me very proud to be a floridian and american. >> in st. petersburg, florida. thank you for joining us. please stay safe. we wish the best to you and those in the area who are still yet to see the worst of the storm tonight. >> thank you so much. god bless you. our coverage is going to continue. we are doing this nonstop. i will stop for a little while because i see -- i am always happy to see you but sometimes more than others. >> right back at you. same sentiment. thank you for taking the last couple of hours. we will take it from here for the next couple of hours until 11:00 eastern time tonight at which our coverage just continues all night long. 8:00 here in the east. let's sum up where we have been. we have a category two storm doing what the models told us about the 36 to 48 hours ago that it would do. it is churning up the west side

of florida, the gulf side of florida after we had quite an eventful day in what is turning into quite an eventful evening. we have a matter of the storm surge coming in over land. we saw it in the city of miami the extent to which a lot of people didn't believe was coming. we saw the wind. 142 miles per hour while we were on the air. that was clocked at naples out at the airport. it's been an eventful day of coverage. i am joined by our meteorologist bill karins. >> i have the best news to tell you that we are -- >> we are on receive. good news we can take. >> the storm surge forecast is done by the national hurricane center. they have a computer model that estimates. they put in the size of the storm, strength of the winds and they give us these estimates of how high the water is going to be. we are still early in this but i am going based on what happened

in naples which we said would be a litmus test. the storm gauge there reported storm surge of five to six feet. it is now dropping. >> already. >> already? >> already. it would be two to three hours after the eye went in. now we are in the two to three hours where they said highest water levels would be reached. i stared at it for a half hour to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning. it is still reporting and it is dropping. what does that mean? it means it saves billions of dollars of damage and would prevent the loss of lives that the 10 to 15 foot water height predicted if that is not happening right now and it doesn't look like it is. >> this leads us to a number of questions. just physically when you and i were on this afternoon into this evening we were looking at downtown naples at a stretch. we guessed that the sand bags in front of the hotel wouldn't be enough. we guessed the water was coming

in in force and quickly doompt we know did that ever happen? >> i have been searching social media. i have been scouring for any pictures before dark. i have seen images that the water was up high on marco island. we are now two hours from when we expected to see horrific storm surge pictures and we haven't which gives me added confidence. storm surge predicting river flooding predicting is not like predicting the sunny and 75 high the next day. there is a lot more that goes into it. the storm is not as strong as was expected. it's further inland than was expected. so the parameters that they put into the computer to get the storm surge were likely too high and they only said possible storm surge. if we only did storm surge five to ten feet and if that is

inland and we see the trend continue in other gaige, the hurricane center has not lowered their forecast surge totals up the coast yet. i'd be surprised if it doesn't happen because of the storm further inland, weaker and what we just witnessed. >> i hope i'm right on this. this would be fantastic news that would save remember i said 20% damage from the wind and 80% from the surge. that would totally throw that out and then it would be 50/50, maybe 60% wind. it would totally change the equation from this being a horrific disaster to a very huge inconvenience with significant roof damage, power outages, evacuations waiting to get back in your homes. a big difference between inconvenience and devastation. >> let me take the consumer angle. where did tampa bay go and when

does the water come home? where did naples bay go? >> that water did rush in. the water in naples blew out five feet on the stronger north side of the storm. then as the storm came inland the water did rush in. about an hour and a half it went up eight feet, nine feet. but that was from a negative five. then we add it so the water has gone up about ten feet from when we saw people walking their dogs in the bay. this is just for the naples area. i will dig deeper into this. i will be watching closely through the rest of the evening to see if the trend continues. we are not going to get ahead of ourselves. we will see what the hurricane center sees on this. i expect totals to come down. people that evacuated that had said my house was going to have water in it, i'm not saying smile yet but we are getting closer. >> i am arguing the other side

