whether or not they'll help you if you need it. once it hits 50 miles an hour sustained winds, they are told we will not go out period, point blank and you are going to be on your own. george, one other thing to give you an idea of what's happening here in tampa and how they have never seen anything like this, again, category 3 storm last time one hit here was in 1921. mayor took quoting mike tyson in saying everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face, well we're about to get punched in the face and we will see what type of plan that tampa has because this is the worst case scenario for this bay area. >> t.j. thanks. the mayor is joining us by phone. thanks very much. you said it yourself, you have put all the plans in place. the big question is can it survive the storm? >> george, i never thought i would be quoting mike tyson but i think it's appropriate. we work all year round to prepare for this even though we

have taken a direct hit since over 90 years. we train hard. we practice hard. we practice during the week as if it were game day. i think we're ready but obviously until you get into this situation you're never going to know. i'm sure we'll find glitches, i'm sure there'll be things we can do better but right now i got hundreds of people ready to go help their fellow citizens. we're tampa strong george. >> tampa strong after it passes through but you have a warning out there right now, once the winds top 40 miles an hour your police, first responders will not go in those streets? >> we will not. i will not put those men and women at risk. folks, if they're in a situation they need to find shelter because we cannot come and get you if the winds are sustained at 40 miles per hour. it's just not going to happen. we'll come and get you as soon as the winds die down but in that period of time i've got to keep my officers and firefighters safe. >> so you have got the concern of wind.

you have got the concern of downed trees and power lines the concern of storm surge. it's all going to pass through several hours from now and a big job in the wake of all that. >> it is indeed. it is the biggest thing we have ever faced. this is not a situation that anybody would want to have to experience. but i think it will take the measure of this community. these are good people who are going to look after each other, rise to the occasion. they are going to survive. we're going to be okay. but we are going to get our glimpse of what the rath of mother nature looks like in a few hours. >> mayor buckhorn good luck with all that. thanks for joining us this morning. want to go to the red cross right now. jim is in miami with the red cross. jim, give us a sense of the numbers of people across the state that the red cross is sheltering. >> george, last night we had 127,000 people in combined

shelters. those are red cross and municipality shelters and 480 total shelters are open. >> and are those shelters -- do you have everything you need, the volunteers you need, the supplies you need? >> yeah. i was in a number of them yesterday and one was a pet friendly shelter. the people seemed positive. confident. we're taking very good care of them right now. >> you guys are coming out of harvey so much work done by the red cross. and the need was so great across houston. any lessons learned that you're applying in florida? >> well, you know, we have done such a great job i think in the county and state and the local municipalities together. we have coordinated our efforts. no one group can do it alone. when you work together great things can happen and that's been the case here in florida. >> what are your greatest needs? a lot of people at home, we

learned this during hurricane harvey, looking at this, their hearts go out to everybody and they're thinking about ways they can help. what's the best way? >> george, this brings out the absolute best in our people. but the best way to help right now would be to make a financial contribution to the american red cross and it's really easy to do. go online to redcross.org. or text the number irma to 90999 for an automatic $10 contribution. >> the red cross doing great work both in texas and florida. we'll be right back. >> announcer: "this week" with groerj steph brought to you by trivago.

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in miami. that's not the worst of it in the state. more than a million without power in florida as irma continues to move up the coast. want to talk to peter brown, a commander with the u.s. coast guard. commander brown, thank you for joining us. you are in orlando but staging a response for the entire region. >> that's correct, george. thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain how the entire coast guard not just my command in the 7th district is preparing for the storm. my command is normally located in miami but over the past few days we relocated our people and assets out of the storm's path, out of miami and the keys and tampa, st. pete area. and along with the rest of the coast guard we repositioned those assets outside of the storm's path in places in alabama, georgia, south carolina and north carolina. helicopters, boats, coast guard cutters and people across the country ready to respond to our top priority, saving lives and reopening the ports of south

florida. >> right now you're prepared to deploy across the region. you have already had to work on the situation in puerto rico and south. >> that's right. my district is also responsible for coast guard operations in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands and those response operation have been going on for several days. we have been able to reopen the ports in san juan and several others and working to get the ports in st. thomas and st. john open again. we have allowed ferry traffic to resume, a critical way to get emergency responders into those islands. >> and what a challenge to respond to harvey and now irma. >> well, many of the same assets and people who responded to harvey have now repositioned to be ready to respond to hurricane irma. although the storms are different and their threats are a bit different we'll take the lessons learned from our recent experience with hurricane harvey

and apply it to responding to hurricane irma. >> commander, do you have any sense of when you'll be able to start with the rescue recovery efforts down south in key west and later miami? >> that's a particular challenge for this storm. the size, the intensity and the track of hurricane irma threaten the entire state of florida and so our assets are primarily positioned out of the state now and we'll have to fly them, drive them the whole length of the state of florida to get to the keys. so our response won't be as fast as we would like but it remains my top priority. we also need to get back to our operational bases, our air station in miami, our air station in clearwater and our cutter home ports to return to operations for them. >> do you have everything you need? >> all the operational assets of the coast guard are positioned to respond to this and in addition, all of the support aspects of the coast guard,

