauderdale. that's right on the money because you see on the radar here this dark red here. and it continues to move from

east to west. there is that band right now that you see in that live shot with the heavy downpours. again, these bands are moving very fast at about 30 to 35 miles per hour. so, this is the destructive eye wall right here. it's moving northwest at 6 miles per hour. the national weather service in key west put out a statement and they said about 7 to 8:00 a.m. we should see a land falling eye wall. that is when the most dangerous surge, the most dangerous winds will be at their peak here. we're coming up on that. basically if you're in the keys you saw julia's live shot, shelter in place. it's too late. you have to be in an interior room. you have to be away from windows and make sure you have a mattress or wearing a helmet. it is going to get even scarier there. i know that's hard to believe, but the conditions going downhill very quickly in the keys. >> essentially folks have two to three hours until that landfall.

that said when we were talking with the mayor george nugent just north in marathon which we can see on your map, he is hunkered down in the home it's a 10 foot elevation. the wind he clocked them already there must be at100 miles an hour, which would not be inconsistent with the kind of storm that we're seeing. what is it that the keys folks can expect in terms of the winds, what, two and half hours or so when this makes land fall? >> they'll continue to pick up with this rain band. it's picking up now. it may drop off a little while. do not be deceived by that. then comes the eye wall. this is when it gets really, really dangerous in terms of flying projectiles and the inundation from the water. we're in it now. it's too late. areas of southwestern florida still have time. you still have time to get out even though it is dangerous

outside. but you have to get away from the water. here in the keys unfortunately conditions have gone downhill and this hurricane still may be strengthening. we'll get a new update at 5:00 a.m. and new projected path. we'll be looking out for that very closely. >> thank you so much for that. millions of people were ordered to evacuate florida, but what about those who were unable to leave? we'll check in with one of the local hospitals to see how those patients are holding up.

back here on msnbc live tracking hurricane irma for you. the winds are picking up. heavy rains are pounding parts of south florida. storm surge and flood warnings are already in effect in several areas and key west is experiencing hurricane force winds and storm surge. the eye wall is expected to arrive in the lower keys sometime between 7 and 8:00 a.m. so just two and a half plus short hours from now. one resident riding out this

massive storm is penny landow in plantation, florida, just west of ft. lauderdale. what are you seeing on plantation? i know we've had our cameras up in ft. lauderdale just a short distance from you and the rain is pounding as are the winds as we give our viewers a live look at ft. lauderdale. how about where you are? >> caller: well, that's pretty much what we have here, alex. it goes through periods where there's a lot of rain and a lot of winds and we had thunder and lightning. i'm sure you know a tornado touched down not far from where we were earlier. >> we knew there were warnings. you can say -- >> i know it was in carl springs or something like that. but we were getting a lot of rain and lot of wind. then it will stop. you'll think, oh, this is nice, it's going to go away. ten minutes later again comes the rain and the wind and

something flying around. >> you were talking exactly about the concerns for people who did not heed evacuation orders, like yourself, people who said we're going to stay put, who then maybe feel like, well, things are calm. we'll go outside. i just got to ask you, penny, why did you not leave? people give all sorts of reasons. >> we weren't part of the evacuation. where plantation is where a lot of evacuees have been sent. we're not a mile from where the command post is. we're taking in people from the different shelters because we're farther west. i have friends in miami who said they were staying. i thought they were out of their minds because with whags going to happen with the surge, that's what's going to destroy homes. and everything is replaceable. the only thing that is not replaceable is your life. >> amen to that, penny. you're hunkered down. sounds like you're safe. stay inside. >> we're hunkered down. the shutters are on the house.

everything that was outside, all the chairs is in the living room. >> you are a prepared woman. penny, we wish you the best of luck getting through all this. you've been through this a few times. thanks so much. we talk about the wind, the rain, extremely dangerous but it's the storm surge that officials continue to warn people about. >> they're saying wind is not the killer. they're saying storm surge, as you were emphasizing there, that's the tropical storm killer. right here if you look at this over 50% or almost 50% is caused by the surge. that is what they're looking at when you look at just wind, then wind is at 8% in terms of surge. now, that's just in the last half century when we look at numbers. in addition to that, i'll show you this map here of irma as it moved directions in the last 24 hours. the issue is it's tacked this

way, farther west as steve has been telling us. this is the inherent weakness of the coastline all across florida. you can see where it's most weak when it comes to storm surge, it's mostly on this side of the state. that's why this is so concerning when you're looking at how it is now tracking this way. now, when we look at how a storm surge actually does look, this is an animation from the national hurricane sender and they laid it out. this might be a levy or storm surge barrier. then as the surge starts to come in, the bulges of water is what they're measuring over what the normal tide might be. it destroys a levy over a period of time and takes away the vegetation and then you see -- this house will be gone over certain amount of time and then this gets dug, this gets dug a little deeper, vegetation gone, two feet of surge can sweep away suvs and pickups. six inches can knock a person

over. >> six inches? >> six inches. that's all it takes. this is why here, alex. surge does not need to move quickly at just 4 miles an hour. storm surge can be as destructive as 110 miles-an-hour winds that's because it's water. here the storm surge latest numbers we're seeing surge estimations of up to 15 feet in some areas. the height of a home. situation where home is not a shelter for people. they say get out. you get out. so this is what noah suggests people do. first know your zone. contact local emergency management agency. second, follow evacuation orders. local and state authorities have the latest information. and then monitor those local storm surge forecasts. n.o.a.h.'s maps over the course of history, harvey or katrina, they have been amazingly quite accurate here when we look at it, alex. finally, here is part of the storm technology helping to save lives. the censers they're mounting in

various locatns up and down the coast about an inch and a half in diameter, foot and a half tall, they measure not only a storm surge but also the pressure readings at crucial locations that need to pinpoint down that saves lives over time. storm surge a killer, not limited to coasts, not limited to tropical storms or low level hurricanes can do this. inland areas will see storm surge and they happen before, during and after landfall here, alex. as an example of that, louisiana had surge going as much as 25 inland. >> okay. i just want to try to conceptual surge and maybe this is a question for steve. when you say 15-foot surge. is that a 15-foot wall of water? or that it just builds up to 15 feet? >> they measure the height between what normal tide height is versus what it will be during a hurricane. so those surge is 15 feet above normal. >> yikes. >> steve is the expert on that.

that's a way to explain it. therefore as it grows that is again, what can affect a house. but the issue again, six inches is enough to cause damage. thank you vur. match meantime, hurricane irma is plowing towards the florida keys. it is gaining strength. we're going to get an update from the national hurricane center at the top of the hour.