of the consumer angle a little bit. ten percent, the storm surge prediction was the prediction they were making all along regardless of the spaghetti strands. the national hurricane center was saying whatever happens we will have a terrible storm surge. >> and it says possible skblmpt it if i am one of the people who went to great expense or something worse happened to a member of my family because i chose in the last minute to evacuate because we were in the storm surge area, all i'm saying is questions are going to be asked. >> i'm sure. i am sure that -- this is early. this is kind of just breaking. if it is true then the politicians and whoever else can come out and say why was this computer forecast so far off? the experts can say twhie was so high and try to dive into that

later. i'm sure people will complain but if your house you can go back to it -- remember the hurricane center two days ago said cat 5 was coming into naples. it was a low end -- it was a cat 3 when it did make landfall and has weakened to the point. i didn't see 8:00 advisory. cat 2 still 105. they were predicting it would still be cat 3 over tampa. now over tampa instead of 111 to 120 sustained tampa is likely to have maybe just a cat 1 or tropical storm because it is further inland. it has weakened more. this is all good news. >> all good news. no other way to spin this to use a storm metaphor. let's talk to a friend of ours. correspondent we were on television with for hours at a time as afternoon turned to

evening. off your shoulder was the path to the gulf where you were expecting a storm surge to appear and become visible. tell us what the state of play is in naples right now. >> reporter: well, right now the city manager is releasing the police department to go do some reconnaissance around town because he has concluded that there is not going to be the storm surge that was predicted so the police officers are getting ready to go and look around. why the storm surge didn't happen? that will be one for the scientists here. we will wait to see what the determination is of that. i know one person is extremely happy that there was not a tremendous storm surge and that has everything to do with the mayor here because a storm surge would have ruined a beautiful city here. it appears that the storm surge that we had thought all along was coming, the winds were

certainly strong enough. the high tide was in place, all of the pieces of the puzzle appeared to be there. if they are accurate and we are not going to see a storm surge here and remember the fire chief says the island had three to four feet. if it is not here then it will be a celebration no matter what people went through in terms of the ordeal of evacuating and sleeping on floors and shelters and everything else because once that water gets into your home it can really destroy the foundation of a home and cause some real serious problems beyond the fact that there is a requirement for some sort of federal insurance, flood insurance program which we saw so clearly was not something that homeowners quite understood in the houston during harvey. so the wind is still blowing here. this is the back end coming from the west. it has been a long period of

time here, a rough day for some folks in naples. but i think despite the fact that we will see damage here, i think people are going to say irma could have been that 5 or that disaster. thank goodness it didn't turn out that way. >> what a blessing if these reports remain true. we are watching video of a tree coming down at the height of it. as you were talking we also saw some arials. i'm unclear exactly where they were recorded. maybe bill you know right here. >> these were pictures that were floating around on social media. a guy went in the eye of the storm, put the drone up and flew around. this is the naples area. this is the wind damage from that northern eye wall through the region. i said we avoided a catastrophe

if that storm surge looks like it is a lot lower but we will have a ton of heart ache and a multibillion-dollar disaster just from the winds alone. the storm surge predictions are making us think it could be one of the worst storms financially in the country. >> most of the damage we are seeing is to single wide, double wide, prefabricated housing. we have not seen the entire place. this is for these homeowners some devastating flat wind damage. that will be part of the mystery of the sun coming up in the morning and getting the police force out on the streets tonight. we have lost our communications. >> reporter: much better idea once the sun does come up. i think that after that you go through the process of checking out the electrical lines are down because they can be

dangerous. there is still a lot of dangers after the wind is gone and the storm is gone from this area. so it's not over. there is still a cleanup. there is still a lot to deal with. i think i heard you saying that there is a lot of questions. what happens after something like this is when they thought it would be a five and turns out it wasn't at least at this point the damage does not look to be as horrific as we all imagined especially with the images that we have shown prior to the arrival looking at andrew which came in and destroyed homestead. we run the risk of people thinking that this was all hype. i just have to say this is mother nature. we have amazing scientists with incredible supercomputers but at the end of the day it is very hard to have a concrete prediction as we saw when the initial idea was it was going to go up the east coast and then came to the west coast. i just hope that people don't

walk away from this thinking the next time they hear that there is a hurricane that they somehow know better and don't evacuate because the officials say this for a really good reason. >> that is precisely the dynamic i worry about in this kind of situation which if these initial reports prove true this is 100% blessing. stand by. you want to listen with us. we have the mayor of naples, florida on the phone with us. probably the third or fourth time we have spoken to him today. mr. mayor, what have you been told? i know it is all preliminary, especially about this storm surge. is there a chance nothing more materializes? >> there is. we just got word about 30 minutes ago from our city manager and staff that the back end of the storm broke up and there is no more storm surge. we certainly have flooding.