extra people and extra logistical support have been made available and coordination with feema and the state of florida have been outstanding. >> we'll be right back. maria is an incredible mom. when it comes to helping her daughter, shopping for groceries, unclogging the sink, setting updentist appointments and planning birthday parties, nobody does it better. she's also in a rock band. look at her shred. but when it comes to mortgages, she's less confident. fortunately for maria, there's rocket mortgage by quicken loans. it's simple, so she can understand the details and be sure she's getting the right mortgage. apply simply. understand fully. mortgage confidently. (woman) there's a moment of truth.etes, and now with victoza®, a better moment of proof. victoza® lowers my a1c and blood sugar better than the leading branded pill, which didn't get me to my goal.

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if the estimates hold as they stand today, irma will be the most expensive storm in history. estimated at $200 billion in damage and when you couple that with hurricane harvey it's a one-two punch. hurricane harvey could be the second most costly in history. those assessments still coming in. that would put both of them more expensive than hurricane katrina. as we have been hearing in the field all day long, this is a highly dense, highly populated area where the storm's path is heading. so you have got 8 1/2 million properties in the path of this storm. you have millions of people now without power. you have gas outages. this is a kind of thing that's going to take a long time to clean up from. >> like the human cost, there is so high. what happens with the economy, you're taking money out of the economy but also rebuilding will pump it back up. >> exactly. in general what happens in a hurricane as you have the near

term long but the longer term gain but when you look at the storms back to back many believe you're going to wait to see rebound until early next year. there's been a big boom in a lot of the areas, especially along the west coast of florida, tampa, cape coral, ft. myers, a huge amount of new building and all is now in the risk. >> matt dowd, you were advising the white house during hurricane katrina. george bush pretty seamless team work between state workers and the local government. >> unfortunately the lessons always learned seem to be in the aftermath of tragedies and people forget after hurricane t katrina, hurricane rita came. mother nature isn't par san to

this. i think the biggest difference is the local leaders, state and local officials that show up in a much different way in a much more forewarned way and have an expectation that the federal government are respond. >> we saw president trump emphasizing his support for the site and local leaders. >> i think if you look at this and president trump has had difficulty, this is probably the best week of his presidency. he's shown up, been responsive. he's been there and come to the table with all the things he needs to do. i think you have to give president trump a very good grade in the mirdst and how he' responded to this. >> there's going to be a challenge for the entire political system. >> no one knows how the government will deal with this. it's going to be exceedingly costly and i think what the president did on the debt ceiling and the funding so far is the direction the american

public wants him to go. >> let's bring in craig who ran fema from 2009 to 2017. over saw the response to hurricane matthew and sand day. do you see the lessons learn from that experience being applied here? >> let's talk about the rebuilding. you the taxpayer are going to be paying for this. we need to make sure we don't build it back the way it was. we got to build it better, stronger, more resilient. this is our opportunity to get caught up on older construction and areas that haven't seen hurricanes like we saw in miami. we need to insist we build it back stronger. we cannot repeat this every time a storm hits. >> and as you point out, miami did do that after hurricane andrew in 1992. what does that mean not only for the rest of florida right now but also houston? what kind of different things do they need to do? >> build higher, build stronger. it isn't that we can't build but

too often we are oftentimes we're in the debate that it probably won't happen again, it's never that bad and we don't build the way we should be building and that puts a human toll for people that have nowhere safe to go, they have to leave their homes. but more importantly we continue to shift this risk to the taxpayers. we need to get ahead of this and build our homes and our communities stronger and more resilient. we're going to put a lot of federal dollars here. congress needs to insist we don't build it back to the old standards. >> seems like there's 24 more hours of danger ahead. your biggest worry? >> well, life threat here all the way across the state, high winds, tornados, flooding and storm surge and as they told you down in tampa, it's too late. get to your safe spot. stay there. this storm is going to cause a lot of damage over large areas. don't go out in this storm. stay home and then immediately after this storm, if you're safe check on your neighbors but

don't try to get out and drive around or leave your safe areas. it's very dangerous after the storm. in florida we have seen as many fatalities after the storm from accidents than we have from the storm itself. getting through the storm is step one. step two is the immediate aftermath and staying safe. let the emergency crews get in there and stabilize and remove the hazards before you try to get out. >> thanks very much. we want to go to fema he headquarte headquarters. david kerley is there. they have deployed fema across the region. >> reporter: they have. they have been busy. at this point here at the fee ma response center the question is where will they be sending the material. they're adjusting their plans. remember we thought miami was going to get hit hard. now it's looking like tampa/st. pete. but over the last few days trucks of material have been moving south. staged over the border of florida, georgia, alabama as well. utility trucks have been coming

from the north, south and west and closer to this area. as soon as the storm passes they can move in. now the state of florida has a lot of material and consumables already on site and ready to go. fema is the backup. they brought in and prepared more than 10 million liters of water, meals, tarps, everybody standing by. where is it going to have to go? which area is the hardest hit? they are watching the storm like the rest of us. >> and they are coming off hurricane harvey as well. what's moral like there? >> it's good. they talk about having to pull a lot of people out of houston into this area to try and help in florida as well. they do work shifts. they're working 12 on, 12 off. morale is good. i'm not going to say they aren't tired george. >> i bet they are. thanks very much. we'll be right back.

