a very good early morning to all of you. i'm alex witt. florida continues to take a beating from hurricane irma. it is now a category 1 hurricane.

wind, rain, flooding all being unleashed as this storm moves north. >> reporter: it's really -- i mean, it's really picked up. >> because its windy. was this squall line part of your forecast earlier tonight? >> reporter: oh, yes, yes. we're just getting into this. >> reporter: this is the rain that's -- >> wow. >> reporter: -- hitting me. >> wow. okay, why don't you get under the overhang. >> yeah, wow, i have to say, this is the strongest. in fact, i'm going to take a knee for a second because it's exhausting to stand there for a little bit. breaking news we reported just a few minutes ago. there's an alarm that started going off a short time ago at raymond james stadium in tampa. let's turn to thomas roberts in tampa for us. have you heard anything about this or can you hear this alarm? >> reporter: alex, we've been trying to research some information and source some

things to figure out exactly what happened. just to give you an update on the conditions here right now, very clear, very calm. the update about this area called raymond james stadium being used as a shelter, the call went out about this report roughly about 2:35, about 25 minutes ago. we're hearing most of the people that are staying there are national guard members, sheriff's officials, some family members of a local sports team. but the alarm apparently has stopped and a few occupants who had left this stadium are filtering back inside. that's roughly not very far from where we are along here, tampa riverwalk, but above south tampa. that's a place we discussed earlier. south tampa is prone to flooding because the whole area is like a small peninsula in and of itself, all surrounded by water and can seep together to create the fact that it would all touch

and go under in terms of water. let me double click on this to show you the distance. this is us, the blue dot. right here is the stadium, so not too far away. but this is what i was talking about here with south tampa, alex, the fact that this is the area that is prone to flooding. you can see it's a peninsula within the peninsula itself, all sitting inside tampa bay. that's all the water and the water that left earlier, when everyone was talking about how they were walking around. this is the area they were walking around in the bay shore area. excuse me, right over here. in this area. can you tell this isn't my iphone so i'm having trouble with elise's iphone. i need my own iphone back. we'll work on the actual details of that.

it could have been a false alarm. the important thing is for the people staying there, these are first responders and they were not going to be able to go out. they were in hillsborough county. they weren't going to send people out until the storm subsided. as we can see right now, this is pretty clear, pretty quiet. i know you've been with me throughout the early morning hours here and you've seen what it looks like inside the river. and the water amounts inside the river. jimmy is taking a good shot of what the winds are doing now. look, the fact that the hillsborough river has filled back up. you'll recall, just several hours ago, as we were talking about, the rocks were exposed. there was some sand and shoreline exposed. we could also see -- this is the water main filling back in, releasing water into the hillsborough river itself. this has filled back up considerably quickly. we were here scouting locations today at noontime.

forgive me, noontime yesterday to figure out if this is where we wanted to position itself safely so we could cover this storm and the river was flat then. it was being pulled out in terms of the storm system using its energy, using its waters. so, it's been amazing to see over, certainly a short period of time from this morning, this water coming back in. for most of the afternoon and early evening into the late evening it was low. we can see right now. this is what people typically see when they're coming along the tampa riverwalk. >> can i ask you -- >> it's amazing, alex, how quickly this has gotten quiet. >> that's so interesting to me because we were with you, what, maybe 30 minutes ago. you were having trouble breathe agent one point because you had a wind squall. now it seems very calm and yet it picks up. is this is typical as this storm

winds away from tampa, you get wind bursts and then fades and maybe another one less severe? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, there's still a good breeze, a good clip coming through, but the severity we were feeling earlier has subsided. the sheets of rain that were driving through, that has subsided. now, the noises we were hearing earlier of the canopy over there, that has subsided considerably. it's not even flapping. this was very intense for a very long period of time. you have to think about the sustained forces of irma and the forces it produced across the entire peninsula. we're talking about from the keys and straight on up into miami over -- making the landfall on the southwest side twice and then producing itself up the peninsula straight to this area in tampa and st. pete, even affecting areas over to

orlando. all of these places are ones where evacuees, some had to hop scotch around, trying to figure out where they could be safe. with sun coming up shortly, we should know exactly the type of damage tampa will deal with coming up. >> and the debris in the hillsborough river as it fills up. no doubt we'll see you soon again. thank you very much, thomas roberts. let's go south and bring in kristen dahlgren from ft. myers. that's been a ground zero of its own sorts. you've seen so much there from your reporting with that water that was rushing out into the gulf. i mean, it was just the most bizarre looking thing with the storm surge. how about storm surge in that area? that was the main concern. >> reporter: yeah, it was the main concern. and i think there was a lot of relief last night and in the overnight hours when that water didn't come back with quite the vengeance that they were expecting it to.

