let's go live now to ed rappaport, deputy director of the national hurricane center in south florida. >> good evening. this is a 5:00 p.m. eastern time update on hurricane florence. florence remains a dangerous hurricane closing in on the southeast coast. this hour, the center of the hurricane is looking less than 400 miles offshore approaching north carolina and south carolina. very dangerous hurricane, category 3 on the scale, winds of 120 miles per hour. don't think there will be much change in terms of intensity over the next day or two. likely to approach the coast late thursday into friday with winds near that strength. because of those wins, we are expecting a very high storm surge. as the center of the storm approached the coast, strong winds, pushing water ashore and it will mean a storm surge as high as 9 to 13 feet. along portions of the north carolina coast and up some of the rivers as well with somewhat lower values but still very dangerous all the way down into south carolina and up to the virginia border. there is a storm surge warning along the coast for life-threateni

let's go live to the deputy director and rep and rappaport. >> this is the 5:00 p.m. eastern update on florence. downgraded to a tropical storm, but the hazards have not been downgraded. strong winds, storms surge, and linda to the west of wilmington, north carolina, moving very slowly off towards west the general direction. going to continue now for the next couple of days and here's our forecast with the center at the x located midland. 24, 36, 48, that's where the center is forecast to be. very slow motion the next few days. that's what we've been saying for several days. because of that, we have a very serious rainfall threat and linda. we can take a look at what we've seen so far. this is a map to date from florence. we can see that there are a couple of pockets already down near wilmington and up near newberry, morehead city, up near 20 inches of rain. eastern carolina 5-10 inches, the rain is going to be spreading to the west, 2-3 inches as far as the west of lumberton north carolina. some of the rain is spreading into south carolina right now. the pattern will

at the national hurricane center, imad rappaport. >> martha: let's go now to fox's at rick leventhal is live in right field, and when you look at what ed rappaport is reporting there, it looks like that area could be the bull's-eye. >> yes and they know it. a lot of these no to of new homes are built over garage is on pilings but that would put water in the first floors above about the garages on most of these houses along the beach here. it's a beautiful night tonight, you can see folks coming out to take a look at the atlantic which is very calm. no rain today which is very hot earlier, it's cooled off quite a bit and obviously very calm before what could be a very destructive storm. and they've gotten a lot of rain over the past few weeks, the ground is saturated. 2-3 feet, maybe up to 4 feet of rain in some spots which will be dramatic, as you heard, catastrophic flooding. they have power crews staged already across the state, asking hundreds of thousands of customers that will be in the dark. there are mandatory evacuation orders in effect along the carolina coastline. lots of p

at the national hurricane center, i'm ed rappaport. >> martha: thanks to ed rappaport. let's go down to our reporters getting a direct hit from florence this hour. lillian ballard live in morehead city north carolina. just north of wilmington. lee linda, we've been watching you throughout the day. definitely picking up in the intensity you are. >> certainly is, martha. we are one of those people getting their hurricane/near hurricane gusts and it's picked up right there. it is hard to state -- if you are outside, you can turn your face into the wind, it gets pretty painful as it's now whipping across here. the island, atlantic beach, is beginning to get flooded. it's difficult to get across the bridge, very difficult for any kind of movement. you can see behind me a lot of the shingles starting to rip off the roofs. we drove through the town. there are a number of signs blowing around, power is out not only on the island but also back here on the mainland as well as we are getting another one of these gusts coming into the wind we are standing at is an impressive visual

rappaport, thank you so much. we appreciate your time. thank you for joining us here on cnn. >>> now i want to turn now to virginia national guard spokesman cotton perier. he joins us now via the phone. thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. the virginia national guard bringing up to 1,500 soldiers. even if virginia doesn't take a direct hit, heavy rain, flooding is going to remain a real threat to you. how extensive could this damage be there? >> well, there's still a lot of uncertainty as your experts were just talking about. there's a lot that we don't know. so the approach that we've taken is to try to get some capability spread across the commonwealth to work with our multi-agency partners. we've got terrific first responders in the commonwealth, but in situations like this, they need some extra help. so that's what the virginia national guard is able to do. >> so, cotton, in a storm of this magnitude, there's always the fear that people will not heed official warnings, that they're going to stay behind, stay in their ho