the reports or preliminary reports for damage, there is minimal structural damage from the preliminary. there is flooding but the waters will start to recede. and a lot of hort icultural. the water pressure is superlow which means a lot of broken water lines. it is a breath of fresh air. our batteries were just about exhausted all of us physically and mentally. to hear this is great because as you and i talked earlier a 10 to 15 foot storm surge would have absolutely been catastrophic for us. >> i want to remind viewers why this is such a blessing. in part, it is because some people evacuated to naples. they came to your town from the east coast of florida only to learn that the spaghetti strands

of storm forecasts went right to your town. and all day long last night we were fearing the absolute worst for naples. this is fantastic news if it all holds while we join you in expressing sadness for those who have suffered damage to their property. >> thank you. and you're right. we probably have a lot of work to go. nothing like row and i had talked about that it could be. and the wind damage and what happened in miami and miami beach and over there, it is going to be an expensive hurricane, no doubt about it. >> we will be checking in with our friends in the east coast along the atlantic coast shortly. i want to thank you for making time with us more than once today for status reports on your town. we join everybody watching and hoping that the news is as good

as it possibly could be for naples. thank you. >> in st. petersburg, florida where the picture is somewhat different and where this has been an arriving storm system after the attention moved northward from naples. what is it like there? >> reporter: and the worst of it we expect in the middle of the night. right now it is raining and has been raining like this for several hours. the wind gusts come and go. we just moved in from the bay area where the wind gusts are higher and some palm trees and other trees are starting to lose branches. what they were really worried about here like everywhere else was the storm surge. i don't know what the predictions are still right now for st. petersburg, but all of the zone a, thousands and thousands of people along the tampa bay, tampa bay area is such a booming area. more than 3 million people in those counties. a huge area that hasn't had a

distri direct hit from a hurricane in a really long time. they were worried especially since we met a lot of people in tampa bay who evacuated from miami because they were expecting the hurricane to hit there so they came here and then got really worried. as we were coming in it was packed going out. everybody not taking chances. we were surprised to not find more people out and about. a lot of the areas we visited were on some of the islands looked desserted. they expected that that island and a lot of the other islands would have a lot of water in them. that is partly why tampa bay is so vulnerable with 3 million people connected by low lying bridges with all of these islands and just packed, buildings and homes all along the coast. it hasn't been terrible here. the wind gusts come and go and

the rain has been sticking around. what they really fear is storm surge. if that comes as bad as they say it might that won't happen until early tomorrow morning so we will be bracing for that. >> i will ask you what i asked our meteorologist, where did tampa bay go? that water has to come home as some point. we really couldn't blame the folks we saw walking out on the mud flats because they had never quite seen anything like it. what happened in tampa bay? >> reporter: so where we are in st. petersburg we were watching all of the boats going lower. an hour ago or so some sitting on the mud. 15 feet, maybe more. the bay had gone down. where did it go? it went out into the bay. we expect it all to come back with high tide and then in addition some of that storm

surge which is why they believe it will come up and over and maybe where i am. there are areas further south and we are on the tip of the peninsula. there is at the sea level we expect to get some of that water in. people were fascinated. we were looking at what looked like islands just off the peninsula and the locals said we have never seen that island. we have had our boats stuck out there every once in a while on an edge and we wondered what was out there. now we know. we can see the grassy area that we have never seen before. they were all fascinated by all of it. >> this storm has been such a freak of nature. when you trace it back and look at the destruction it left, look at the island of barbuda all but uninhabitable. this is such a happy shocker because we just thought had the power to live up to all those dire predictions. it's unbelievable news if this