now, there obviously was a surge and we are getting reports there are some homes that were flooded out, but not as bad as many people had expected. take a look now. we are actually dry for a little bit. not sure if there could be some more rain moving through with this, but the winds are still howling. obviously not as bad as what we saw yesterday. you know, bad enough. if you have these saturated grounds and these trees and power poles that have sort of been loosened up with all of those winds, it's still a dicey situation out there. officials saying everybody has to be very cautious as they get out at first light, if they are going to check out their homes or check out the situation. you know, you're still getting gusts through and these trees have taken a battering. you can probably see behind me some of the limbs that have come down, some trees that have come

down. that's still a possibility as we go through the morning. still a dicey situation out there. >> i want to ask you about those folks -- you were at that mobile home park. you were reporting on a show i did a few hours ago and you were very concerned about their safety. have you learned anything about the fate of those people, how much they were affected by the storm? >> reporter: i was. one, i'm going to visit everyone i talked to this week that was staying. i'm going to make sure they're safe because i was so so concerned about them. we've been texting and we did just hear back from one. i don't think he was -- when we were talking to you, alex, but in guy who was left homeless after the flooding they saw about two. he had his truck, his landscape trailer and his sort of backup plan was to go inside the landscape trailer during this and ride it out there. we got some reports from him and pictures which we'll try to turn to you. he was able to hunker down in a

friend's house. he said he made it through. it was scary but he made it through safely. i want to check on mo who had the homemade boat. that was his plan to float out of there. we'll be getting updates as we go through the morning. as soon as question can get out safely and check on everybody, we will do that as well. we also talked to this guy, p.j., a fisherman here last night, when all of that water rushed out, we were amazed, we saw these boats sitting in the mud. we stopped and i couldn't believe that i saw somebody out there tying his boat down. he said that he was going to be staying on the boat through the storm because he's a fisherman, it's his livelihood. he was so worried about it. >> listen, i -- >> reporter: so far -- >> i saw that story, kristen. it was so compelling that i know we're going to run it later for the viewers in this hour. the pictures were -- i stopped

what i was doing and stared at the television. it's quite profound. you're a good soul to check up on those people. thank you for doing that as well as reporting for us. we'll see you again. i'm joined by carl roberts. he ignored the pleas and orders to evacuate. he's in a high rise in redington shores outside of st. petersburg. with welcome to you. do you think this was a good choice? what's it been like? >> it's been very windy. it is very loud. i have all the security shutters down and they're getting absolutely hammered. but up until 11:30 i had power. so i had plenty of food, lots of water, plenty to drink. the cable went out at about 6:00. unfortunately, i missed oth orrville, which is a tragedy. >> i'm heard about that. you're a big fan of that show. i understand you're on the 17th floor of a 21-story high rise.

so, you've pulled down these shutters. any sense that the winds were so fierce that they would have cracked those windows or were they shatterproof or what do you think? >> yes, i think if i did not have the shutters, the winds definitely would have come through the windows because the winds and the rain have just been completely crazy brutal. >> how about power there? if you're in a 21-story building, on the 17th floor, if power is cut, you have a lot of walking. >> that's true. but no need to go anywhere, because even if i were to walk down, there's nowhere to go. have i very little doubt that the beach road itself is completely flooded over, completely covered with sand and as i understand it, all of the bridges have been blocked off with dump trucks so you can't drive over them any ways. there's no way to go even if i were to go down.

