♪ as long as office gossip travels fast, you can count on geico saving folks money. craig and sheila broke up! what!? fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. we are back as we begin the midnight hour here eastern time. high tide is arriving in segments on down the coast line of north and into south carolina. that's a live picture in wilmington, north carolina. remember, wilmington was in the path of virtually all the computer projections of this storm's path, and sadly those are probably all going to come true. it's going -- it's got miles to go before the storm in chief, before the eye of the storm gets there. but for more on this storm

strength, where it's going and how powerful it is, our meteorologist bill karins is here to start us off the top of the hour. hey, bill. >> good morning once again. what a long friday this is going to be. 24 hours of hurricanes-type gusts all the way through the wilmington area, moore head city area. we're getting the brunt of it right now. here's the center of the storm. we just had a new burst of thunderstorms on the western edge of the storm. you can see those bright thunderstorm bands, that's the heavy pry sip tags we're seeing with the radar beam shooting it. this is where some of the strongest winds will be and that's starting to creep into surf city. i'm sure if anyone's still in this area from surf city to wilmington, you're noticing that things are picking up. it's closing in on you and some of those stronger winds are arriving. we've been in it all day long in the moore head city area and he with continue in carter county. that's where 2003 continue to see some of the worst problems. let's go over here. i want to show you some of the current wind gusts we're dealing with. hatteras still gusts up to 60 the last hour. havaloch, we were in the 80 mile per hour rain.

camp lejeune is 67. now we're starting to push some of the stronger winds inland. wilmington up to 53. notice the buoys offshore. those wind gusts will move in. remember the sustained winds are estimated now at 90. we still could easily get gusts into 100, maybe even 110 mile an hour range. let's go back and also want to point out we get to the path we had about the 11:00 advisory and show you what we're dealing with. as far as the track goes, the 90 miles east, southeast of wilmington, that's the current location. 90 mile per hour winds. we're moving at 6 miles per hour. it hasn't stalled. we'll call it drifting at this point. it's going to continue on that drift to the west, and then it actually takes a southerly component and kind of almost parallels the coast. and then heads down towards myrtle beach. that's not until this time tomorrow night. we'll be talking about the storm being centered near myrtle

beach. that's 24 hours from now. by then it will be a tropical storm. but still the rainfall will be coming in bands off the ocean and the amount of rainfall that we're going to deal with here from fayetteville to wilmington all through northern portions of south carolina including the florence area here, and then eventually back even towards charlotte is going to be just amazing with all the heavy rain that's going to fall in this area. the storm surge, we're still waiting to see if these numbers are going to verify. we've already seen 10 foot storm surge in an area north of cape look out on the sound side of flooding. pimlico sound. we know the water air why in the new burn area, noose river, is up 8 feet since this morning which is ridiculous. we'll go through the high tide cycle tomorrow at about 11:00 a.m. and when the winds are coming out of the south, that's the best chance of those high surges piling up here from wrightsville beach. it shouldn't be quite as bad or quite as high.

there's your high tide times. we are past the thursday high tide time and starting to go towards low tide at about 6:00 a.m. this morning. finally, brian, the rainfall forecast on this, we've been talking all along that we could get some areas up to 20 inches. we may even see some things higher than that. we are having data issues. i know you did update, you mentioned the story what happens in the boston area. so everyone knows how it works, we get the weather data from a weather provider located outside of boston. they were near the explosions tonight and they were telling us that all of the stations across the country have had a weather data outage because of that explosion. now they're starting to get the data back in. that's why my computer had bugs. figure of all times. >> wow, the boston story. >> what a connection, because of that. that's why i'm having data issues, too. >> is the flood plane available or did that go south? >> no -- >> this is new burn, north carolina. importantly we were talking

about the television station where bill karins worked. but this is flooding thus far. you have an overlay in new burn? >> yes. okay, so the city of new burn actually sent this out on their twitter feed about two hours ago because you know, they're having one of the worst floods they've ever had. this is the noose river, what i call the before picture here. you can see where the border is of the noose river. this is the downtown area here where all the populated areas is, the sheraton, the marinas. the tv station i worked at that had to be evacuated was located up in this area. if you were to look at it on any map this is what they send out with the 100 year flood plain. the water comes in through the jack smith creek into the downtown area. this is near where the medical center is here. this is the trent river. it's pretty amazing how it has swollen up and swallowed portions. and since they sent this out, the river has gone up another

