Hurricane ever. Massive size. At least 24 hours of danger ahead. Right now Hurricane Irma officially a category 4 with winds clocking in at more than 130 miles an hour. That is the scene in miami. Where a construction crane was blown down by the storm. And those winds not the only danger. Already we have seen tornados reported across florida. That danger will continue throughout the day. The eye wall has passed over the florida keys now leaving dangerous flooding in its wake. You see that right there and irma approaching the mainland with the entire west coast facing deadly walls of water. Naples first in line, then ft. Myers. 10 to 15 foot storm surge possible there and tonight tampa and st. Petersburg. They are as vulnerable to storm surges and will feel irmas full force. Our Abc News Team is deployed across the storm zone and right with me is ginger zee. We just saw the flooding in the keys and the storm has move passed. More storm surge to come. Remember it rotates counterclockwise and youll get a backside that will push more water and theyll see more flooding. Finally we are seeing that northerly turn george. Due north at 9 Miles Per Hour moving toward the southwest florida area. The everglades taking the brunt of everything now. Thankfully nobody living there as far as the storm surge goes. Lets stop there. There is a chance then because the everglades no one living there, it could absorb the strength of the storm. Absolutely. That is a great turn to have any of that energy get sucked into the everglades but it will make its way to where people live. Thats why naples to ft. Myers, this afternoon through tonight, we have it at sunday 8 00 p. M. Still 128 per hour winds with it. And as the category 3 moves north, that bend of florida, moving into georgia, alabama as a Tropical Storm, low pressure system. We have talked about storm surge. Thats a huge concern and where you start to lose property and of course the potential for life because that water, 10 to 15 feet of it can move cars. It can move buildings. Thats why a place like cape coral where we have the storm coming into this afternoon and evening, those places would concern me most. Miami already has a 5. 2 foot storm surge. Gusts there at 82 miles. The storm surge the big, big concern and we have seen the tornados. And the wind field is giant across the entire state. Miami beach has seen that damage. Theyre going to see more. 83 mile per hour wind and going up to 90 by the time we reach this evening. This is a 12hour long period with a potential of hurricane gusts as far as west palm beach. It was 125 in naples and 78 in orlando. We want to go to the keys with the Monroe County administrator on the phone with us. Thank you for joining us. Right now what are you seeing . Do you have a sense of how great the destruction was . Not quite yet, no. Were still getting pretty strong bands. We wont get out until its safe. Well wait a while longer. Were getting some reports here and there and its what we expect. This is a big powerful storm thats causing havoc down here. Were showing pictures of flooding. Lots of flooding . Yeah. We have video from the marathon high school. It looked like all the cars it looked pretty bad. When do you expect youll get out and inspect the damage . Hopefully this afternoon. A bunch of First Responders, theyre so enthusiastic, they cant wait to get out, champing at the bit to get out. We want to make sure theyre safe. Again, it depends on the weather. You have a few more hours to go but you had a lot of warning on this one as well. It seems like that most of the residents in the keys heeded those warnings and got out . Yes. It does. I drove up from key west yesterday and drove down on friday night when it was evident that we were going to see a hit from the lower keys and i think that last minute was a good push from folks leaving. There was a steady flow of cars leaving friday night and yesterday morning going north. Any way to know when people can come back . No. No. Because heres what happens. We have 120 miles connected by 42 bridges. Immediately after the winds subside were going to clear the streets with heavy equipment and then the department of transportation, Florida Department of transportation has to inspect every bridge and theyll do a flyover first thing to see if theres actual damage they can see from the sky. Hopefully tomorrow morning. And then theyre going to get their engineers to get down there and look at the bridges. So you can imagine 42 bridges. Its going to take a while. If there is some damage, theyll repair the bridges which would take a while. Folks have to be patient. We want to make sure everybody is safe. It is a long road ahead. Thanks very much. Want to move to miami where the winds are still whipping right now. Gio benitez is there all morning long. Youre tied in there. Tell us what you see and what you hear right now. Reporter george, ginger was talking about the storm surge. Come with me. Look at that. We are seeing the streets of miami turn into rivers. You see all that water right there. If we take the camera, can we zoom in over there louis. Look at that water already in the streets here. Lets look at this. Oh, my gosh. There we go. So we have got a light that just flipped off there. These are by far the most intense winds that we have seen so far. We are hearing lots of popping sounds right now all around us. We dont know whats happening with those windows up there in that skyscraper. I dont know if you can see them but they have been popping open it seems. So we dont know whats going on there. But these areas are a possible danger because were talking about projectiles that could be flying through. So i think george at this point were going to go inside. I think its too dangerous right now. Yeah. Get inside gio. We want to go