>> so, carl, in essence, you stayed because you were in a high rise, but had you been in a lower story building, one or two-story building, would you have chosen to stay or would you have gotten out of there? >> no, i absolutely would have evacuated. >> okay. >> they say what kills you is not the wind but the rising water. >> we have heard that many times. i've got my meteorologist, steve sosna here, nodding in agreement. he's listening to you. that's very true. we're glad to know you're safe. i hope you stay that way. carl roberts, even if it's a long walk down with the power cut there. take good care there in redington shores. >> thank you, ma'am. nbc's maya rodriguez is reporting from the brickell section of downtown miami. that's where the storm surge caused significant flooding there today. but just this last hour, it looked relatively normal, except for all the muck left behind, right? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. i want you to take a look at this. from the last hour we spoke to

you. the water has really dropped dramatically here. this little alleyway, it's just streaming past my feet right now. by the time it's daylight and sun rises, it's going to be pretty dry in this particular section of downtown miami. that's good news. frankly, on a normal monday morning there would be a lot of traffic. a lot of the financial institutions would be opening up. residents live here. this is a densely populated section of downtown miami, the brickell area. but, you know, this morning it's not going to be a normal monday morning. obviously, a lot of businesses remain closed. a lot of schools remain closed. there will be a massive clean-up under way in miami-dade county for everyone that went through hurricane irma and saw its effects, including downtown. check it out. there's all kinds of vegetation debris, tree limbs down. there's a lot of sand that came in with this storm surge, all kinds of muck and mud. all of this needs to be cleaned up at some point, obviously.

again, things are beginning to normalize here. in fact, the winds have even calmed down over the last few hours. understandable because hurricane irma is beginning to move north here in florida. we're seeing fewer and fewer of the storm's effects. the recovery process we'll begin to see exactly the extend of damage when daylight comes to see exactly what happened here as far as storm surge. we've been in this area of miami but it's possible other areas like the barrier islands, for example, miami beach, key biscayne, we have not been out there personally to see what kind of damage they might have had from storm surge, if any. hopefully we'll get a better idea of that once the sun rises in miami. >> we see the police behind you there patrolling. any updates on burglaries, looting, anything like that, those kind of folks that try to take advantage of others in situations like this? >> reporter: i mean, listen, we heard there were some reports,

miami-dade county saying there have been several dozen people arrested for looting. i can tell you there is a curfew not just in the city of miami but in miami-dade county as well. in the hours we've been out here, we have seen police going up and down this road. they are definitely here. they are keeping an eye out. we have seen very few people on the streets. it seems that people are either staying put, not wanting to venture outside or taking the curfews seriously. again, there's always going to be a few bad apples, as we heard from the reports from miami-dade county. for the most part, there's nothing really widespread so far that we've heard here about looting in particular. >> maya rodriguez in the brickell section of miami. thank you for that. let's go to wnbc meteorologist steve sosna to get the latest on things. so far, so good with our correspondents out there. things are definitely calming down, at least where our guys are. >> one thing i would like to see are the images from the keys.

we haven't seen a whole lot of images there. >> hard to get access. >> right. we had a category 4 storm roll through that section. we'll get a better idea today as things settle down down there on what kind of damage was done. a lot of damage done across parts of florida. a very messy but not catastrophic. that's certainly the takeaway. let's look at what the storm is doing right now and where it's going. right now it is across northern florida where the wind is still roaring, believe it or not, in the orlando area for the better part of the last four or five hours they've been gusting 60, 70, close to 80 miles an hour. that line where it stops is very close to you now. thins will settle down a little bit but then the wind will come back out of the west and northwest. you can see some areas gusting to 70 miles an hour still in northern areas of florida. as with go through the day today, the heavy rain will push up to the north and west. the flood threat today grows across southern georgia, across

the panhandle of florida. notice the peninsula of florida that has been just pounded here for the last 24 hours or so will get a nice break. as we continue through the day, that rain makes its way up towards atlanta where tropical storm warnings are in effect. if you have a flight in or out of hartsfield, good luck with that because it looks like the rain will be coming down in buckets. the category 1 storm, that's what the hurricane center says, it's still a 1 by later on today but it should weaken into a tropical storm as we head into the nighttime and into the day tomorrow, it will just become the remains of irma. we'll say, good riddance to that. rainfall totals will be the next big story with this storm system. that combined with the winds coming onshore. coastal south carolina down to georgia. again, the high tide cycle here this morning, we're concerned about that surge along with the heavy rain and severe weather threat. again, even though this storm

hasn't been as bad, we still have problems and we could still have loss of life if you don't treat the storm seriously. last but not least, we still have another hurricane out,there jose. wait until you see this path. it's not one that you normally see. it's doing one of these lo loopdy-loops. we buy time with these loops so we keep it away from major land masses. after we get through the week, we have to watch, where does jose go? does it make a run towards the east coast or move out to sea hoping for the out to sea option here, alex, but we have time to watch it. >> i'm going to pretend you didn't say any of that. >> i want it on everybody's radar. >> thank you. our special coverage of hurricane irma continues right after this break. we're live in miami where flooding is a major problem. we're also getting our very first page of the miami herald that reads "swamped by irma" and