foot. so let me go back. you can go back and forth and see this is what it should be, and this is kind of what it looks like right now in new burn, north carolina where the destruction is. >> how many inches of precip are they supposed to get there? >> the airport was reporting 3 to 4 inches of rain. they easily could end up around 24 inches of rain. the problem is that the wind has been out of the northeast consistently. it is not allowing -- this map shows it a little bit here. and so this is the sound here. and then if you go up the noose river, you get to new burn. we actually have it better on this map here. so, the water typically will flow, you know, down the river. and it goes down towards havilock then the pemimlico sou. this has been piling water from the pimlico sound into the noose river. the river is not able to dump out like it normally does. then you get the rainfall on top of it.

we have water from the sound going this way. and the river which flows from the north coming down through the new bern area trying to get out and it's not. it's stopping. all it can do is tile up. it started at 2 feet. it's 10 feet now. the river basin goes here like this. 60 miles northward, that's 60 miles from the coast. some of that is because of back up, the wind, some because of storm surge. that's theish other y that's the issue right now. we had the mayor of moore head tell us, brian, that's where the issues are with the sound side flooding. >> i'll say this first of many times, we're going to get into next week. we're going to get into the workweek next week. it's going to feel like a normal week in america. we'll have water levels still rising, river flooding going on in north and south carolina. and people losing everything they have. >> we will have people on

tuesday and into wednesday on some of the rivers, the northeast cape fear is going to be one of them. we haven't talked about the issues in south carolina yet because it hasn't gotten there. but the p.d. riefr river is one that will peak almost into major flood stage until tuesday night, so this is a story that is going to impact that region for weeks. >> i want to show you nbc correspondent miguel almaguer. how have conditions changed there? >> a short time ago, a county official said hurricane force winds are now hitting the city of wilmington. i can tell you it certainly does feel as though the wind speed here is increasing as well as the lashing rain that is now blowing sideways. just in the last few minutes we saw several new bolts of lightning in the area. our hotel and much of the city has lost power. fortunately we have generators here at our hotel so the power has come back up. we know much of the city is in the dark. 160,000 people across this region are in the dark right

now. duke energy, the major power provider here, says upwards of 3 million people can lose power by tomorrow. the big concern here in the city of wilmington is going to be those tidal surges that we're expecting. adds bi as bill mentioned, 6 feet, 13 feet in some areas. there simply isn't anyplace for all of the water to go. they are expecting upwards of 4 feet of flooding in this area. they are certainly concerned about that. we also know there have been no water rescues in this area as of yet. that's good news in the brunt of this storm at theorist hour is hitting in the overnight hours. so most people are indoors. but fire officials say for now they're ready to respond, though, in just a few hours. they say it will be too dangerous for them to go out and venture out into neighborhoods. we know the winds are increasing, the rain is lashing in several directions.

the water is rising here. it's beginning to get choppy. conditions deteriorating by the minute. >> miguel almaguer, wilmington, north carolina. thanks. i suppose this speaks to wind speed. a lot of folks weren't able to get their boat out of the water a lot of folks are low in the pecking order. if you have a boston whaler with two out boards, it's your pride and joy, it's smaller than the guy who could afford to get his lifted out and in the dry dock. it's probably good news for the smaller vessel owners. >> yeah, and the lower the winds, the less wind damage. so if people were worried about the roofs, maybe there won't be as many roof repairs that are needed, things like that. there won't be as many small things blowing. there won't be as many gas station awnings. we're still going to get 100 mile per hour wind gust at the coast. wilmington, i think i was with you last night or the night

