these are live pictures coming to us from atlantic beach. power cuts in 400,000 homes. resort town in maryland, virginia and new jersey are turning into ghost towns. more than 42,000 people in southeast virginia have lost power. in new york city officials are shutting down the mass transit system one hour from now. it serves 15 million people over 5,000 square miles, the largest transportation network of its time. it will shut down for the first time in my lifetime here in an hour. city ordering 400,000 people in the five burroughs was new york city to evacuate. live look in dc, no politicians are left. they have a camera there and federal emergency management folks to keep us safe will be offering a briefing. we'll hear the latest from fema. first the fox extreme weather center and chief meteorologist rick wright, it is charting a course and appears to follow it. >> it makes it easier when the models are in good agreement for a number of days, you can feel good about it it is on within 20 miles one direction or the other and you don't see that often. we feel good about

kerry sanders joins us from atlantic beach, north carolina, where hurricane irene is expected to hit around 8:00 a.m. this morning. kerry, i see that you've lost power out there. >> reporter: yeah. that was predictable. the tropical force winds took the power out pretty quickly here. we've had some very strong gusts already. right now you caught me in a lull which i'm thankful for. some of those gusts about 45 miles per hour. if there is going to be any good news here, you can kind of see behind me the water and there's a pier behind me, some of the waves are already crashing over the end of that pier. but the good news would be that the tide is out as the storm is coming in. and so, it's summertime, we have the strongest tides. and so here we have the tide on the way out meaning when the storm surge comes in, it won't have the doubler effect of having that tidal surge on top of the storm surge. the police have been patrolling throughout the night the area. just before the sun went down, there were some folks who had ignored the mandatory evacuation orders here. and actually gone int

that's where john zarrella is with us from atlantic beach. hn, what time is it expected to come there. what kind of preparations have they been making? >> 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, anderson. if the eye crosses us here, that's the time the center of the storm is expected to get here. so just after first light. preparations, not a lot of people have put up shutters or boarded up. we did see some. most of the people here, at least a good percentage of them did decide to leave. others said they were going to go ahead and stay. mandatory evacuation. they can't force you to leave. police are patrolling all up and down here. shelters are open, just over in morehead city. salvation army serving meals there. one thing to point out as we see the wind picking up and we've gone through heavier wind and rain now. it continues to get heavier and heavier all the time. inland flooding is what kills more people than hurricanes than storm surge these days. so we're seeing already ground saturated here. a lot of runoff already beginning. and, you know, as i wa

that's where john zarrella is with us from atlantic beach. o come there. what kind of preparations have they been making? >> 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, anderson. if the eye crosses us here, that's the time the center of the storm is expected to get here. so just after first light. preparations, not a lot of people have put up shutters or boarded up. we did see some. most of the people here, at least a good percentage of them did decide to leave. others said they were going to go ahead and stay. mandatory evacuation. they can't force you to leave. police are patrolling all up and down here. shelters are open, just over in admoni morehead city. salvation army serving meals there. one thing to point out as we see the wind picking up and we've gone through heavier wind and rain now. it continues to get heavier and heavier all the time. inland flooding is what kills more people than hurricanes than storm surge these days. so we're seeing already ground saturated here. a lot of runoff already beginning. and, you know, as i was saying earlier, we go

john zarrella joins us again tonight from atlantic beach.lot of concern there about the impact of this. it looks like that band that chad myers talked about a short time ago, it looks like the rain is maybe getting stronger there right now, john. >> reporter: yeah, anderson, it's not that sideways driving, pelting rain that feels like sand when it hits you in the face. but it did entense fire a few minutes ago. it's picking up again. you might be able to see. the ground is already pretty saturated here in a lot of these low-lying areas. so one of the big concerns you talk about 20 north carolina counties, a lot of those are counties that are inland, not right on the coast. that's because of all the rainfall.

new pictures into us from atlantic beach, north carolina. our correspondents talking about the flood thering on the streets. we've had kerry sanders right there, and that's exactly what he was talking about. these pictures, thanks to his crew. of course, hurricane irene is now pounding the north carolina coast. two major highways there have been shut down. more than 100,000 customers are already without power. joining me now, north carolina governor bev perdue. with a good morning to you, madam governor, we have been all over your state here at nbc. we've had lee looks at atlantic beach, nags head, kill devil hills. you have the dubious honor of having taken aboard the landfall nearly an hour ago. how are things going right now in your estimation? >>. >> well, we're in the full onslaught of the storm, as you know, and our state is known as hurricane alley, so we are very respectful of irene. she's hitting us with 70, 90 miles an hour wind, and we are most concerned after the eye moved on out. the eye is still over cape lookout. we have a cou