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a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit or go to xfinitymobile.com. take a look at vn nenice, florida, halfway between tampa and ft. myers. it was under evacuation orders. joining us by phone, the mayor of venice, john holic. good morning to you. i hope you diplomat have to wake up with us. tell me how your city is doing right now. >> well, i just took a little

tour of the city, probably unauthorized tour but i authorized myself, i guess. and we actually fared pretty well. we made it through the first half. looks like we're on the back side now. there are some downed trees. the city is virtually without power. we did have a water main break, but i stopped at our main shelter and people were still asleep. they made it through the night without any water intrusion, so overall i'd say we're very blessed. we had a great evening that could have been a disaster and it turned out well for us. >> that's good to hear. as if you needed a water main break to add to everything else descending upon you. how about the utilities there, power outages. we know there are 3.6 million homes across the state without power. what was it like there with venice? >> well, we're part of that 3.6 million. there are a couple places in the

city that do have power, ironically, but for the most part, power is gone. and it's still way too windy for any of the service crews to assess the damage and to start working. but i'm sure at daylight when the wind dies down, they'll be out there and hopefully get it fixed quickly. >> with regard to evacuation orders, was there an area or residents you were concerned not heeding that? have you been able to check on them? >> yes. we have a portion of venice we call the island. it's -- in the 1960 they put intercoastal waterway through and it actually made this portion of the city a man-made island. and it's relatively low, in what we call zone "a," the zone that had the mandatory evacuation and

that's the area i did take a tour through. everything looks good. no water that came up. no surge that we have to worry about. i don't know what the backside is going to bring us, but we made it through the front side of the hurricane and i'm sure we'll make it through the back. >> that's all good. honestly, good news from you, very, very welcome. i'm sure it's not without some problems in venice, florida. you talked about the debris and downed trees and those kind of things that need to be cleaned up. for the moss part, it sounds like you came through okay. thank you for speaking with us in the middle of the night. glad things are okay in venice. >> well, thank you. yes, we did. like i said, it's truly a blessing we made it through. >> we like hearing that. as we continue our special coverage of hurricane irma, the very latest on where that storm is now and where it is heading as it does continue to weaken just a bit.

welcome back. half past the hour. hurricane irma is continuing to make its way north through the state of florida. the storm is less than 40 miles now from tampa. one of the more densely populated areas that is expected to experience devastating hurricane-force winds. irma has been downgraded to a category 1 status with sustained winds of about 85 miles an hour. there are those gusts to be concerned about. up to 120 miles an hour as a curfew has been issued for the

city of tampa. projections for the storm surges have been reduced in some of the cities like st. petersburg. that is located in tampa bay. it is now expected to see surging of about 2 to 4 feet. all of this coming as tropical force winds are now approaching the border between florida and the state of georgia. florida power and light, which offers energy services to millions of floridans, is reporting more than 3.6 million homes have been left without power across the state. let's go back to my colleague, thomas roberts. he's been covering the hurricane devastation in central florida there. you join us from your perch there in tampa by the hillsborough river, if you're still there. yep, you are. it's calm. i'm liking that. you look dry. that's new. >> reporter: dryer, yes, alex, dryer, which is a big improvement because we can take off some layers and warm up because the rain has stopped. it's still windy, but it's a little warmer than it had been. one thing we observed over the