before, at one point we were saying 100 mile per hour sustained winds in wilmington gusts to 140. that was like 140, it was like, yeah, let's get out of town, leave. now we're saying wilmington area may be the highest gust, 100, 110 maybe. highest sustained winds more or less in the 60 to probably 80 mile per hour range. that's more doable. all dying trees will fall regardless, but at least the healthy ones should stay up. >> we're rooting for all the bay liners, goes without saying. cal perry continues to drive around wilmington, north carolina. cal, while you talk, i want to keep the radar up to show people how far the eye is away from you still. and this is a storm -- bill is talking about a storm moving 5 miles an hour. we've got nfl players that can run 20 to 22 miles per hour on a punt return. so that is really a meander. >> yeah, and when you talk

again, when you listen to bill karins, excuse me, talk about how long this storm is going to be over wilmington, you know, you're talking about damage from sustained winds. so when you hit those hurricane winds, which we've just hit in the last 5 or 10 minutes, you'll start to bring trees down, start to blow those branches around. the other key is, and we just heard this from carolina beach which is 15 miles to the south of where we are in wilmington, the authorities there have stopped emergency operations. once those winds get above 55 miles an hour, it's not safe to be out driving around. we will shut down at some point once it gets to 55, 60 miles an hour. as you said, 5 miles an hour, this storm walking down the coast, it's going to hit all of these beach communities that are separated by this inter coastal waterway. you have these barrier islands where many of our correspondents are sort of fanned out. if you get that storm surge, you get that water like we're talking about, it's going to flood anyway. it's the amount of time people

are going to have to wait for officials to get the power on. >> cal perry continues to drive around wilmington, north carolina. bill's point we can take that same shot this time tomorrow night, it's going to look remarkably similar except that there will be changes in wind direction. the precip is just not going to stop for a long, long time. tammy leitner continues storm watch on an otherwise dry but windy beach in myrtle beach, south carolina. so, still no precipitation. obviously the ocean is agitated in preparation for the arrival of this thing. >> that's right, brian. the conditions haven't begun to deteriorate here in myrtle beach. the wind is kicking up as you can tell i'm keeping a hold on my hat here. the waves are churning out here. you know, the strange thing about myrtle beach is that you

had a lot of time to prepare for this storm. it's been a bit of a ghost town here for the last few days. mandatory evacuation, as you know, in place. curfew in place from sun up to sundown, sundown to sun up. the town has basically been shutdown for the last few days. they ordered all of the businesses to close. they've all been boarded up. so the residents that have chosen to stay, you can tell that, you know, they're going a bit stir crazy because restaurants aren't open, stores aren't open and they're hunkered down waiting for this storm, this slow-moving storm that really has not gotten to myrtle beach yet. and just to remind people that are watching, again, the reason that they've urged people to evacuate, even though this has been downgraded to a category 1 storm, it still will be dangerous. the rains, the flood, the things that will follow once the hurricane comes through.

sorry, the wind is kicking up here, brian, as you can tell. it comes and it goes, but it's really been kicking up here since the shot started. i'm going to kick it back to you. >> okay. the wind has sand in it on the beach where you are. thank you very much, tammy leitner. as we mentioned, there is a network of buoys off the coast of the united states, and at least two of them tonight have shown gusts of -- north of 100 miles an hour. we've had some very high gusts inland as well. back to which having ton, north carolina we go, where weather channel meteorologist mike seidel is back on that pier. mike, how have you -- you've still got a ways to go. how many hours until the eye passes anywhere near wilmington? >> hey, brian. if you do the mathematics, moving northwest at 6 and being about 50 miles or so off the coast, we're thinking sometime about 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning. i can tell you i've seen a

couple storms in my coverage, 70 of these things, that defy the odds, they stop moving for a while. no guarantee. the bottom line is it's moving slow, it's lost its steering flow. the blocking ridge has go gone away. the impacts will be lasting. the surge on the coast, the battering waves, we had the mayor on earlier today, brian. he said they already lost a lot of sand and the core of engineers had just come in and pumped the beautiful beach behind me last winter. already day one ask they've lost a lot of sand. and then the inland rainfall, already some spots have had more than a foot of rain. we've got flash flood warnings up and down the coast. we had that tornado watch. because of the slow movement, brian, rainfall totals are going to be excessive. i mentioned last hour the record tropical cyclone, wettest one on record was floyd 19 years ago. that was 24 inches down in south port. we can top that one this time around.