he too is on the north carolina coast coming to us from atlantic beach.ook a little milder as time goes on with you, john. >> a little bit. we're still getting gusty winds, probably close to tropical storm force here, still at this time. we're in a neighborhood here on the -- the sound side, the vogue sound side. what you can see here, fredricka, is all this debris that littered. this is somebody's dock, part of somebody's dock, just washed ashore here. here is a piece of wood. i'll do the right thing and turn it over because it has a nail sticking out. and a lot of times after storms, people end up with nails in their feet because of just such a thing. atlantic ocean is to the south over there. they have the storm surge first from the atlantic side as irene was coming at us. we saw a lot of debris piled up along the shoreline there. when the wind changed direction, the boeing side came out of its banks and where i'm standing here was under a foot, a foot and a half, two feet of water. all of this debris washed up from the bogue sound. another piece of so

nbc's carey sanders is with us from atlantic beach, north carolina, tonight. carey, good evening. >> reporter: well, good evening. you know, it's mostly empty here now. the mandatory evacuation order went in for coastal north carolina and the veterans, as they left, were sharing some advice with their neighbors to the north who have never been through this. it's exhausting, but why bring in the chairs, that potted plant or the umbrella? >> this is flying debris. this is one of the most dangerous aspects of a hurricane. >> reporter: liz arnold and her buddy mary catherine benson grew up with the yearly hurricane menace. what do you tell people who are scared? >> you should be scared but you need a plan. get ready to get out. putting up shutters only works if you put those on every single window in your house. the reason you're doing it is to prevent the wind from rushing in and potentially taking your roof off. if you haven't covered every window, then it's very possible that's where those hurricane-force winds will enner. >> got to get out of here. >> get fwas

kerry sanders joins us live from atlantic beach, north carolina. kerry? >> reporter: i'm actually standing in the water here for a reason. as you know, a hurricane gets its strength from the warmth in the ocean. the atlantic waters here are 80 degrees or warmer. which means there's a lot of fuel for that energy that hurricane irene is now on open waters. so there's a real concern not only of the path it's going to take but how strong this hurricane will get. here in atlantic beach you can see there's still some people at the beach. it's mostly empty as compared to yesterday. that's because tourists have been told time to leave, time to get out. it appears they're beginning to understand that vacations are being cut short. residents will begin leaving tomorrow. the idea is to get their homes prepared and get their supplies to leave. the big concern from the red cross, from the emergency managers local, from the state, and even from fema is that people have something very simple. it's a four-letter word -- plan. have a plan. they want people to make sure th

he joins us now from atlantic beach, north carolina.would you do if you were along the east coast looking at what we saw from chad meyers. what would you be thinking about and what's the first thing you do to prioritize it? >> well, the first thing you have to do is you have to go out and make sure you have water for four days it for each member of your family. you have to make sure you have a medical kit handy and make sure you have medicines that you might need bagged up and ready to go in case you have to evacuate. you have to have an evacuation plan and know where you are going to go and what roads you will take and make sure they are not under water by the time you make the decision. if you do decide to leave or are told by the emergency managers to leave, don't wait. here on atlantic beach, we are -- you can see one of the things they have done. they started to board up. they boarded up most of the entire building except the front door. one other building across the street here. you can see they are all boarded up. the cameraman,

impact we saw about two miles from here. >> john zarrella for us in atlantic beach, north carolina, thanke again. about 10 minutes past the hour. we're expecting in the next ten minutes to hear from the new york city mayor michael bloomberg about the preps in a city not used ed td to preparea hurricane. they're preparing now because the projection look like it could go right through new york. that will happen about 9:20 eastern time. >>> first let's talk about the federal response. federal officials have been urging people to listen and get out of the way of this storm. joined by homeland security secretary janet napolitano. i know you're a busy woman this morning. we appreciate your time. do you have any updates about what's happening in north carolina as far as power outages or any damage reports coming in to you? >> those will come in to us, and i expect to speak with the north carolina governor, governor purdue, very shortly. but the storm has made landfall. it it is a category 1, which is above 79-mile-per-hour. it is now beginning to move up the atlantic seaboard as has been predict

us ireports today. we got this from our own kim siegel. this is from atlantic beach. telling you more about it next hour, but you can see a lot of flooding in the streets and the impact it is having. and we're seeing similar images coming in from elsewhere as well. let's do this now. i want you to see this video. take a look. >> there went the roof of something. >> "there went the roof of something," he just said. that's part of a roof blowing off. that's in myrtle beach, south carolina. this is from travis campbell, who's staying there at a resort, and saw part of a roof over a swimming pool just blow away. and before we hit the top of the hour here, i want to go to one more video. take a look at this. this is from a hospital that was evacuating and here's what i want you to see this. we were just hearing from mayor michael bloomberg minutes ago during our hour here on cnn. he was talking about areas of the city that are being evacuated. well, i spoke with this hospital, peniul