last several hours, certainly during irma itself, was the fact that the river was so low. now we've seen so much of the water pour back in, almost to normal levels. people we talked to today would say this would normal look like. the issue with the big concern, any type of storm surge coming back into this area. when you look at st. pete or tampa and you think about -- it's a mini microcosm of almost what the peninsula of florida itself is like in terms of coastal communities, but when you think clearwater and st. pete and wrapping around through south tampa and into tampa itself, it's all this coastal sea line. all these great barrier islands that have to deal with a type of flooding issue. certainly a heavy producing storm of rain and title surge like irma is going to create some problems for people as they wake up today. alex, one thing we got some information on was an incident

that happened late this evening into -- or late last evening into early this morning in polk county. that's just to our east in between tampa and orlando, the fact there was a county sheriff's sergeant and also a fire rescue paramedic, they became trapped inside one of the county vehicles as they were transporting an elderly person to lakeland regional medical center. they dropped off the patient. as they were returning back to duties, they encountered a fallen utility line and got trapped for a little while. both are said to be okay. they returned to work to assist in hurricane recovery efforts. one thing in hillsborough county, that's where tampa is located, they suspended any type of emergency service rescue during irma because they didn't. to put emergency personnel in harm's way. we know there were a lot of different municipalities and counties here in florida that had to do the very same thing because they didn't want to endanger people of their own staff to go get people that

hadn't evacuated under those mandatory evacuations. in hillsborough, they only did a partial -- they canceled emergency rescues to the east first and then to the west later on. they suspended them in full until the storm fully passes by. but, alex, what a difference several hours makes. irma is quite an historic storm for many, many reasons. the predictions and a lot of the worries for the catastrophic things that could have done for tampa and st. pete because they haven't had any hurricane experience in nearly 100 years, it seems to have been avoided with the major problems with this storm happening in the keys. and south of that when we consider cuba, st. thomas, tortola, the small island nations, far more devastating. when we consider what's going to show itself in the sunshine tomorrow with southwest florida

and cape coral and in ft. myers, naples, marco island, sanibel island, it will tell the story of how irma will be remembered. >> i want to ask you about the hillsborough river behind you. did you say earlier that that is a place that helped supply the drinking water in that area? if so, thomas, talk about debris. have you been able to see -- i know it's dark but with the waters rising, do you see debris in the water? alex, we haven't seen too much debris. there's debris along the sea wall here. you can see the different types of limbs and palm fronds. some seem to be hanging off dead on certain trees, you know, that they would naturally come off. but the high winds that were sustained in this area is definitely going to produce some

things in this river. now, this originally comes from the green swamp, which is a natural marshland, wetland here in florida. this has been part of the drinking water in the city they've been able to use for decades. absolutely they'll probably have issues they'll need to deal with but they should be able to control water flow out of this earlier today because the dam they have, because they were trying to predict the storm surge issue. >> thomas roberts, a dryer thomas roberts. not fully dry yet. probably have to wait for sunrise. thank you, thomas. well, elected officials are certainly working around the clock, trying to take care of all their constituents during this hurricane. florida state senator jose rodriguez is joining me now. he represents part of miami-dade county. thank you so much, sir, for joining me on the phone. let's talk about your biggest concerns as the storm has pretty much moved through your area, though. in terms of recovery, what are

you looking for? >> thank you very much. yeah, absolutely. in the wee hours the utility crews will be out there making sure the roads are safe for the next round, which is all the municipal and county crews going out and clear the roads. we were originally going to be in the eye -- thankfully not but we still had heavy wind and other event here. the big thing is to be able to clear the streets, try to get back to normal. there's about 207,000 electrical customers here. 164,000 of them do not have electricity, so roughly 80% or so don't have electricity. that's kind of the priority there right now in addition to making another round to all the shelters and making sure that everybody gets home and a lot of

shelters, a lot of our seniors, people who were not able to leaf and evacuate. definitely want to make rounds tomorrow morning to all the shelters as well. >> you mentioned the shelters, sir. for all those folks trying to get bang to their homes with a lack of power, what is the plan there? will be allowed to, advised to go back to their homes without power or can they stay in shelters? >> we're going to be making those assessments tomorrow. as soon as it's safe for people to move. i think that assessment will be made. the shelters are really just a physical shelter. there were really not places for people to stay, to stay away from the wind and dangerous events. i think the roadways are safe. as soon as the curfew is lifted, i'm sure that assessment will be made. miami-dade is a very big place so it will depend on where you