that's where ed rappaport, the center's deputy director, is standing by from miami. i imagine in your line of work there's always a concern. this storm in the last hour has been downgraded from a 3 to a 2. but tell the good folks watching that that refers mostly to wind speed. >> that's right. it's a little bit deceiving in terms of what we expect will actually wind up happening. sure, it's great news that the wind has come down a little bit. the problem, though, today is not only has the wind speed come down but the wind field itself has expanded. so in fact, if we take a look at a graphic here to show that, here's the coast of the carolinas with the warnings in place. here's the center of the hurricane. this is the size of the hurricane force winds. this is much larger than what we were looking at yesterday. here's the size of the tropical storm force winds. we're going to bring all of that towards the coast. the problem is that storm surge is dependent on two factors of the wind, the maximum intensity but also the size. so while the maximum intensity has come down

latest florence track where the spring and the deputy director of the national hurricane center, ed rappaportgood evening. >> good evening. >> shannon: what can you tell us now about coming out that she is inching closer, we have been watching for days, now the bands are arriving, what happens next? >> that's right. the center of the storm is located about 50 miles offshore but all the heavy bands that you just mentioned are coming ashore, and they've got a very strong winds associated with them. we've had three different reports of winds over 100 miles per hour. there was are flowing this way,d that is bringing the water to the shoreline and across the shore of creator that is a storm surge we have been worried about for several days now. here's a tide gauge that shows how the water level has risen over the past 12 to 24 hours. this particular gauge, it is now about six and a half feet above normal. in a major flood zone, and this isn't even the deepest that we've seen. we have one or part of a foot storm surge at the neuse river, just to the west of pamlico sound. >> shannon: there's been a

let's go live to the deputy director and rep and rappaport. >> this is the 5:00 p.m.pdate on florence. downgraded to a tropical storm, but the hazards have not been downgraded. stro w

let's go live now to ed rappaport, deputy director of the national hurricane center in south florida.vening. this is a 5:00 p.m. eastern time update on hurricane florence. florence remains a dangerous hurricane closing in on the southeast coast. this hour, the center of the hurricane is looking less

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at the national hurricane center, i'm ed rappaport. >> martha: residents have about 55 minutes to get out of where they are right now, or they're going to be stuck. the only bridge to some of those barrier islands in the mandatory evacuation zones closes at 8:00 p.m. this evening eastern time. you can see some of these people just getting out in the nick of time. steve harrigan joins us now, he has live in one of those barrier towns in north topsail beach tonight. how is it looking there? >> it's so deceptive because conditions right here where i am now just gorgeous. the sun is about to set, light waves come again on this wet beach. as you can see behind me, something is definitely wrong. all of the houses are boarded up with plywood and there is not a living soul on the beach. this town is almost completely empty, it feels like a ghost town. all day we saw people packing up their bags, filling up their cars getting ready to leave heading inland or heading to the north. for some of the people we spoke to it was scary and emotional process because at some of them told us there aren't

ed rappaport, we'll be thinking of you in the hours ahead and the forecasters at the national hurricaneter. thank you so very much for joining us live tonight. coming up, two decades ago he was a key figure during house impeachment hearings. we'll talk to former independent counsel ken starr about what's different now and what may not be. if you're waiting patiently for a liver transplant, it could cost you your life. it's time to get out of line with upmc. at upmc, living-donor transplants put you first. so you don't die waiting. upmc does more living-donor liver transplants than any other center in the nation. find out more and get out of line today. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it helps block six key inflammatory substances. most pills block one. flonase sensimist. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly