Dangerous and its really the lack of visibility. We can barely see 100 yards in either direction and obviously with the winds blowing at this speed if there is debris flying through the air i dont want to be out in the middle of that and get caught up side the head by some Flying Branch or anything like that reporter hold on one second, ed. Stay where you are. Stay where you are right now because some of these big trees are surrounding this hotel. I dont know if theyre going to make it. Theyre starting to creep out. Look, the palm tree is an extraordinary piece of vegetation. Theres no question about it. Theyre built to bend. There are a lot of trees that arent that and theyre starting to split and fail under the strain on them and weve been watching it and the concern is that these trees are going to go into the structures across and while they may not look physically impressive to you, were talking about thousands and thousands of pounds and even more of that force if they do
fall in
chad do you hear me. yes, the water s coming. the water isn t coming like a tsunami. reporter: you think the water is going to come to where we are? i do. especially when the wind blows it that way as well. not only is there a swell under the storm itself but there s going to be wind to project it to move it your way and it will propel all the way up that street if that is a straight shot to the ocean because that s the direction the wind is going to be coming from. reporter: so, chuck, chad says if we re about five feet that that storm surge that sucked the water out of the bay down there, that it s going to be coming at least this far where s your house? i live in houston. i just endured from hurricane harvey. reporter: you re here hanging out and you got a big knife on your hip. so the water s going to come this far at least and that s something to remember and, no, we will not venture down there and you do see people coming
out. there s curiosity, obviously. you have a lot of local here s and store owners who we were talking to before the storm. they were worried, chad. people worry about their businesses. they worry about their livelihood and there is a temptation to want to get out as soon as possible. there s also a ton of media and you hope the people you see out early are just media. but you do feel that it can come to where we are, huh? no question about it. let s just project this a little bit forward to others in the path. what we showed on television just 30 minutes ago is already and still happening north of you, so i know it looks like oh, it s over, well, yes, it s over where you are but it is not over for bonita springs. you are in it right now. naples park which is about ten miles north of you in it right now in the northern eye wall and that eye wall again will continue all the way to sarasota, all the way to anna maria until it either dies out
your perspective and your take on it so far that you re getting why the governor was so conscientious about saying we re talking about weeks here, talking about commitment from the federal government for weeks and months and in the billions in terms of what they estimated going into this. do you think they re going to wind up being justified in what they thought going into it? without a doubt. without a doubt. this storm had the punch when it was over cuba at 160 miles per hour and to the people of northern cuba we are internally grateful what happened to your country is a shame. it was the damage that created the storm to go from 160 to 130. it was a true remarkable reduction in power that our country didn t have to take and as now moving over key largo and into the keys and into collier county, all of a sudden we had a survivalable storm where 160 to
eye. you may be able to look up and see the sky with not a cloud in it and then be waiting for another hour or hour and 20 minutes and get the wind from the other direction and that s many times where a lot of the damage comes from because the trees have already bent one way and then all of a sudden they have to bend the other way as well as arizona well. this is as bad as this storm has been, truly, in america. this is what the people of sugarland, this is what the people of cudjoe key, this is what the people of pig pibig pis morning, this is what they felt, as this storm went straight over the lower keys. it stays off-shore, it gained a little strength but not much and then it made landfall about 30 minutes ago, the eye wall doing 130 miles per hour when it hit marco and i bet you just had 130. nothing to boast about but that storm is still very strong.