. >> what's happening there, this came to us from jeremy michael early this morning. there's a docked in atlantic beachna. he's a student at unc asheville. he said someone had a rather large boat that was tied down and appeared to be riding out the storm. he said he was amazed to see how strong the wind felt. i want to emphasize to our viewers, we are sharing your ireports. do not go to any danger ever to take videos to get them to cnn. we vet these things first to make sure the people who took them were not denying evacuation orders and certainly were not putting themselves or anyone else in danger by getting these. if you are in a position to safely get videos,

us. jennifer davis filed this report from the coastal sfi. >> waves crashing into this pier in atlantic beach. it was some of the first signs that irene is just around the corner. earlier in the day it was still sunny, and many people took advantage of the clear skies to prepare for the powerful storm's arrival. ray jordan was one of the many people pulling their boats from the nearby marina. >> there are two boats in there and the owners were getting them out. they said they won't be there in an hour or so. >> much of the area was boarded up and emptied out. but folks left messages. one list smeftd storms that struck north carolina in recent years. they say you have to dig deep into history to find a storm similar to irene. >> you have to go to september of 1960, hurricane donna striking this beach as a hurricane 3 to find a storm of comparable size and intensity. >> that's why a lot of locals say they paid attention to evacuation orders. >> i remember my parents talking about hazel in 1954. you never know. i said it is better to be safe. >> those that can't afford to stay at hotels have thr

atlantic beach, morehead city over the bridge. power outages on and off. a tornado here also not far from us. (inaudible).he storms move up south of town. can you hear me? >> we can barely make out what you're saying. and we understand why. because of the weather situation. you hang tight there. we're going to come back to you, john zarrella. to our viewers, i know you couldn't make out too well what you're saying and you hear about every other word, every third or fourth word. still, we wanted to stick with that. still, that puts you there and it gives you perspective of what they are up against right now, how the rain is coming down, the wind is whipping around. even if you can't make out what he's saying, you certainly get an idea where he is now. our brian todd, let's try him now, in wilmington, north carolina. see if we can hear you a little better. brian, how do things look? >> well, t.j., here the last couple hours as well, it's going through a little more dicey section of the storm than we are. but this is intensifying here. we just got an update that 14,000 local customers are without power. obvi

coming down herere the atlantic is now entering what used to be a beach, about 300 yards of beach was claimed. winds continue to be powerful. hundreds of thousands have evacuated from the area. a few die-hards have remained. officials say they have to hunker down. there's a no drinking water order. electricity is down for many and thousands without electricity and officials say don't go anywhere. stay put. do not try to get out in the storm. certainly not try to look at the waves or what's going on out here. >> 70, 80-mile-an-hour winds, give us a sense of what it feels like. it looks like you're barely able to stand up there. >> reporter: it's a little difficult to stand up and we have two guys holding up the camera so there are challenges. the water chipping at your face doesn't teal all that great but we've stood through it but we're having windows taped up, roof tiles are coming down and everything -- not a very powerful category 2 is here but this could cause a lot of damage, a lot of flooding and it could be a while before folks can get out of this here. >> we want to make sure you and the crew stay safe as well. we appreciate your reporting, matt gutman. >>

from atlantic beach. john, what time is it expected to come there? what kind of preparations have they been making? >> 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, anderson. if the eye crosses us here, that's the time the center of the storm is expected to get here. so just after first light. preparations they have taken. not a lot of people who have put up shutters or boarded up. we did see some. most of the people here, at least a good percentage of them, did decide to leave. others said they would go ahead and stay. mandatory evacuation. that means they still can't force you to leave but sit a mandatory evacuation. shelters are open just over in morehead city over the bridge. three that we know of. salvation army serving meals there. anderson, one thing as we see the wind picking up, we have gone through heavier wind and rain now. it gets heavier and heavier all the time. inland flooding is what kills more people in hurricanes than storm surge these days. we're seeing already grounds saturated here. a lot of runoff already beginning. and, you know, as i was saying earlier, we've got the atlantic ocean to the south here and the sound to the north there. but we did have storm

