Coverage of this storm we are in Bonita Springs and Jackie Deangelis out there and diana olick north in atlanta we want to start right now with carl good morning to you. Reporter good morning to you. As becky said, the storm is very much a force in northern florida, will be in georgia later. Were in southwest florida landfall was southwest of naples were on a bridge overlooking one of the waterways the good news if you can call it that, the estimates of storm surge, 10 to 15 feet, didnt really happen. You have all of these condos, hotels, gated communities that dont look that much different from the pictures that we shot here yesterday of course, im going to give that a big calf fee at given we dont know the fate of tampa and tampa bay. When this was considered to be a doomsday scenario in miami beach, the impact there was very real, when it was considered to be a direct hit, that was a high end real estate story. That picture remains true. A lot of these homes out here, mental heal multimillion dollar homes 42 of the naples population is over 65. If harvey was a petrochemical event, this is going to remain a consumer story, high end real estate story were waiting for more information to see what comes out of tampa later today guys carl, youve been there for the last 24 hours. Have most people evacuated at this point reporter this is a dead zone were lucky to have seen one car today. A lot of this was mandatory. A lot of people started out maybe on the east coast came best because they thought they would avoid the storm. Got stuck here checked into hotels. Hotels booked up late. The people we talked to, you had a lot of, as i said, retirees, snow birds who got calls from their kids saying, mom, please leave the house and get into a hot hotel. So the homes are very barron i think we saw a flock of dazed pelicans as we made our way to this live shot later on as we get to sunrise they will come out and try to assess the damage. Carl, is power out there . We hear 3. 5 to 4 Million People without power at this point. I assume thats one of the areas thats been hit hard. Reporter yeah. Florida power and light, i mean, their estimates were almost exactly on latest estimate 3. 4 million customers. Thats customers not people. So that would represent about 6 Million People thats a lot of people without power. Fpl also said, beck, it would be one of the most complex restorations in at least florida history. A lot of these lines across alligator alley in the everglades, south of marko island very difficult infrastructure to get to those bucket trucks that youre going to see later on today hopefully, they dont get out until the winds die down to 30 those workers dont want to be up in that wind and they have to wait for some water to recede. That will take a little bit of time the gusts here, i would say maybe 15, 20 so hopefully once day break comes some of the actually, as we were driving on this bridge i was driving the suv and then all of a sudden, boom, i heard this boom on the windshield and it was a downed power line that had sagged right at the height of our windshield. So weve got to be very careful. Yeah, there will be trucks from everywhere, carl. It is amazing how people do mobilize i saw a tweet, someone took a picture of an l. A. Fire Department Truck making its way into florida it is Pretty Amazing anyway, thank you. Thanks to you. Now lets head to the other coast of florida Contessa Brewer joins usnear ft. Lauderdale good morning, contessa. Reporter good morning, joe you know, you dont often hear about peemg digging out in florida, but thats exactly what theyll be doing around here, digging out from fallen trees. In Hollywood Beach we saw sand piled up a foot, foot and a half deep along the broad walk in the famed Hollywood Beach area from irma pushing all of that beach sand onto the section where the businesses had boarded up and left the damage is largely localized. Storm surge flooding on low lying streets, but the tornadoes were the other story on this coast. Not only did we get the powerful rain bands and wind from irma, we also got tornado touchdowns nearby looking south we know that there was a crane that collapsed in ft. Lauderdale last night onto it self. No immediate sign of other damage and then in miami two crane collapses on buildings under construction on these high rises. No injuries reported there, but we did get reports of construction debris flying off a high rise and narrowly missing people on the ground below as miamidades curfew lifts at 7 00, likely residents will be able to join officials in assessing the damage on miami beach, for instance, theyre only allowing locals on. No outsiders will be allowed on. In the brickell area, the miami wall street, they had damage there. Miami airport had damage from water going through there. There will be no service until tomorrow and then likely it will be very limited, just very few flights. Back here live, the ft. Lauderdale airport was the site of one of those tornado touchdowns likely they will be out there to assess the damage today. Again, that airport remains closed until they can see what theyre dealing with on the ground, joe. Okay, contessa. Could have been worse obviously on the east coast. Were still in the middle of things up in georgia and the carolinas obviously. Thank you. We appreciate that joining us, andrew boyarski. Works closely with new York City Emergency Management Office during Superstorm Sandy and hurricane irene. You have an entire state three or four days ago thinking it was east coast and then at the last minute it was west coast how do you possibly prepare for that its definitely something that Emergency Managers especially in florida are used to dealing with, uncertainty these are some of the best people in the business at the same time, with that evacuating equivalent of about 5 Million People is a daunting task in a very short order the initial reports were that this was going to be a larger storm than it was when it came