that's not out of the question. >> mike, you mentioned the beaches. the erosion is the story we don't often concentrate on in the teeth of a hurricane, but it is absolutely awful. we've had dunes breached already. we've had people losing portions of their homes. and every time a beach gets scuttled there, that's, you know, that's a life of family memories so many americans are used to that yearly vacation on the beaches of north and south carolina. >> yeah, just like your beautiful jersey shore beaches. down here, folks come every summer, people live here and they look to coming back here every summer. but if the beach isn't here, that affects their memories and affects tourism overall. what we're hoping for is that the beaches aren't completely rearranged. and the natural process with the ocean, as we've seen this with

the nor'easters, brian, and with tropical systems, over time some of that sand will come back and the natural replenishment will kick in. but again, they pumped a lot of sand, lot of money spent every year by the corps up and down the beaches to keep them nice and wide. sometimes it all goes for naught especially when you have a system like this not moving, slowing down, battering the beaches. the waves running 15, 20, 25 footers and that's on top of the surge. what we call the wave run up. it just eats away at the beaches. that's going to be part of the story, along with the inland flood threat which could be catastrophic, and power outages now up to 164,000 customers in north carolina. those numbers are going to skyrocket. that's a guarantee, brian. >> all right. meteorologist mike seidel with the weather channel in wilmington, north carolina. we can't mention this enough, over 160,000 customers, not individuals, but customers,

households, think of it that way, already without power tonight. it's going to be a long time before their power is restored. we've got a lot of wind and rain coming their way over the next 24 to 48 hours. we're going to take another break. when we come back, how president trump injected himself into the politics of hurricanes earlier today. whoooo. tripadvisor makes finding your perfect hotel... relaxing. just enter your destination and dates. tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites

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welcome back to our continuing live coverage. hurricanes didn't used to have anything to do with politics. that era is over. as this hurricane roared its way toward the carolina coast line,

president trump is now at the center of a storm of his own making. here's how it all happened. this morning the president claimed the official death toll in puerto rico from hurricane maria, which numbered nearly 3,000, was doctored somehow to make him look bad. trump wrote on twitter, quote, 3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit puerto rico. when i left the island, after the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. as time went by it did not go up by much. then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3,000. this was done by the democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when i was successfully raising capital b, billions of capital d dollars to help rebuild puerto rico. if a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto

the list. bad politics. i love puerto rico. well, the mayor of san juan responded almost immediately with her own series of tweets writing, in part, quote, this is what denial following neglect looks like. mr. president, in the real world people died on your watch. your lack of respect is appalling. earlier on this network, the governor of puerto rico had a somewhat more measured reaction to the president's allegations. >> we need to show empathy. and, again, it's no time to play politics. it's time for results. it's time to show empathy for those that lost their lives. >> i want to bring on a guy that's been very patient with our storm coverage tonight. he would usually have top billing on our broadcast on a normal evening, and that's jeremy peters, political reporter for "the new york times." jeremy, while this probably didn't change a single republican mind in that building behind you, a lot of people

today did kind of reach their capacity for the new normal, a president who would say this about a death toll of americans on an american territory on the eve of landfall of a hurricane on the main land. >> exactly. a president, brian, who it seems at times has to be reminded that puerto rico is full of americans. everybody born there is an american citizen. but this is donald trump once again, not just showing an incapacity for empathy, but an inability to accept any type of responsibility, and an inability not to make everything about himself. i mean, it's worth noting how in that tweet the word "i" was so prominent. i mean, he again is unable to take responsibility for any failure on his watch because he

will never acknowledge that it's a failure. he still won't acknowledge he lost the popular vote. he said that's because people voted illegally. this is the same type of thing. democrats are doctoring a death toll to make him look bad. it's just really another example of the way that donald trump can never be wrong about anything. >> jeremy, there's another prong of this which you and i have discussed frequently, and you have covered frequently, and that is the air support the president enjoys from conservative media, including but not limited to fox news, where tonight lou dobbs was right there backing up the president's facts. >> i thought we were playing some sound there. that's absolutely right. i went and interviewed some folks today to try to gauge, is this really as bad as it feels