stays true throughout the night. so jacob thank you for that situation report from st. petersburg. maya rodriguez is in miami. how would you sum up what that city witnessed today? >> reporter: you know, it's hit or miss here. right now we are in downtown miami. it's known as the sort of financial and tourist destinati destination. look at this. there is at least two feet of water in the middle of the avenue. you have cars taking a look at the scene thinking do i want to try to come down here and saying nope. right now they are going around and going to make a u turn because they decided not to come down here. the water is pretty murky. i am using a flashlight to better illuminate my path. there are all kinds of palm

frons and debris. there is about two dozen cranes here in downtown miami. we know that two of them at least had some sort of damage, some sort of collapse during hurricane irma. the ones that we saw coming in seemed fine. they looked completely intact. there is about two dozen of them here. it will take inspectors to make sure all of those are just fine. the storm surge here really must have come up quite a bit. brickel goes north/south. when we were over there yesterday the sea, the bay was about five feet below the street we were standing on. it came up at least that much and then over enough two blocks to flood this entire area. i can't tell you how far down the flooding goes because we have only been able to get to this particular point. it's just too deep to keep going. there are no cars coming down that way. it goes down at least five to six blocks with all of this

water. storm surge certainly an issue at least in this section of miami. again, there are trees down all over the place. driving from the western side of the county to the eastern side of the county just about two hours ago, lots of trees down. so it really just depends on what part of the county you are in at this point how you actually faired. right here lots of storm surge and water. >> behind you there the very lavish relatively new jw marriott hotel. i guess it is in keeping with this storm which has defied predictions. there were people in miami who said when they heard it would be a gulf coast storm well, miami has dodged a bullet. it turns out miami will end up getting in an odd way more storm surge in a high revenue area of an inner city of america than some of the areas on the gulf coast.

i guess that's the kind of storm we are witnessing. >> reporter: and based on what we were hearing from the folks in naples and gulf coast of florida it certainly sounds that way. i have to tell you when we turned the corner and saw this we were surprised. we heard there was some storm surge here but high tide was around noon. i was thinking maybe some would go out with the tide. it is still here. it hasn't gone anywhere even though we are easily eight hours past high tide at this point. >> thank you very much for that situation. >> you are looking at three to four feet of storm surge that was confirmed in the miami area. and as she said they went past high tide or low tide and the water hasn't really gone down because winds are still coming from easterly direction blowing towards the coast. that is bringing not allowing the water to recede.

that is storm surge we are looking at. >> unbelievable picture of miami. let's bring in ed. he runs the national hurricane cent center. are we wrong to be celebrating the lack of storm surge as against predictions on the gulf coast of florida as one of the big news headlines out of this crazy massive and unpredictable storm? >> could be. we haven't seen yet the total extent of the storm surge. i do know there was extensive satellite surge in the florida keys perhaps ten feet that was predicted. i think we have to wait for day break to see what has really occurred. >> what else has surprised you about the performance of this storm as tremendous in size and scope as it was? >> certainly the longevity of the intense phase category 5 broke records for multiple days. and the luck that we had in

south florida with the storm weakening was unfortunate for the folks in northern cuba where the center spent 12 to 24 hours at category 5 intensity along the coast there. >> this is meteorologist bill karins with nbc news. can you explain to people when you make the surge predictions, especially the part where there is only like a ten percent chance of exceeding those numbers so people can understand it was ten to 15 gauge is going down. >> there is a lot of background on the physics. we run a number of simulations, different intensities and forward speeds. that tells us what kinds of readings we could have in a

particular area and then we issue the warnings to cover really anything that is three feet or higher as that is what we would consider to be life threatening. >> as we up the coast in areas like tampa tonight after what we have seen happen in the naples area. the five to eight foot possibility that we saw that we were talking about earlier will be lowered some, perhaps two to five feet give or take. it hasn't been finalized yet. >> we are already getting questions because people are on edge what about jose? >> doesn't look like threat for the united states at least not for the next week. it will be taking a loop or two out there. beyond that time i'm not quite

sure. at this point there is no immediate threat. >> after a long day for you thank you for making time always to join us with the latest from the national hurricane center. we really appreciate it. >> thank you. our colleague thomas roberts is in tampa where tonight we followed this progression and thomas, i guess it's fair to say you were dry for most of the day when our correspondents were getting wet in the face. >> we weren't dry, but yes. i did watch colleagues getting drenched. we were also getting drenched. we had rain. on my right shoulder is the university of tampa.