are. if you're watching and listening, definitely check in with the shelter manager on that question. >>. >> florida state senator jose rodriguez, thank you, sir. thank you for keeping an eye out for your constituents. joining me from miami, vaughn hilliard. you were struck by a tree up. couldn't get anywhere. that tree's still there. you're still stuck. what's it like there? >> reporter: we're still stuck here. the tree, like the last 24 hours, has not moved. we tried to get out of here yesterday morning. our hotel, which there are about 200 guests is behind us. this tree has blocked out everybody's ability to get out. we're actually in touch with the miami-dade county emergency rescue operation center who we were planning to go out with yesterday. the plan is to go out with them this morning. we told them, hey, you may need to pick us up because what happens here is we see the palm trees that have stayed up. on the other side of these trees is one of the many water inlets

miami sees. if you fly into miami, you'll see the water inlets scattered around the city. to give you perspective of where we are in miami, we're ten miles away from where the coast actually is. we're about two blocks away from miami international airport. yesterday morning when we realized we would be stuck by this tree, we didn't think we would get too much of the brunt of the water wind until the storm came in. 99-mile-per-hour winds, which led to these trees coming down. we are watching what is actually a lake over our right shoulder here. we saw -- it was waves that were being pushed on, going to land. you saw tires, tvs, debris from who knows where coming down that waterway. right now the sky, while it's still dark out, is pretty clear. we can see the moon. the winds died. there's a little sprinkle coming down but the water has returned to calm. there were 660,000 people under

mandatory evacuation in miami. over the next 24 to 48 hours, what people are coming back to, because we can't even get off the one roadway here. we were watching another car drive -- again, its 3:00 a.m. in the morning. he was on a main roadway past the airport and more downed trees, more flooding in the road. as we see these couple hundred thousand people try to return to miami, where, yes, it's not the extent of damage expected a couple days ago when the eye was directed directly here, but still a lot more damage than what we were thinking about 24, 36 hours ago when that storm started to move westward. >> can you tell me about the airport as well. you said it's a couple blocks away. know it's closed. when do they expect to reopen because there are thousands of flights that were cancel. >> we got word from the airport they're going to plan to open up a limited schedule starting this tuesday. five different terminals had

significant water damage, water leaks coming in from the jetway and roof. we got a couple photos of those overnight where you can see just water that has flooded parts of these terminals. tomorrow the airport is going to remain shut down. really, it's going to -- i think for people to return, i don't think the airport will be their best route over the next 24 hours. one other note is -- one other note, i want to throw your way. while we're talking about the airport and people trying to return home, they'll be returning home to most of their places without power. 85% of people in miami-dade county, 65% of people in broward county next door are without power. they are expected to take upwards of a week for most of that power addition. >> that's what i was talking with the state senator about, jose rodriguez, for folks in the area where you are, so many without power. do they go home to their places without power? do they stay? shelters? i guess all will have to be assessed by light of day ask figure out what to advise folks.

thank you very much. we'll see you again. all of you, stay with us for our special live coverage of hurricane irma. it will continue right after this break. we'll check back in on tampa.

welcome back, everyone. at 46 past the hour, let's go back to tampa. i'm joined by jamie of wtvj addition that's actually, maya rodriguez. there you are, jamie. we had a technical glitch there. good to see you. you know what, you look just like thomas roberts. you've peeled off your soaking wet layer. that's good. it's dry. or dryer. >> reporter: yeah. you know, i mean, it makes a difference because there's -- if i had my rain jacket on, i was cold. the wet shirt was cold. i have a dry shirt on. it feels nice to not be sweaty

and wet in the rain jacket. anyway, we decided to go ahead and leave the downtown area. we wanted to see what sort of damage we would see and any sort of issues. this is really what we've come across mostly in the areas we've gone to. basically, brush all over the place. obviously, there's a little flooding here from the rain, but really it's not that significant. at least not in this area. check it out. we do have an uprooted palm tree in this neighborhood. we drove up and down this neighborhood and noticed some homes are without power and some homes actually have power. one thing officials want to make sure that everybody across florida waking up this morning that has already been hit by irma, they should just not go outside just yet. they know everybody is cooped up and dying to go outside, but what they want everybody to do is hold tight a little longer. they have a process. they want to go through and make sure everything is safe for everybody to come out.

