al, was this squall line part of your forecast earlier tonight? >> oh, yes, yeah. we're just getting into this. >> this is the rain. >> wow. >> it's hitting me. wow. >> why don't you get under the overhang. >> this has turned very violent. the storm is about an hour and a half from florida as you mentioned. it is 200 miles wide, you're going to feel it everywhere. >> yeah, wow. i have to say, guys, this is the strongest. but i'm just going to take a knee for a second because it's kind of like exhausting to stand there for a little bit. >> nbc correspondents out there working very hard. good morning to all of you.

i'm richard lui in for phillip mena. >> i'm frances rivera. hurricane irma thrashing the gulf coast this morning. swallowing up the state, first made land fall in the florida keys. once again, up marco island, irma is now a category 1 and is expected to weaken to a tropical storm. it poses great danger with up to 85 mile per hour winds. here's naples being battered by those winds. tearing apart homes and scattering debris across flooded neighborhoods. and from sarasota here is a closer look at the disaster in action, ripping the roof off a building just one moment there of widespread destruction. in tampa, the hurricane snapped power lines and blew up transformers, bright explosions cutting through the dark night sky. official say the storm has knocked out power for more than 3 million people across the state and the chaos is only growing. >> while that is all happening the fort lauderdale police department arrest the 9 people for allegedly looting. the department is telling residence to stay home, warning

here going to prison over a pair of sneakers, a fairly bad life choice. then in miami, police have arrested 28 alleged looters there, and the county's mayor indefinitely extended the curfew from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. >> we will allow our crews to go ahead and assess the damage. we will allow emergency personnel to respond to calls. we'll allow our crews to go and start to clean up the debris and start to clean the roadways. >> many of those city streets are under water now. the roads turning into swollen rivers like that. and in the downtown area, at least two cranes collapsing while more reportedly toppled over elsewhere in the state. the air force is helping as well by delivering 300 doctors, nurses and paramedics to orlando via military plane. president trump approved a major disaster declaration for florida and said this earlier on sunday. >> the bad news is that this is some big monster.

but i think we're very well coordinated. we're going to florida very soon. we may have been a little bit lucky in that it went to the west and may not have been quite as dee struck stichtive. we're going in a few hours. no brand is better than the united states coast guard. fema and the entire group, fema has been incredible. so, now we'll see what happens. >> now for a look at how things are on the ground we have my colleague phillip mena standing by for us in miami. given what they were expecting, philip, it's not looking too bad from where you are right now. we even have street lights on behind you. >> reporter: yeah, miami was spared from the eye of the storm. but not necessarily completely spared from the damage. you mentioned those lights just came on. those are in the last few seconds here right before we came on air. they had been off all night. the powerful winds, the force of them, tearing down this traffic signal. look at that. that just dangling there. and in the wind when the winds are picking up a little earlier that was a scary sight.

we had to move away because you didn't know if that was going to fly off at any moment. down the street, you see some downed trees there. that is a concern as the curfew is lifted at 7:00 a.m. and the sun comes up and people are going to start to want to get back out on the road to assess the damage. you see the police officers behind me. they are blocking off a lot of roads because of the looting that you heard at the top of the show. they are trying to prevent that and only letting residents into those areas. and the other officers that are available they are using to assess these roads so they can get miami back up and running just as soon as possible. frances, richard? >> all right, philip, we'll check in with you a little later. thank you. >> thanks so much. standing by for us, by the way, meanwhile tampa florida, miami 6 correspondent jamie, the question here is as we look at what is happening in tampa, the storm is a little northeast of you, surge, storm surge, big worry right now. high tide is hitting you at this hour. >> reporter: yeah, that is going to be a big problem as the water from the gulf starts to make its

way into the river. but we decided to leave the downtown area to check out some neighborhoods to find some damage. by the way, the damage -- this is just a little bit of flooding from some rain. of course, we've got over here an up rooted palm tree. the first thing that officials say that people will need to be thinking about this morning all across florida, especially the areas that have already been hit by irma, is going outside to check the damage. officials say let them do that. in fact, they plan to do that at daylight. they have everything in place and a strategic way they do it to make sure they stay safe and residents stay safe. i know everybody is itching to get out of their homes to see what happened. but they're encouraging everybody to stay put. they have an operation. basically what they're going to do is assess the area and perform any sort of lifesaving operations that they may find along the way. also, then they'll go and clear debris, much like this, right here in this neighborhood. in this neighborhood some of the homes are without power. some of them have power.