you can see the wall, sheets of rain coming down right along the river walk. this is the river next to us. the big issue and i know you have been talking about storm surge are bill. this is the main body of water right now for downtown and certain neighborhoods that is a big area of concern because just like along bay shore with tampa bay seeing that water recede out and be sucked out of tampa bay, we have seen that happen here today with the river. now, they do have control over this with a dam further up. it originates from the green swamp. they have been releasing water. there has been an extra push of energy going out to irma. so when this comes back the predictions have been about five to eight feet of storm surge for this area. they are typically used to flooding because of being a coastal community. this has a lot of people concerned hence different evacuation orders that we have seen for pinellas county. they are getting first big wind

gusts clocked down in sarasota about 105 miles per hour. we think about the power outages that people are facing here. there are about 60,000 plus people that have lost power tonight. we know there will be energy crews and technicians trying to help restore power. a lot of people will have to be patient about that and remember to have on their radios for more information if they lose power to have their batteries ready to go. people will try to go to bed and hopefully wake up to a better day tomorrow. >> we are thinking of those people who have no power and have to ride this out all the noises, all the things that can go bump in the night including but not limited to storm

shutters and windows and roof tiles coming off. >> just because we are happy to report on the lower storm surge totals because that will save properties and lives and likely not make this the horrific disaster but we still have almost an entire state that will not have power. people will lose power in georgia. it could be weeks before power is back on. this is not going to be a picnic. i want toshow you the map just to show you the wind field is still enormous. we are still seeing gusts. if we check back with thomas in

15 minutes that bright red band will shift north and he will get gusts. the corridor from hampa to orlando hasn't been hit so hard. still going to give you wind gusts 40 to 60. we will have trees falling on houses, potentially on people. when we interviewed the hurricane center when we said we don't want to celebrate too early at the expense of the keysism we saw a few pictures before sunset there. we know there are houses 10 to

15 feet of water. >> a lot of people did lose everything in this storm. we are trying to i guess take the good news where it comes. we are happy to hear some of the folks on the gulf coast have been spared. the losses may head into billions. this may result in defacto rebuilding of power grid. the number of people without power tonight and for nights to come is measured in the millions. florida is going to be one hurting state for quite a while. we'll take the first break in this hour of coverage. we will come back with our team of correspondents. our meteorologist and the number of places to go yet. >> i am covered. this is rain. hitting me.

wow. >> why don't you get under the overhang. >> it's a good thing i was covered.

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can celebrate a life like no other. find out how at sanfranciscodignity.com. . we are back and it is time to shift our focus up the coast to follow the storm's progress up the coast. the mayor of fort myers florida has been kind enough to join us. we have been watching the storm.

the front eye wall, the back eye wall, tell us what is happening there now and how your city has faired thus far. >> our city is showing indications of substantial flooding. we have been fairing from a human standpoint very well. we have been safe from harm. i credit our citizens for being safe. conditions are improving. i am looking at video of substantial flooding in the core of the city. right here where we are in the middle part of the city there is visible flooding in the parking lot. we are situated on the second floor of the suburban suites hotel. and we are safe. and things are improving.