on shore still substantial. Category 4 dropping down to a 3 but very, very hard to move people inland and to evacuate and shelter that population, especially elderly, people with disabilities, socially needy people a lot of people probably unwilling to evacuate on short notice. At this point, you know, were still right in the middle of it. It probably doesnt pay to say we you know, that there were bullets dodged or that the worst Case Scenario didnt occur, but the worst Case Scenario did not occur, did it . A direct hit on miami would have been much worse. Or the storm surge. Or the storm surge even on the gulf coast. This is correct there was some storm surge certainly in that area when you look at, you know, Collier County into lee county and then up into manatee, sarasota, tampa. But it could have been worse theres still going to need to be a major assessment of the damage that occurred there whats i think more important at this point is the cleanup and the life safety mission. Evacuating people that stayed in their homes, that hunkered down and that need care as you eluded to at the top of the hour, theres a very large elderly population, a lot of frail elderly. Those needs are very acute ive actually lived in the southern florida area before, sarasota area, also on the east coast and i have worked with this population and its a greater challenge for emergency staff and the Human Services side of things. It will still be some time before we can assess the damage, before we can find out how many people are in need at this point. This is true. It will take, you know, weeks. There will be a large canvassing operation door to door some of that will be civilian led, some of that will be managed, coordinated by Emergency Management staff and senior people. In each of these counties and at the state level and federal level you have an Emergency Operations center that coordinates between local, county, federal as well as Public Private partnerships. And nonprofit organizations like the red cross, salvation army. There will be major mobilization out there to assess the damage but also to go door to door, house by house, building to building to figure out where people are this is what happened after Hurricane Sandy. We had major effort. It was an outreach to the folks in the outer boroughs who were impacted i was part of that mission at that time. It seems like Governor Scott did an amazing job of trying to convince people to heed the warnings on this and to get out and that potentially could have saved a lot of lives absolutely. You know, the primary mission prior to an event like this, what we call the single overriding communication objective is to communicate to people that there is a threat, to get out not to remain, you know, in harms path, and i think they did a very, very good job of it. I think that, you know, looking at the communication and flood zones, i think theres they will certainly look at areas of improvement. A lot has been improved over the years including using social media to reach people, but certainly the call was made. It may have been short notice for certain people certainly on the west coast, but i think that, you know, certainly from the Governors Office on down they did a very good job in communicating what was needed. So femas obviously has its hands full, but at this point jose would make a huge difference if that were to turn into something but at this point you think its still manageable as far as resources go i think that there will be some strain but i think that it is probably still manageable based important what ive seen i 234ishly in the news that being said, people are waking up now and theyre going to discover, you know, how much damage is there. Were going to be aided now with increasing technology, with using drones, satellite imagery and so well have a faster, improved area to map the areas and see the areas most impacted. Then in terms of aggregating data, again, the Emergency Management staff in those areas and then there are those people outside of those zones who are assisting in assessing social media to combine this and get a greater Situational Awareness of whats going on in that area you know, theres the big story and then theres the little story, right the bigger story is really assessing the aggregate. The little story is whats happening with each of the individuals . How are those needs being met . And that goes from the top down, from the federal level to the state to the counties. And this is an ongoing situation where the storm has now moved north into georgia, alabama, tennessee. Not as threatening a storm its a Tropical Storm. Fema has to be aware of the broader picture and marshall resources and not to forget the Virgin Islands impacted severely. How do you gauge whether this is likely to be an active its chaos theory trying to figure it out anyway we have governor bush, jeb bush on last week he dealt with eight hurricanes in 44 days, 2004, 2005 back to back pretty major events does that mean its going to be another 2004 or 2005 or not necessarily . I think lessons were learned by fema. I saw the work undertaken over the past couple of administrations at fema. Certainly under the form jer ne administrator they put a lot of plans and operationallized that in terms of what the former neem weather wise whether we can say this is going to be an active season. I also wonder since this slowed down the winds depending on how low the pressure is. As far as the low pressure, this did not rank up there. Sustained wind speeds it was supposedly not that the media would ever over play something, it was the biggest storm to ever hit. I wonder if that was true. I wonder if well look back and say at least as far as damage like andrew and other thats the third andrew but as far as andrew, camille, some of these other events, its not going to go down in history as nearly as devastating i wonder if it was really the largest hurricane ever to come down in the atlantic 100, 150 