so, there's intermittent power outages here and there along tampa in the areas that we have been in. they also said, of course, the eye passed over this area a little over -- after 1:00 today. so, right now what we've got is some winds. the rain is gone, but as you mentioned, we're still waiting for that surge. we'll probably head back over at some point to downtown where that is more likely to happen. by the way, this is an evacuation zone. difficult happen to talk to a es are denlt. he didn't want to go on camera. in fact, he said that he lost power and he just knocked out. he went to sleep and he had no idea that the eye had already passed. back to you guys in the studio. >> all right, jayme, thank you for the update there. want to go now south of tampa to ft. myers where nbc's kristen dahlgren is standing by there. you were saying when we last checked in with you, kristen, people are already up, didn't sleep at all, getting those chain saws powered up. >> reporter: right, those were county work crews. we went back and checked with them. they said there were a lot of

tree limbs down so they are going to be out cutting this morning. another guy that i talked to before the storm who was riding it out said he wanted to stay close. he didn't evacuate because he has a tree business and he knows just what the clean up is going to be like. so, we imagine he's going to be getting out. he had planned on heading to the beaches later on this morning. so, as we get first light here, then the damage assessment begins. even as the winds are still blowing here, people really anxious to get out and see just what the storm did to their properties, if they evacuated. and also to get power restored. florida power and light has millions of customers without power and so they staged to the north where the storm was and coming, those trucks are going to be caravanning in as soon as they can get them in safely to get power restored. here in lake county there's only about 25,000 power customers who have power this morning. so, still going to be a few difficult days potentially weeks ahead getting power restored.

>> all right. thank you so much, kristen dahlgren for that. now lets archipelago get over to nbc meteorologist bonnie schneider. we were mentioning a second ago storm surge is our big worry right now. the big thing is the latest advisory says probably about a third of what they had estimated before. >> it kpochl been a lot wor-- c been a lot worse for familiar pau. heavy rain for jacksonville, as well as orlando, florida. they're getting the brunt in the overnight period. plenty of heavy rain in coastal georgia. savannah is about to go from bad to worse with a lot of rain bands just now working their way to the north. the storm has picked up a little bit in terms of its movement. it is now moving to north, northwest at 15. but is it still has a ways to go. center circulation 20 miles west of lake land, category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds at 85 miles per hour. flood advisories posted for jacksonville because of all that heavy rain and a tornado watch including gainsville, florida up through brunswick, georgia. that will continue through the morning hours. let's take a look at the track. staying as as a category 1

likely through the morning, that could change. looking at the heavy rain coming into atlanta as far to the west as birmingham, alabama, it's incredible. we have a tropical storm warning for atlanta which is unusual to see these storms produce a lot of rain. but keep in mind, in past hurricanes i'm remembering back to hurricane irene when we saw all that inland flooding as far in as vermont. so, sometimes these storms can produce flooding that goes well inland from where the storm is. >> we know how the airport is. it issing? we're watching when it comes to atlanta and all that

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through florida. one correspondent who knows that well is our nbc's thomas roberts who has been at the heart of the storm in tampa, even dodging some tree branches earlier. not the, thoucase, though, righ now. tell us. >> reporter: definitely high winds. we've been out here pretty much the last 24 hours, before that over in miami dealing with the effects of irma as we've been trying to stay ahead of the storm and report accurately about the conditions that irma brought. a real wrath of this storm that will go down in history for what it's done to florida, the keys, and island nations before it. but if you look at the hillsboro river behind us, frances and richard, this has been a real wonder to watch because when we started observing it earlier today, it had receded considerably, and people had told us that they had never seen the rock and the beach and sand it demonstrated earlier.

water being pulled by irma and that was a big concern for the energy pouring back in to create a storm surge issue for tampa and st. pete, that area specifically, considering that we saw images, too, of tampa bay and the fact that all that water had been pulled out for energy resources for irma. this was a big rain producing event. this has also been a big wind producing event with certain gusts in this area, getting up to about 1900 miles per hour. to our south 140 miles per hour. at naples international airport. and you know there are over 4 million people that are without electricity, and they could be without electric and power for a long time to come. so, while it looks calm now, rich pardon a richard and frances, there is a lot of healing that needs to be done after irma. >> thomas roberts, thank you so much. we are worried about storm surge. that's normally 50% of the deaths after a hurricane like this. straight ahead, we're just hours from first sun up and assessing damage throughout the region. details straight ahead. stick with us. to move.