>> if all those predictions hold, that is in large part a tribute to your city because you were handed a real audible in this case, a storm that at the last minute decided to go up the other coast after much of the state of florida was planning for an atlantic hurricane you were forced to scramble. >> i can share and i appreciate that sentiment. i can share that where have never seen the kind of communication efforts that took place leading into and through this situation from washington, from tallahassee all the way down to the ground here. often communication, clear communication, action and executing on plans. and you are right. it has been a sight to behold and lives have been saved. i'm just thrilled that conditions are improving. we have head lamps on. there is no power. we can see power from across the

way either generated power in a nearby automobile dealership. it is comforting to see that lig light. there is lightning flickers. we still need to be vigilant and we have a curfew that kicked in from 8:00 p.m. this evening until 6:00 a.m. in the morning. we are urging citizens to be slow to return to homes. we have to get first responders out and make sure we remove hazardous conditions, power lines. so we can make sure that our citizens can return safely. >> i hope this rather violent sunday gives way to a peaceful monday. and i hope the news is as good as your initial reports. mayor henderson, thank you so much. >> thank you for helping us communicate. >> thank you, sir.

our digital global editor of digital content is with us. what have you swept up? >> we will take a look at disruptions. there may have been a prediction issue but the disruptions are still the same. we have a rescue underway about two hours ago. this is in rivera, florida. this is basically west palm. 35 people evacuated from a shelter as the roof started caving in on that shelter. you will see the fire and the police. that vehicle right there letting you know this took place during the storm when the winds were around 40 miles per hour. they got everybody out of there safely. i want to show you the flight tracker. you can track the hurricane by looking at where the airplanes are not. there is a giant hole over florida. same with the boats. there are no boats in the water around florida. nothing up the coast. very, very clear there. power is going to be an issue. 3 million people without power out of 5 million customers.

most of them -- this is going to be bad for the coming days. most of them are in unfortunately miami dade county. out of 1.1 million customers, 888,000 of them are not with power. that's going to be something to watch. it will be quite a while until that power comes back on. >> it's bill. on that map can you show us percentage of people in the tampa area with power? >> it's not registering yet. manatee county is doing pretty well. only 18,000 without power. sarasota county out of a quarter million customers, 30,000 without power. >> thank you. and bill we need not tell folks this is the part of our country where they use air you can wear for how humid it gets this time of year. this is going to be a hot night, a dark night.

folks with elderly, people who are caregivers, people with children, pets, there is a whole lot of discomfort going on. >> part of the reason i can associate well is i was a forecaster in the orlando local market in '04-'05. i got to see first-hand in six week tlz were three hurricanes. the week or two afterwards is cruel because some people have power, some people don't. i will never forget sitting in the newsroom and you can tell the people and see the people that had power that looked normal and the people that didn't have power for a bunch of days in a row and taking cold showers. they are not sleeping as well. i just remember the tarps, the blue tarps. i remember flying in and out of the airport. >> fema blue we call it.

>> that is what we are going to get for days and weeks. i wish we had a map, an app that can show all the power crews that have agreementwise florida that are amassing in the florida panhandle. there are crews that are from north carolina, south carolina, probably tennessee. states have agreements with other states to send power crews to areas when they get in situations like this. i'm sure florida has agreements with maybe texas. they try to use somewhere far enough away. georgia is not going to send people to florida because they have pto worry about their own state. they will come into the state. usually it is one area to concentrate on. they have to go throughout the entire state. that will be one of the stories. it's not fair because the people that get power first -- they kind of go out to higher

population areas and go out from there. some people may have to wait three or four weeks until their lines get reattached. >> i know a lot of power crews and they come from neighboring states, maybe not including georgia where they are waiting because they fear their own problems especially in the heavy pine tree regions of that state. one of the big rally points is daytona. power companies and crews to keep trucks in a protected environment. earlier today we were watching weather channel meteorologist mike bettis. this was during the eye of the storm things had calmed down and we noticed mike got taken for a ride. >> saw it in real time. >> do you notice anything behind him left to right. let's bring it back and let's watch a third time. imagine us just seeing this on tv. >> we thought he got hit by a