they'll go through and make sure there's no life-saving operations they have to complete. then they'll go and clear the debris to make sure the roads are clear and you can go out safely and nobody else gets harmed. they also said the eye passed over this area or skipped the area around 1:00 this morning. the wind has calmed down a bit. we'll go back to the river to see how that is going because the surge is still expected, although not expected as much. >> all advice from officials they want to stay inside. there could be serious debris, things like downed power lines. as you were driving from downtown, did you see anything of that? >> reporter: no. this is the most i've seen, to be honest. an uprooted tree and brush floating in a puddle of water.

that's just a short area. i'm not going to make it seem like that's representative. we haven't gone through all of tampa. i assume once day break and maybe we get choppers up, we'll have a better assessment. from what i've seen, it's a ten-minute drive from where we were downtown. this is the only uprooted tree i saw. we saw some brush in neighborhoods. we did notice a lot of homes were without power. and i think that may end up being one of the big stories also, is that people are -- don't have power. the question is, when will they have it back? >> that is a good question, for sure. with regard to the tampa bay area itself, the water there that was spilling over, i mean, how hectic did that get? are you worried about things like the debris, the branches and things like that. that may clog the sewer system and the drainage systems. >> yeah, for sure. i mean, from what i can tell, there was -- it didn't appear -- the bay is right here behind me across the street. from what i'm being told by residents, they didn't really

see much of a surge come over when this storm happened but, of course, they were also inside. we spoke to one man who didn't want to go on camera. he actually said he just fell asleep at some point. he had no idea, to be honest with you, that irma had taken another path inland. so, we actually broke to him the fact that the storm was gone. he actually thought that we were in the eye at this time. back to you. >> if you can sleep through it, good on you. wtvj's jamie, thank you. on a serious note. 4 million people are without power. that number could certainly go up. we'll have more of our special coverage of hurricane irma right after this break.

this is one of the pumps i wanted to show you. they're hoping this pump is attached to a generator, brian. over to my right-hand side.

it's connected to the sewer below us. they're hoping that the pumps can suck some of that water, kick it back into the ocean to avoid some flooding and some images we saw in texas with hurricane harvey. >> wow, she deserves a little extra in her paycheck, right? that was nbc's mariano in miami beach. hurricane irma may have dodged the biggest bullet but the city has taken a mighty hit. wind gust of almost 100 miles an hour battered the city and caused almost 900,000 power outages. the airport remains closed tomorrow. five terminals apparently are suffering from leaks like the ones you're seeing right there. let's go to phillip mena in miami. a lot different than it was a few hours ago. still, i see a stop sign that did not fare so well in this picture. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. this stop sign was chopped upside down by this massive tree

that was just split in half. you see by those hurricane-force winds you were talking about. this neighborhood has extensive damage. your earlier guest, state senator rodriguez, you were talking about public works, their big job right now is to clear these roads of debris. you see there are a lot of impassable roads like this one. in front there's another roadblock, you wouldn't get to this mess before you get on that. look at the size of this palm tree that just snapped over and fell over because of those winds. now, that is what they're talking about. the job is to clear these roads. this is just one road here in miami. we were not on the -- we were spared from the eye of the storm but not quite spared from the damage. there's a lot of work ahead too get everything back up and running after hurricane irma came through here. >> i'll tell you, that is a scene that's being repeated throughout miami. lots of downed trees in the area. real quick, power, i see it on in some houses. do you see it consistent throughout the street as you look down the road?

>> reporter: it's starting to pop up here and there. some houses do not have it. you see a light in the corner. we just saw some streetlights that popped up and are blinking and flashing. that just happened a few minutes ago. florida power and light is doing everything they can to get things back up and running. >> they are on it, so as are you. that's a wrap for me this hour. i'm alex witt. our special coverage of hurricane irma continues after a short break with my colleagues. stay with us here on msnbc.

. hey, good morning, everyone, it's monday, september 11th, this morning hurricane irma continues to bring flooding, high rain, winds, storm surges as it move north over florida. irma hits the florida keys early sunday morning before macing a second landfall or marco island yesterday afternoon, right now, nearly 5 million people are without electricity. in miami-dade county alone more than 860,000 people are in the dark. downtown miami swamped, even though the storm passed well west of the city. >> on florida's west coast,