to me? like you, i had the same type of reaction. there is this new normal we're living in now where every outrageous act we say to ourselves, well, there's no way that president trump supporters will change their mind on this. and i tried. i tried reaching out to some people i know are very strong backers of the president, and they said, well, you know what? the media is trying to make him look bad. this is just another example of people trying to blame everything on trump. i will say while that is expected from his hardest core of hard core supporters, look at what happened in florida where you have rick scott, the governor who is running for senate, ron desantis, a republican who dressed his child up in a make america great onesy in ads, both said no, the president is wrong on this. i do think that in a state like florida where there are an awful lot of puerto ricans who were affected by hurricane maria, there is a puerto rican diaspora

now there that could help spring the election. this is a real liability for republic kantz. >> that last was on me. it sounded like i was going to play a cut from lou dobbs. >> long night. >> the burden also falls on you, people have seen a lot of kavanagh news and headlines all day. what is "the new york times" able to report tonight on the state of play in the kavanagh for supreme court nomination? >> i don't know that the news today of this incident from when he was in high school, that that will change any votes. i think you have to look at something that could be potentially more significant although i honestly can't say whether or not it will change her vote, the federation of

alaska natives who came out against kavanagh. lisa murkowski, this is a big swing for her. that's the reason she's in the senate in the first place. it tells a larger story here of the political pressure that certain interest groups are putting on these individual senators to change their minds. in the end, brian, i don't know that it does any good. i think this one has been baked in for a long time and i think that people will say, given this revelation today, something from his high school years that is just coming up now at the 11th hour, really, i don't know that that will work. you know, this is just another sign that anything can flip these votes. anything can toss a nomination, a confirmation like this into question at the last minute and you just never are assured of a safe bet with the supreme court

nomination. not today. >> jeremy peters, nice reference of the phrase "the 11th hour." always appreciate that, as we always appreciate the nights when we can have you on. thank you for being so patient with the news that's been breaking around us. jeremy peters of "the new york times" with us from our capitol hill studios. another break for us. the live coverage you can see behind us here continues right after this. i'm ken jacobus, i'm the owner of good start packaging. we distribute environmentally-friendly packaging for restaurants. and we've grown substantially. so i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. that's right, $36,000. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. my unlimited 2% cash back is more than just a perk, it's our healthcare. can i say it? what's in your wallet? ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers]

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we are back with the arrival on the coast of the carolinas of hurricane florence and this is going to take awhile. the good news, we're down to a category 1. the bad news, this still retains a lot of the moisture and characteristics in terms of storm surge of the category 3 and 4 that it once was. that means a huge challenge for localities on the water. one of whom is holding to talk with us. c.j. jordan is with us tonight, community indications director with the oem, the office of emergency management in onslo county, north carolina. onslo county for viewers who may not know is right on the water, and it has within its county borders a large community of well trained, highly motivated individuals known as camp lejeune. c.j., how are you holding up in your county tonight? >> we're doing the best we can, sir. we're monitoring everything to

make sure we can get all the details and see what we need to do to get our citizens back to normal. >> do you know anything about freshwater rescues that are taking place? have you had any individuals that have been in trouble thus far? >> not yet, sir, but we do have our team strategically staged in our county, our swift water dive team ready to respond when they are called upon. they are highly trained, very motivated to make sure they save the people in their community if they need to. >> how much storm surge have you heard about if you've had reports at all. >> we haven't heard any reports all all. currently we have wind speeds approaching 95 miles an hour. some damage is done to structural buildings, roofs

ripped off of homes and schools, downed trees striking homes and businesses. and now with all that wind, now we have huge reports of power outages. right now with the emergency operations command center in oslo county, we are dealing with our own problems with our internet connection being interrupted, so our i.t. is working very hard to get that restored so we can continue to monitor everything. >> well, we are sorry it's going to be a long night for you guys, and i'm afraid probably a long day tomorrow. and we'll be thinking about all of you in onslo county, north carolina. credi c.j. jordan has been kind enough to talk to us, office of emergency management. which brings us to our meteorologist. bill karins, this confirms the roofs blown off, he's reporting 90 mile an hour winds. >> major structural damage, that was the first we've heard of