to amy also in miami. We see how dangerous that situation is. Amy there have also been tornados this morning and police cant get out. Reporter thats right. Police sent out a tweet to everyone in Miamidade County saying stay indoors. We cannot come help you. If you are in trouble. So that is important advice and everyone in this area should know that we all need to be hunkering down. Were in a safe position because i have a concrete wall on either side of me and above me. So im able to show you whats going on behind me. We are seeing significant flooding now on the streets. They have turned into rivers and with the wind its like watching waves going across here. The winds are very powerful. Gusts over 80 Miles Per Hour and we too have been seeing flying debris in the form of palms and metal off of buildings and signs flying across the streets. Tree branches coming down, trees falling on to power lines. I have power lines in the water. We saw it, it sparked. So many Dangerous Things around here in miami at this hour and were expected to continue to be in these types of conditions for another couple hours. You have been out there since before 6 00. This seems as bad as its got . Reporter im sorry . You have been out there since before 6 00. This seems worse than anything you saw before in the earlier hours . Yes. Yes. Its been progressively getting worse every 30 minutes. But this last hour has been a significant uptick in the wind speeds and just the howling and the noise and what were seeing flying through the air. This is as bad as its been all morning. Miami not taking a direct hit. The storm moved to the west. David muir moved to the west as well in naples. David, what we saw in miami, a taste of what youre going to get in naples . Reporter youre right. When you see the streets starting to flood from gio and amy, thats with a 3 to 5 foot storm surge at least at this point. Its a very dangerous situation there. It gives you an idea of why theyre so concerned here in naples. I talked to the mayor and he told us if the 10 to 15 foot storm surge prediction for nape ls as this hurricane moves up the southwest coast of florida. The temperature of the water, the water off the coast is 86, 87 degrees. Thats why the storm is being fueled as it comes up the coast. Question whether or not it makes landfall the naples area or further north, whats not up for debate, we are all in these cities are on the wrong side of this hurricane as they call it, the dirty side, the most powerful once the winds get whipping. The latest forecast show the winds at 100 Miles Per Hour for a period of time with gusts up to 125 Miles Per Hour or more. You saw the extreme warnings for the keys. Im hearing a loud something dropping here. Youre seeing it everywhere. Signs and trees coming down. They put out the warning from the National Weather service this morning. An indication they wanted people to be prepared for tornadolike damage. Well be watching for any signals when that happens, too. This is actually as calm as its been in the last 20 minutes. We are starting to feel the bands. As you know, the time frame is anywhere between 2 00 straight through 8 00 tonight. Its about six hours straight of horrific conditions. That is just a false comfort, that lull right now. A lot of heavy wind still to come. We want to go to matt gutman in naples. Matt youre on the ground . Reporter thats right. They were basically downtown naples. The heart of this town. Mostly of southwest florida as well. It has been whipping through here, rain and wind for the past half an hour. So it is much calmer now. But this is just the first gentle nudge of what Hurricane Irma is going to deliver here. The concerns are the palm trees. Theyre ripping down palms, coconuts are falling down. Its a slightly dangerous situation which is why were going to head to shelter. I want to give you a sense of how evacuated. Plenty of people are still here. And the concern obviously is that storm surge everybody has mentioned. Im going to hop over to give you a sense of what is going on here. Storm surge is going to be about 15 feet. We are at ground level there about 3 feet and folks have erected these steel plates here. They have battened down the hatches, bolted to the walls but thats not going to do anything wun once the water comes up. It will reach the awning blowing through every store in this area here. The damage forecast is going to be extremely extensive george. Naples could get harder than any other city in florida. Thank you matt gutman. Tom llamas in ft. Myers. Tom. Reporter right now were in the direct wind path of Hurricane Irma. Were looking basically west in ft. Myers. You can see the wind line through those palm trees. You see how theyre moving. Were just getting to know irma right now. Probable storm forced gusts and what its doing to the water here. This is the yacht place with sail boats and other types of vessels for the sea. So far not too bad. Theyre rocking a little bit but when you hear the water coming in [ inaudible ] you hear a lot about storm surge. Same thing will happen in ft. Myers. It will push right well be out of here by then. We can see it inch by inch. [ inaudible ] they are dealing with Power Outages and thats a big issue right now because a lot of times with the hurricanes theres a lot of destruction, a storm surge but weeks without power and sometimes thats worse for a majority of the people. And about a Million People in florida without power. We want to go to st. Petersburg which is expected to get hit hard. These are cities that are incredibly vulnerable. Eva pilgrim. Good morning. Reporter good morning, george. They have enacted a curfew here in st. Petersburg that is to start at 5 00 tonight and will last throughout the duration of the storm. The Police Department here and the