years. I think hurricane andrew was probably one of the most severe. That wiped out a lot that was a category 5 storm on the east coast. If you go back to the records and look at homestead, it was virtually wiped out. Yeah. So to your point though about this hurricane, its still early to say as far as the extent of the damage. Right. I think its its its difficult to say where it sort of ranks but we can say that stupid to try to do that. But we can say we do it in the media for some reason. We can say there will be significant damage. We knew that all along. Hundreds of billions of dollars and the recovery effort will take weeks if not months for many of the communities. Hurricane charlie in 2004 took that fort myers area at least a couple of years to remember. Theres beach replenishment rebuilding whole infrastructure. I worry when we compare them, both in the media and else are with, then you get the other narrative which is, well, actually, this isnt so bad. Maybe you should stay in your home then theres lots of this back and forth that took place. It was almost politicized. The media wants to scare you to do, and its a good thing. That does help people do things. U neyou needed them to leave ive been in the Emergency Management business for 15 years. Heed the warnings. Whats the worst that can happen you evacuate, spend a couple of days away from the home. Its better not to go down with the home i read too many stories after Hurricane Sandy and i was involved with the deployment many people didnt have to perrish, they drowned in their homes. Many people on bell harbor suffered through fire storms in those areas and i heard and saw the damage it was horrendous. People dont need to do that. As carl was mentioning, power lines down, all kinds of dangers that you cant see. Right thats the thing that i think is important for folks out there as they wake up is to if you dont have tv working, listen to the radio. If that doesnt work, listen to somebody, you know, within your building, someone of authority and not go out unless it is safe you might think its safe but, again, read many accounts of people going out for a walk with their dog, hitting some water, electric wire is there and unfortunately get electrocuted this is the kind of thing. Avoid the hazards. Let the cleanup start. If you dont need to leave your home, wait until its safe. Lets get a check on the markets this morning weve been watching the futures and they have been indicated higher today if things continue at this rate dow futures up by 146 points up by fair value. S p up by 14 nasdaq up by 49. All three of these major indices could wipe out their september deficits at the open if we continue at this pace. Well keep an eye on it as we get closer to the opening bell again, major advances across the board. Lets take a look at whats been happening in europe which is open this morning as well and also higher. Right now the dax is up by over 1 so is the cac. The ftse is up by 2 3 of a percentage point you see big gains in italy and spain as well. Oil prices, oil ended up by 19 cents last week to 47. 48. This morning a little bit higher with wti up at 47. 72 the tenyear note, that yield was under considerable pressure and now its a 2. 087 . Lets check out the dollar this morning it looks like the dollar is up slightly. Also up against the yen. Our next guest is a long time south florida resident. His hometown of ft. Lauderdale taking a hit joining us is mark grant chief strategist at Hilltop Securities mark, i know you left ft. Lauderdale you were camped out inland why dont you tell us a little bit about where you are and what youve been through this weekend so far. Certainly its normally, becky, about a 3 1 2 hour trip from ft. Lauderdale to ocala, where i am mid state. It took eight hours to get here with my three dogs on the side of the road it was on the turnpike where the rest areas are where they have food and fuel and so forth there were six, seven, 800 cars trying to get in and then there were cars all along the turnpike and it wasnt just our fourlegged friends behind the cars taking care of business because nobody could get into the rest areas to do it. It was a pretty horrendous experience right now i dont have any power so i dont know exactly what anything is. Gale force winds tremendous amount of rain and thank god the dogs and i are safe. Were so happy to hear that you are safe, that you took shelter. I imagine you are very glad that you evacuated despite how difficult it was. Yes i have a house man thats been with me for 16 years hes actually in my house. I have a full house generator, but where i am in ft. Lauderdale, my house, theres no power in the whole neighborhood around it and ive been informed i cant even get to my house if i wanted to try to get there because the streets are four and five feet flooded on the way to my house so im stuck. You know, thats a good point to make, mark. Weve been talking about how this was not the worst Case Scenario, but even not the worst Case Scenario can leave lots of damage, lots of destruction in its wake this is a situation that for many, many, many people this is going to be catastrophic. Can i make a market comment please do. Is that all right yeah. So i wrote out of the box, my commentary, you know, you get it goes to about 5,000 institutions in 48 countries but i cant send it out because theres no power. The comment that i made, and this kind of slides into what joe was talking about in a way this storm was tremendously wide and going up into desalle where they do not have construction for any kind of storms, and i think were going to see substantially more damage. Obviously with harvey, the cost of harvey and now the cost of irma, i think theres going to be a Market Reaction which is that the federal government, the state governments, the municipalities are going to be under tremendous pressure because of the services that theyve had to provide, and i think when they total up what these bills