hard gust. that is rotation. >> it looks like a tornado. i don't see how it wasn't. that was a tornado that literally went right behind him. you have to know the back story on bettis to understand that people are saying if he is a cat he only has seven lives left. he was in the tornado in oklahoma and his vehicle was tossed and rolled and he will be the first to tell you they were lucky to live through that. other storm chasers died in that tornado. to be out here in the field. you don't get huge tornadoes typically in the eye. usually it is weaker tornadoes. >> water spouts. >> they will have winds maybe 90 to 110 inside the eye itself. that would have been strong enough to pick him up and toss him. >> it wanted him. it was making a bid for our friend mike bettis. i'm not sure he realized in the

moment. this was the previous portion of his day. we were on this camera shot for a long time because it was compelling television because those of us in the business know and love mike bettis and we know that he was quite happy. he was doing what he wanted to be doing on the ground. and we are quite sure that she walked away from what he thought was a rogue wind gust because -- >> you saw it when it happened. >> you are a meteorologist. >> it went by fast. >> neither you nor i realized it for what it was. >> not until people slowed it down. this is a good heads up. we still have a category two hurricane that is now just northeast of the fort myers area that still could produce weak lower end tornadoes as we go through this evening as this tracks up just to the east of the tampa area and up.

where thomas roberts is located. you can see remember we said he would get in the first heavy gust. thomas doesn't look happy. >> thomas is now in the first heavy gust. >> hey, guys. >> we have been out here the whole time watching the sky because we have seen especially behind this building first, roughly about ten minutes ago a blue and orange flash and then a couple minutes later the front of the building lit up and then moments ago we saw the sky light up over here and then there was an ominous sound. i think a transformer must have blown. on the other side of where we are there is a construction site with two different cranes that we have been keeping an eye on. i know you guys have been reporting all day about what happened in miami. we started out in miami and there were over 100 different active construction sites with

cranes. that was going to be a bilbig cn because they were not tied down. they are supposed to sustain the effects of 145 miles per hour wind. we were curious because this lot has two cranes close to each other in proximity. so as we have been observing tonight they have been spinning some and making a small rotation. i went over a couple minutes ago to check it out and they seem pretty stationary, not moving. we will keep an eye on that for you tonight. i did want to bring your attention to the winds picking up here in tampa and around st. pete. the rain is really starting to pour. we can show once again over here that the university, you can see the light that they have there the sheets of rain coming in right now as activity of irma is moving in. but for people here tonight that noise of hearing the transformer

and the grown that just happened through the skies here i think for a lot of people will leave them uneasy. we didn't see anything flash on this side in terms of lights. as you can see the lights are still on along the river walk. i think a lot of people are probably going to anticipate the fact that they will have issues with power outages tonight. there has been a forecast for people to be prepared for that possibility as we know that as i think bill was talking about a short time ago that thousands of people in florida right now that are without power and will be without power for days or potentially even weeks to come. i will keep you posted if i see more stuff flashing in the sky here. we can also get a better idea of exactly what we have been witnessing over the last 15 or 20 minutes. >> i know that very deck you are standing on. it is no fun to report with rain that feels like bullets in the face. i know it is fno fun to be you facing into it. think of a single mom with a

young baby in a small home or apartment with no power. with nothing but noise outside, not quite knowing what is coming, thinking about a senior citizen couple who are each other's caregivers. this be a really lonely and harrowing night in florida. >> once the power goes out, you're -- >> yeah. >> you just sit there listening. >> it's no fun. >> it's a long night and the winds gusting near thomas were only 50 to 60 miles per hour. and he's already seeing transformers -- usually as soon as you get gusts over 50 is when you can start losing power. orlando international airport, a good hour and a half drive from where thomas is, had a wind gust of 70 miles an hour. i know people in the orlando area are also starting to lose power. that will be probably the ending legacy of this. the devastation in the keys will probably be the headline tomorrow morning because we'll get a better picture of just how

bad it was when it was stronger down there. seemed like the storm surge was higher. then the pictures of miami with four feet of storm water surge what it did in miami. this picture, if it was a direct hit on miami, double that, we saw what the businesses hit with the water as welready. and this this long, prolonged situation of getting people back to school and work and how long that's going to take. >> we'll take a break in our coverage. when we come back, an update on cape coral. it's a community on the water, on the gulf with something like 200 miles of canals. a system of lagoons that from the air looks like some sort of s sanscript design. there are few places prettier in the state of florida but tonight they're struggle with the aftereffects of irma. that and more when our team comes back after a break. i'm completely blocked from

the north. nothing coming from the north and this wind is hooking a little bit. i've got a convention center blocking me on the east. this wind is making it up and over that convention center. so this is what we were telling people to hunker down for and get in. and it's already -- on the beach area, if they can hear me, get inside and brace from this wind right now.