Emergency Responders saying if you go out after 40 mile per hour winds arrive here in this area there will not be someone to help you. You can see people walking by here. There are people who are staying here. A lot have started to leave buff not everyone has left at this point. Just a short time ago we saw one of the guys who manages this property going by with a bull horn telling everybody they are going to turn off the power here at noon. Trying to encourage people to get out of this area. Concerned because this area very well could be in a lot of harms way with the water, storm surge, crazy hurricane forced winds. One of the things we have seen, when you drive down the streets in st. Petersburg, not all the windows are boarded up like what you have seen in south florida. They had a lot of time to prepare. This storm shifted gears about 24 hours ago and that has kicked people into high gear as far as deciding if they wanted to stay. Shoring up their properties if they are leaving or if they are staying and in general preparing for a bigger brunt of this storm. George. We sure hope all the people get out. Okay. Eva, thanks. The two senators from florida, bill nelson and marco rubio standing by. Well be right back with them. Announcer this week with George Stephanopoulos brought to you by massmutual. We come into this world needing others. Then we are told its braver to go it alone. That independence is the way to accomplish. But there is another way to live. A way that sees the only path to fulfillment is through others. That our time here can be deep beyond measure. No one who chose interdependence ever found despair. 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I just measured how far away the center of irma is from miami. Its about 90 miles. Its far south and west and now it is moving due north. Anywhere between miami, Fort Lauderdale, boca, west palm, cape coral and ft. Myers youll see the outer band bring extreme winds like 94 mile per hour far away from where the lightning packed eye wall is going to bring the heftiest. Thats whats so unique about the storm, it is both big and intense. And you dont always get that. Andrew was so compact and affected homestead and when you went outside of that wind field it was much weaker. This is not the case with this storm. This wind field is very large, 160 miles across. It is taking over the peninsula of florida. Theres nothing out there that can significantly break it up. The only thing is florida itself and thats whats going to do the damage to it. The friction of the land of florida. As this moves due north, you can see the eye moving,ts where you get naples and the low pressure system. This is what harvey didnt have. Somebody to grab it and kick it out. This is moving much more quickly than harvey did. Lets go to rob marciano in sarasota up the coast. Likely to get hit later this afternoon but you see the wind kicking up there, rob. Reporter yeah, george. We keep getting these squalls and the outer bands and another 8 to 10 hours before the brunt of this storm gets here and were feeling certainly Tropical Storm force gusts blowing in my face. At the moment blowing all this water out. Its actually about three feet below where it normally would be from these reverse storm surge if you will. As it gets closer and rides up the coast, the winds will change and the water will be piling up here as ginger has been describing. And this area is under evacuation and retreating as the storm gets closer. They will be shutting down more bridges that connect the communities and the First Responders will be shelters in place later on when winds get sustained at and over tropical force. They still have shelters open right now and theyre expressing if you have to get to one, do so now in the next two hours because after that its far too dangerous as irma gets a little closer to us. Now a bit of a breather but obviously touch and go and things will only get worse as we get into the afternoon and evening. Rob marciano, thanks. Were joined on the phone by senator marco rubio. Senator, thank you for joining us. Thank you. I know you lived in miami most your life. Your city getting hit quite hard right now. Im sitting here at home looking at i have storm category windows. Were about i guess a mile and a half from the airport. I can attest theres been a significant uptick in the wind. The two things im thinking about, the first is the water damage. Once the eye passes, thats where you see the surge situation. Not so much where i live but out east towards the water. Its nasty in miami and southeast florida. Were not getting hit by the eye. It should serve as a cautionary tale to people, you know, its bad here and you guys are getting the direct hit. Thats why i think its really important to the extent people still can and its safe to do so, they really need to move away from storm surge and certainly into a secure location. It seems so tough in miami. Naples will get hit very, very hard and tampa could face the worse situation of all. Thats been the worst Case Scenario because of the topography, the water and the bay. Sort of strong storm from the south pushing the wall of water into the bay. Heavily populated. A lot hof important infrastructure in the region and if you look at the storm surge projections for naples and ft. Myers, theyre horrifying. There should not be a single human being in that area at this point, in the storm surge areas because were talking 8 to 10 feet projection. Thats near certain death. Senator, it seemed like state and local officials and all of you in florida did everything you could to get people out of harms way, to order the evacuations, to prepare as well as you could. But the challenges coming out of this storm are long term. Well, a couple points. Number one, the evacuations. You were