it was bad but now -- >> there you see the scene in miami. the rain coming down. the roads mostly empty although that car is out there right now. water now filling the streets. i'm back with ginger zee. again we're getting some sense of the magnitude of the rainfall. >> the magnitude of the rainfall already 7 inches in fort lauderdale reported and you can see the outer bands. the hefty lightning too. they bring rain in the one to two inch range per hour. we're going to get lots and lots of rain. just to give you an idea, we have gotten some of the gutss in, 94 the official at miami

international, 82 for fort lauderdale. 120 was recorded in the keys. those winds did come along with the eye wall that you can see with the lightning attached right there. that now moving north at nine miles per hour closing in quickly on naples. that's why we'll see in the next few hours the potential to make landfall between there and cape coral and ft. myers as it goes up the west coast, it will by tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. been around cedar key and monday 8:00 p.m. right along the alabama state line into georgia. that's what i'm talking about, the rainfall rates and the rainfall extending as far as north as atlanta. you can see six to even eight inches of rain in those metros. >> we're talking about a tropical storm. >> they'll come along with a significant amount of moisture and gusty winds. >> all across the southeast. thanks very much ginger. the wind already kicking up in ft. myers. tom llamas is there. >> reporter: george, yeah, the wind just really changed in the last 30 minutes.

it started to get so strong. the rain is whipping us in the face. you can see behind me that stop sign. i don't know how much longer it's going to last. you can see the wind line perfectly from east to west because of where we are. we're in front of the marina. let's take a look at the palm trees and you can see perfectly hurricane irma's winds are going east to west and blowing that palm tree like that. this is the strongest george that we have felt since i started talking to you at 6:00 this morning. it's just going to get worse and only starting here in ft. myers. we still have ten hours to go of brutal hurricane winds. we'll be out here for every second of it. >> we want to make sure you stay safe. we want to check in with amy robach in miami. we saw the winds have gotten so strong and the streets starting to fill. >> reporter: it's incredible, george. yes, the power of the winds just keep getting stronger and stronger and louder. we are hearing things flying. metal moving. i can hear the sounds of

clanking. you mentioned the flooding. it has gotten worse in the past hour. things like parking lots, roadways are completely under water right now as the rain whips along with these winds and then the winds come up and pull off of the water and throw more water in the air. it's dramatic right now. this is the worst it's been throughout the morning and seems like it's getting worse and we have the bands unrelenting. we used to have moments where it died down now we're in ferocious winds the entire time. no break. we still see some people walking out which is absolutely -- it is no condition for people to be taking pictures or take in the view of this or to say oh, wow i want to feel this wind, it is strong and powerful and we know it can be deadly, george. >> thank you amy. the worst danger yet to come. >> in the next ten hours, like

tom was saying he's feeling it now but will be feeling it for ten hours. this is the first season we have seen two category 4 landfalls, harvey and now irma in the united states. so this is now unprecedented season even though matt was making a great point earlier that you did have katrina, reeta and wilma. those warnings are up for a reason. look at the gust expected in naples at 112. ft. myers is at 56 and miami still in the 80s. it will be hours and hours of that washer like feeling. 105 in the middle of the state of oak choeb by and 66 orlando and 92 tampa. the flood watches extend all the way to north georgia. the extent and expansion of this storm does not stop at the peninsula of florida, southwest, south carolina and also eastern alabama in there. >> the region is so big, the region of destruction. >> a lot of times we talk about storms being a massive storm and i often say hold on guys, let's

hold on, it's relatively small. this is massive in size and in intensity. those things do not always come together but in irma's case it does. >> which is why we'll stay on this all day long. we'll take a minute break right now and then come back and expecting to hear from the governor of florida press conference in just a minute. you can follow the breaking news with our abc news app and we'll have continuing coverage all day long. a special edition of "world news tonight" with david muir and a special on this hurricane. so much destructive force. abc news will be with you every step of the way. test.

i'm nydia han along with gray hall. hurricane irma hit florida. the storm is being blamed for several deaths and the sunshine state and the damage is not done yet. we'll have a live report from naples, florida, where the category 4 hurricane is making its way right now. meteorologist chris sowers is tracking the storm in its path as it will continue to clobber florida throughout the day and overnight >> those stories and more next on action news.

♪ action news delaware valley's leading news program hurricane irma has made landfall in florida. as a category 4 storm. so far, throw people in florida have died and storm related incidents. hurricane irma was already being blamed for killing