this is atlantic beach, and it's a rare beach -- this is south. the storm is coming at us fromay to the east is, you know, and a little to the north, it would be the outer banks. the storm could come up by us, and you can see what they have done. they put up the 2 x 4s, these barriers, and it's 150 yards to the beach, but all the wave action could very well traverse 150 yards, come here and overwash the area. you can see they sandbagged down here, and they have got the shutters, the plywood shutters put up, and they did not do the doors because it's double paned and they told everybody to get out, and now is the time to get out, we don't want you here longer, and they will not tolerate people on the street or vehicles moving. again, fredricka, we're beginning to feel the first affects from the outer bands of the storm. you can see up here some of the clouds, and you see the thunderstorms and the cloud bands starting to rotate around us here, as the storm approaches and getting closer and closer. we expect tropical storm force winds certainly by tonight and hurricane force winds

from the ocean. >> i'm not going nowhere, unless i see an 80-feet wave coming. >> eventually even if it's not this one, it will be one someday. >> nbc's kerry sanders is live for us in atlantic beach, north carolina. we're seeing some people there obviously getting the last minutes out of their vacation, but people are paying attention or not? >> reporter: people are paying attention. it's mostly deserted today. i kicked my shoes off for a reason, to walk down to the water. that hurricane irene, as it's churning out there in the open water, well, this temperature here, it's 80 degrees. this is very warm water. in fact at some point even warmer than 80 degrees. that's the energy, the fuel for the hurricane that makes it powerful. unfortunately the waters here are not that cold. i'm thinking, about the folks who are further north and are wondering what to do. first of all, don't get duct tape and put it across your window in an x. that does absolutely nothing. some wives' tale about how it keeps a window from falling in, that's not going to happen. second of all, as this hurricane is approaching where you live, you went out and bought water, you filled up bottles, you put them in yo

us in ireport form this morning. maybe we don't have the video. but we've been getting video from our own people on the ground as well. i think we have a video out of atlantic beach, north carolina, that i wanted to show you. that is one of the places in which we've had the most dramatic video this morning. look at that. look at the gushing throughout the streets. i'll tell you, our own people spread out throughout the country are getting us some amazing imagery this morning. i want to encourage everyone, if you are in a position to safely, safely take pictures and video, which our staffer was, then go ahead and share it with us at ireport on our main page at cnn.com. we have a lot more coming up. and we'll show it to you as it comes. >> thanks so much, josh. see you throughout the hour. we're in a new hour right now. 1:00 eastern time. i'm fredricka whitfield at the cnn world headquarters in atlanta. hurricane irene is ashore, particularly on the north carolina coast. as many as 65 million people all along the eastern seaboard are going to be impacted in some way, shape or form by irene. and many people are already trying to find shelter where they can. take a l

from there. here's what i built for us. for forecast wind speeds, tropical storm in the green, hurricane in the yellow. hurricane force winds around the center of the eye. and atlantic beach by 7:00 tomorrow morning. that is 7:00 a.m. saturday. you need to be obviously out of there before that if you're going to do that. virginia beach, 7:00 p.m. or so tomorrow night, with the closest approach to the eye right there. that will push water from hampton roads into chesapeake. a little bit of a surge possible and flooding into virginia beach. if you're flooded with a small tropical storm, it's now forecast to be a very minimal hurricane. a very strong tropical storm as it moves into new york city. that comes in on sunday, sunday morning. 10:00 a.m., right over long island. and then one more stop for you. the closest approach to boston will be 3:00 p.m. we do know -- almost 46 million people, joe, will experience 50-mile-an-hour wind or greater with this storm. >> we really haven't seen that much change of a track in the last 12 hours. >> the track has stayed the same. the intensity of the storm has come down a lit bit. the storm has a little bit of air, dry air. you don't see

from atlantic beach in north carolina. thank you very much. mr. kilmeade, over to you. >> all right, steve. promises, promises. remember when a health care plan coming our way was supposed to save usoney? >> our cost cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current set-up bill that reduces most people's premiums and brings down our deficit by up to a trillion dollars over the next two decades. brings down our deficit. >> turns out the diagnosis was wrong but originally stated correctly. it could add to america's deficit disorder by well over $1 trillion. let's ask douglas about that, a former director of the cbo, the congressional budget office. douglas, why are we $1 trillion off? >> the biggest reason is we ignored the incentives in the new law and the incentives are for employers and employees to agree that they should give up their private insurance and go collect the government subsidies. that's great for the employer. they don't have to pay for the insurance. turns out it's great for the employee. they get a raise and they still have insurance. bad news is the taxpayers are picking up the bill so it's a very expensesive proposition. >> now, we knew this in 2010 a