that. i did see a picture, the pigly wiggly super market, i've seen pictures of that, downed trees in numerous places. oslo county is near surf city, a triangle look to it. let me come back out a little further here. further up the coast, this is where the inlet is that goes into camp lejeune. we go further up to the north here. >> look what you've done now. >> now i'm in too tight. >> camp lejeune is in the middle -- >> there's jackson. this area is the marine base down here. this is where they're seeing -- this is the actual western eye wall. this is the first time we're seeing the eye wall coming on shore. now, that's not the landfall. the landfall has to be the center of the storm. to get to the center of the storm, we have to get down here. i mean, this eye, this is actually fairly big. they can actually do a distance tracker on this, i believe. this is the western eye wall. this is obviously the brightest

red, where the strongest rain is. that's where the worst condilgss ar -- conditions are. the eye is 50 miles wide. we have to get the official record keeping that we're going to watch that. as this comes on shore, this do produce 90, 110 mile per hour wind gusts. that has its eyes now on the coast line near camp lejeune, the inlet there. also surf city, and shortly that will be arriving in wrightsville beach and carolina beach. what that arrives over wilmington, that will be your strongest winds you'll likely see with this storm as that pushes on through. and in the meantime, the northern portion of this is still over the top of carter county here and all the way back through the outer banks. it's not like that is ended. there's the wider view of the huge eye now that has developed with the storm. doesn't mean it's getting stronger. just means it's going take a long time. people are going to be in that eye for a while. if it's 50 miles wide, we do

have people in the eye 6, 7, 8 hours which is very, very unusual. here are current wind gusts. havilock 71. the band is getting close tore camp lejeune, 68 mile per hour wind. clinton and elizabeth town, we'll start getting a spreading of all of the power outages further inland. it won't be as isolated just to the coast. so as we go throughout the forecast these are some of the peek wind gusts we could continue. 85 new bern, 77, we've already had that. the areas with greatest potential loss of power, 100%, we sperkt to get that landfall, that's where we'll have it 60, 66 hours. it will be weaker as we go into central portions of north carolina and south carolina. we've had reports of 10 feet. as far as the surge high tides, friday at 11:46 looks like the

next one of greatest concern. if the storm stalls out enough, we may have to go through another one after that, just after midnight into saturday. and as far as our slosh model. this is our computer model that pretik predicts where we'll see the highest water levels. this has been very accurate. we heard two reports of water up to 10 feet. in the new bern area right here, a ferry location, we heard report of a 10 foot surge in that area, too. this computer model has been predicting it very well up to this point. we'll see what happens tomorrow, brian, the storm surge when we get it in there. the isolated totals still up to 40 inches possible. after we're done with the winds, the weekend tomorrow, this turns into a rain story and how long we're going to deal with the rains. we'll be showing you some of that coming up. i've got some computer simulations which show a future radar. and the new information just

came out like two hours ago. i just looped it for 36 hours. my jaw dropped because some of these areas that are okay now, won't be because of the amount of water that's going to fall from the sky. >> let's talk about winds. we toss off wind speeds around here pretty cavalierly. >> yes. >> people watch our coverage and they know that a cat-4, cat 5 can top out at astronomical wind speeds. you were just talking about wind speeds north of 80 miles an hour. humans lose their function to stand pretty early on. >> when you see a reporter tomorrow morning, kerry sanders may be one going through the wall eye, eye of the wall, when it's 80, 90, 100, they'll struggle. we don't put them out there -- when it gets above 100 for their own safety, because you can get projectile objects flying. i imagine we'll get a lot of pictures and vish walz come daybreak. >> all right.

meteorologist bill karins is with us for the duration. we're going to take another break. we'll be back with more of our live coverage right after this. here's a trip tip: when you search hotels on tripadvisor... enter your destination and the dates of your stay. tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to find the best deal on the right hotel for you. tripadvisor.

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the upside- i'm just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life storm surge can flood a home within minutes. at 3 feet, furniture, including the sofa, begins to float. at 5 feet, a bobbing refrigerator in the violent water can hit you in the head and knock you out. and at 8 plus feet, there's no air left in the room to breathe. >> that was correspondent kerry sanders in his hotel room down in north carolina prior to the storm's arrival today, trying to layout a lesson in storm surge. again, we kind of cavalierly toss out these figures. tonight the maximum storm surge on the map is 7 to 11 feet. that was 8. and you can see what it can do if you're on the first floor of any exposed structure.

we have been talking about wilmington, north carolina. wilmington will see the eye of this storm. it's still going to take awhile to get there, but it's been in the projected path of this storm for quite sometime. for his own set of reasons, our friend cal perry is out driving around wilmington, north carolina tonight. cal, what have you seen? >> yeah, so as we move north -- zach, go ahead and flip the picture, i'll turnoff the lights. as we move north toward surf city, it's really interesting just being able to drive 15 miles and go from winds that are sort of 25, 35 miles an hour to where we are now, obviously a very different picture than downtown wilmington. these winds are sometimes 50, 60 miles an hour. they're enough to take a very heavy suburban full of a lot of electronic equipment and just kind of slide it from lane to lane, brian. this is why the emergency vehicles are not out right now. as we move further north, you're getting to those hurricane

winds. they simply cannot operate out here. and again, compound that with a very, very slow storm, just kind of scraping down the coast, this is going to be an extended event. you know, normally when we're out here covering these hurricanes, brian, we'll do one shift and we get outside to see the damage, it's likely we'll be down for 12 hours, back out here tomorrow night, it's likely we'll have a similar looking picture. again, it's going to be the degradation, degrading of the buildings. we're out here 15 miles sort of north of that northern edge of wilmington. there's no lights, no power, it gets worse the further north you go, brian. >> cal perry driving around wilmington, north carolina where conditions are going to deteriorate as you start getting the eye wall of the storm in your vicinity. we are fortunate to be joined by telephone by amber parker who is

craven county emergency management. this is important because craven county is at the head end of the river where new bern is undergoing a lot of high water. and, amber, tell us about any rescues that are underway there. >> we've had numerous flood rescues today, and the calls continue to come in. we've had to send crews out to our fairfield harbor area, portions of new bern, the adams creek area, and township 7. we do have crews out there right now and they are working as hartd as they can to get there. >> we're looking at you on radar now. you're entering into another really torrential band of rain. >> yes, i did receive a call from the national weather service and they did alert me that in areas we have already

exceeded the levels of water we saw in hurricane irene and we are expecting more water to come in. >> do you have a percentage of people who decided to stay? and how much of new bern was under a mandatory evacuation? >> well, the mandatory evacuation was issued for all of craven county. and that was issued as a 2:00 p.m. on tuesday. i don't have a percentage of people who chose to evacuate. i do know we have 788 people as of 7:00 p.m. tonight in craven county shelters. and then we also have an inland shelter in sanford where we bust ours selves 107 individuals out to that shelter yesterday. >> no injuries, no fatalities i hope? >> i don't have any information on injuries and fatalities. at this time i have reports of road closures, trees that are down, and individuals calling

for assistance. >> amber parker, i know it's a busy night there. thank you so very much for joining us. this is important we're joined by meteorologist bill karins who lived and worked there. new bern is going to get all the water they can handle in this. >> yeah, it means something to say it's worse than irene. that was one of the benchmark storms. water levels higher than that, you're getting into territory people haven't seen. residents who lived there haven't seen water this high before. i was mentioning there were some reports there that the police station had to relocate to the hospital because it was a little further inland away from the water, a lot of issues. knowing there are 60 to 80 mile per hour winds right now, it's pouring rain as you showed on the radar, people saying rescue me, we have a lot of brave men and women brave rescuing them. it's probably not safe for

helicopters. it's people risking their own lives to save these people after they were under mandatory evacuations. >> always happens. >> this happens with all the storms. you know, it's hard because not everyone has the means. we've discussed this problem before, too. to evacuate. people have pets and they don't know where to go, where are they going to take their pets to the shelters and they don't have the financial means to do it. we get into situations like this where some areas turnout worse than what the forecast was calling for and now these people are in their homes in the middle of the night in the dark. water is increasing and getting higher. as we heard the mayor of moore head city say before, there are people on their roofs. we don't know how many people, how widespread that is, we know there's been at least reports. in happier times, in normal times, what a beautiful place new bern is. you can live there and enjoy a life on the water, enjoying the bay -- >> pepsi cola was founded there

in a pharmacy. i don't know if you knew that. >> beautiful place. >> it is surrounded by water. there's the noose river and there's also the trent river. and then they dump into the pimlico sound. and that's where all the problems have arose. in case you're joining our coverage, this was sent out by the city of new bern. they're saying this is approximately maybe 100 or a little worse than that flood levels. this is the noose river here, this is the trent river that dives down here and all the water is supposed to flow this way. this is the downtown area. this is what it looks like now, where all the water has moved in. the elevation in newborn, it does peak out at 20 to 30 feet, so there are areas that are fine. but right now we know we have the water that's at about 10, 10 1/2 feet. so there are many streets and homes everywhere here that is inundated with the water. and each of these blue dots are people requesting rescue. obviously right along the emdge

of the river. some of it flew into the creeks and backed up to the downtown area. as we mention, the new bern area located right in here in craven county, and you can see where the eye is. they're going through the northern half of the storm, which is the strong side of the storm which is the wet side of the storm. some of our computer modelling is keeping this east wind and heavy bands of rain at least 24 hours more. the worst the wind is, the worse the rain is, the longer it will take rescue crews to get in to get these people out. current wind gusts. in the dark, emergency crews, firemen, sheriffs rescue, we heard reports of marines with their swift water rescue teams, too. >> and one more question about rotation. the nice term you guys use for

finding what may be tornadic activity in these clouds. has that not been a factor tonight? >> we were under a tornado watch at 7:00 p.m. this morning. it expired 9:00 p.m. this evening. we had numerous confirmed tornadoes. tropical weather aren't like the ones you get in oklahoma or texas in the middle of spring season. there are some 30, 40 tornadoes, we dealt with that in florida in the 2004 season. any spiraling bands afternoon tomorrow will still be a risk. on the scale of concern, you know, it's pretty low. >> afternoon heating makes the risk higher just as it does through tornado alley. bill karins our meteorologist. thanks. again, if you're tuning in we're

about to enter another hour of live coverage. we'll, in fact, be going all night with the help of chris jansing who is going to take the next shift after we're done here. our storm has been downgraded to a 1, which speaks mostly to highest sustained winds, in this case not to the piling of water. the storm surge and the precipitation we are going to see from this storm, it's already happening. the low forward speed of this storm is a big problem. you see there in the animation, goes from a category 2 earlier tonight to a 1. and what you're seeing is the northern eye wall already coming up and over places that may be very familiar to a lot of our viewers. that is moore head city, surf city, wilmington, north carolina. the outer banks already received a lashing from this early on. that's a live picture of the

deum glass in north carolina. they are hours away from the worst of this weather and the rotation, the northwest quadrant of the storm where we're seeing the heaviest embedded thunderstorms. everyone is going to get more precipitation than they can handle. everyone in the path of this from north into south carolina a long duration weather event. we'll be covering and talking about flooding well into next week. another hour of coverage continues right after this. friends, colleagues,

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need a change of scenery? the kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. so you can be confident you're getting the best price. giddyup! kayak. search one and done. we are back. our live coverage continues. the 1:00 a.m. hour, coverage of what is now a category 1 storm, and that is florence as it churns its way basically from the north carolina coastline to the south carolina coastline. it is going to take its sweet time doing that. notice right there, center of the map, wilmington, north carolina, they are in one of those pretty steady yellow bands of precipitation. when we freeze the radar at the end of the scale, they are not in the heavy