i'm just absolutely in awe right now of the wrath and the fury that mother nature has brought about naples, florida. >> we are back and we're going to report on one of the water side communities in the gulf coast of florida. a place where we checked in during our afternoon and evening coverage. cape coral, florida. we have a few of cape coral from

the air on a good day. and as you'll see, it is a series of canals and lagoons. it's a community that is cut into a million different slices. and for waterfront living for boat owners, as i said, there are few prettier places on the water in this country. however, they're having a rough go of it tonight because of this hurricane. joining us by telephone for the second time this evening is the mayor of cape coral, florida. i heard your first responders may be busy with some structure fires there tonight. tell us about the situation. >> yes, we do. we have several structure fires actually they're trying to get access to. and so right now we -- no more information other than we know that they are happening. we can't get to them, and they're doing what they can to get throughout. but the winds are too high to get the trucks and vehicles out.

and we don't know what downed power lines and as far as water and anything else. so it's, yeah, it's the challenging part. >> back up to when you were getting the eye wall earlier tonight. at its height, how bad was the storm there, and what were your folks telling you about the height of the storm surge, which was our big worry all day? >> well, the -- we have not gotten the storm surge yet. that will be tomorrow morning. we are still getting tropical hurricane force winds until 6:00 a.m. so we've had some gusts up to 100, 105. and sustained winds, you know, throughout the day. but we're not out of the water yet. they did downgrade as far as the storm surge, but not by much. i mean, they are still looking at ten feet at our outer coastal and 9 for our zone b. >> and you have the prospect of

wind-driven structure fires in a community where some of the houses are cheek by jowl. do you know anything about what section -- are any of them isolated, or away from other sections? >> no, actually, that's the unfortunate part. we're talking about our southwest area quadrant, which is the most populated. and that is what our concern is because there were multiple that had other structures right next door. so we are absolutely trying to get access to that now and just before i went on air, the chief of our fire department was right here trying to get that information. that's the latest i have. >> okay. well, god bless the first responders for that matter, everywhere in the state. and we are -- we are really thinking of you guys tonight. thank you very much for being

with us. cape coral, florida. bill, are you here? >> yeah, i was just taking a second, resetting myself and taking a wider perspective of the storm. i was focused on the storm surge because we were thinking that was going to cost the most damage and lives and the storm surge predictions haven't come true. that's fine. we've had a storm surge. i saw pictures of marco island with water up to vehicles and into homes but it wasn't 10 to 15 feet. it was in therd of 4 to 6 feet. so still bad. still a lot of damage, but not like houses washes away into the ocean with the waves going into them after we saw in ike or the boulevard peninsula. at this point, and we'll see at daybreak because the keys may be a different story, or even as bad as the jersey shore with the storm surge from sandy. the keys is different because it was pretty bad there. 105 miles per hour winds now. this is category 2.

moving to the north at 14 miles per hour. there's the center of it located right here. still on the bright red shows you the convention and thunderstorms were over the coast near miami. have kicked near the bahamas. the be wind field is the legacy of this storm. it's still huge. the storm is located here. and there's the wind field in the yellow. so we still have tropical storm force winds down to key west. i have to widen out more than this. it's ridiculous. >> remind us what that trenstre on when you say tropical storm force winds. >> as the night goes on here, my -- >> don't make me come over there. >> we'll fast forward it and go back to it. here's the map that shows you the current wind gusts. how large the wind field is. and now back to the map i was trying to show you brian was talking about. so here's the yellow. the yellow is the potential for tropical storm force gusts.