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i have never seen these big palm trees before, they actually have reinforcements installed to avoid this from happening. they completely gave way because conditions are worsening by the minute. >> nbc's maria there cataloging some of the damage that was happening, though, palm trees toppled over. let's head to florida where she was earlier. now we're going to mya rodriguez

who has been tracking the storm for us all weekend. the reports are there are some cranes that have fallen. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, richard. they're actually about two dozen cranes in the miami sky line, and two of those cranes, as we have heard, have actually fallen. that was the big concern down here in downtown because those cranes are meant to withstand winds up to 145 miles per hour. clearly we did not get that here during hurricane irma, and yet two of those cranes did collapse. so, there will be some soul searching as far as what to do with all of these cranes when storms come this way because, as you know, miami has had a huge building boom. you can just look here at the sky line here in miami and you can see this. most of this construction, by the way, is post-hurricane andrew from back in 1992. all of this built, some of it, within the last ten years or so. so, anyway, besides that, we're here in the brickell area of

downtown in the financial district. we have seen a massive reduction amount of storm surge flooding that we had here. good news, because, again, this area is about to undergo a massive clean up. we had that storm surge go down despite the fact, richard, that we had high tide at 12:30 this morning. >> 12:30. and in three hours sunrise and you'll get a really good glimpse of unfortunate, unfortunate damage there. maya rodriguez, thank you so much for that in miami. >> not just humans are going down or irma. animals have been affected by the hurricane. dogs were rescued and brought to new jersey where prospective owners lined up to give them a new forever home. back in florida, the water receded in tamme fa bay as irma hit the state. dogs were seen enjoying themselves in a newly dry ground. but the dpe no, ma'am nphenomen some trouble. a manatee was stranded. they dragged it to deeper water. and in tampa bush gardens, zoo

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in just a little bit. but some other news we are also watching here on nbc, it's been ten months since donald trump was elected the nation's 45th president. but hillary clinton recalls the presidential race like it was just yesterday. opening up for the first time in a wide ranging interview as she pointed to russia, her own miss givings for the loss and in addition she was discussing her much talked about debate. >> wait a minute, while i'm answering questions, my mind is going, okay, do i keep my composure, do i act like a president? >> what he said was extremely unwise. >> or do i wheel around and say, get out of my space. back up, you creep. >> is your political career over? >> yes, as an active politician it's over. >> you will never be a candidate -- >> no, i am done with being a candidate, but i am not done with politics. >> now to pope francis who wrapped up his trip to colombia.

he did so sporting a black eye, the result of a minor accident when his vehicle stopped short in a crowd of well-wishers. he lost his balance and ultimately slammed his head. the pope continued with his event as if without incident. >> he's a tough guy, though. no problem for him. today marks the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. the first since president trump took office. the president and first lady melania trump are scheduled to lead a moment of silence at the white house this morning and head to a ceremony taking place at the pentagon. vice-president pence will be in shanksville pennsylvania where one of the high-jacked planes was taken down. >> just ahead, the latest on irma's track as it heads north where atlanta, what a rare tropical storm watch there for them. you're watching "early today." ♪

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path of destruction. hurricane irma rips through florida leaving roofs flying and leaving millions in the dark. local groups are step information to help. remembering september 11th. today thousands across our area will pause to remember those who lost their lives on that fateful day in 2001. and remembering rollie. players, family, and friends come together to remember the legendary villanova coach. a lot to. good morning, this is nbc10. i'm tracy davidson. >> i'm vai sikahema. we'll get to the most accurate forecast in town. the eye of the storm of irma

which has fallen apart a bit is near tampa. the motion moving northwest. now we have to worry about heavy rain bands extending from orlando all the way through jacksonville and into parts of georgia. that heavy rain is going to continue to move up through georgia and parts of the carolinas, even alabama as we go through today and into tomorrow. the good news is the worst of the wind and rains is starting to exit tampa. they actually weren't hit as hard as they could have been because there was slight movement to the east. take a little closer look here, now they have worry about the backside winds starting to wrap around and bring storm surge to the area. because the eye wasn't as close as it could have been, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. still heavy rain and damage expected throughout the area. our radar and satellite, clear conditions still on the board. as we go through today, we'll see scattered clouds increasing into the afternoon.

we're starting cool, upper 40s and 50s later today. not looking bad at all. we'll talk about the forecast neighborhood by neighborhood for your monday coming up. right now to traffic with jessica boyington. we're starting on 95 this morning. our cameras around the betsy ross bridge. last week we had a construction project southbound. now looks good. all lanes getting by in both directions. also watching the p.a. turnpike, the drive times here look good, too. westbound and eastbound, 22 minutes. right on schedule, right where it's supposed to be, route 1 to valley forge with average speeds into the mid 60s, even on the eastbound side. mass transit, no problems or delays reported. for septa, new jersey transit, amtrak, and the patco so far. back to you. getting back to the weather. look at the impact of hurricane irma. this is video from marco island,