latest. >> the pressure is going down, anderson. and that's bad. the lower the pressure, the higher the wind speed. now, there's hurricane hunter aircraft in there right now. it did not find any increased wind speed yet. so sometimes the pressure goes down and then the winds build. but there's the eye right there from the miami radar site. so it's not all that far away. we've had outer bands coming onshore in florida for most of the day. there's another outer band offshore right now if you're standing on the beach you may be able to see the lightning in the distance. i hope you're not on the beach at this point, though, because the waves are getting much larger. you get that 115-mile-per-hour wind out there, the waves are being generated and there's going to be a lot of rip currents going out into the ocean in the next couple of days all the way up into cape hatteras, even into ocean city, maryland. so let's break it down for you right now. it's 120-mile-per-hour storm. tomorrow afternoon south of the cape. by tomorrow about saturday 2:00 you get to the category 2, 110-mile-per-hour storm somewhere in north carolina. now, there's still a chance, slight chance, anderson, that it's offshore. but that's probably less than 30%. the better chance is that it's very close to moorhead city, atlantic beach, into north carolina. and then the bad part is, that isn't even really land. there's an ocean, there's an island barrier islands but there's the sounds in there, the pemlico sounds. that's just all water. so this storm doesn't slow down at all, doesn't lose intensity because it's over land. it glides right along the del marva, goes right on up the jersey shore and right into very, very close to the hudson river, the new york harbor, with water and waves lapping into the harbor especially water and waves and surgeon long island and even probably all the way up from providence into rhode island itself. this will be a storm that we have never seen. hurricane bob in 1991, but it was farther to the east. in our lifetime we have not seen a storm which just driveses maybe up the hudson river and takes that water with it and maybe even floods parts of manhattan. >> any sense of how this compares to -- on long island in new york there was the hurricane in '38 that killed i think a couple hundred people out around west hampton, all around that stretch of southern long island. do we now have -- do we know how this may compare? >> it's a little too early. maybe the winds aren't going to be as big as that storm. but look at the map behind me here where there's purpleal the way from new england to north carolina. that's eight inches of rain or more everywhere. the inland flooding could be tremendous with this, because although the storm is moving and it's moving rapidly, the rain will be so intense at times that the flooding will just occur. hurricane models right over north carolina, hurricane models right over the northeast. there's very little chance that this misses the u.s. at this point, anderson. >> and chances that it -- i mean, that it misses the whole new york region. because obviously this is a heavily-populated area. a lot of of folks are concerned about that. how likely is it that -- how many tracks show it hitting new york? >> i would say eight out of 20. that's a pretty big number. and the rest of them are either east of or west of the city. so the best case for new york city would be if the storm would be somewhere out there. obviously missing everything. but if the storm would be just to the east of new york, the winds in the harbor would blow offshore and not surge manhattan, not push all that water into man hat tan and long island and into williamsburg. and that way into the meadowlands how swampy that is. the water would just go straight up. the other best secret would be to go over here through the poconos but that would cause more flooding there and it would be dying here because it's over land. that's a possibility. if it goes over the delaware water gap and up into the poconos it would cause a lot of of flooding and downed trees there, even the adirondacks. but the city would be saved at that point in time. >> chad, thanks very much. going to check back with you throughout this hour and into the night to give you an idea of how big irene is, this is what it looks like from the international space station. one crew member saying it looks very scary to him even from up there. mandatory evacuation now under way along parts of north carolina's outer banks, people all the way up the coast being asked to leave or get ready. >> i'm on barrier island right now with my wife and my four kids. we won't be there tonight. >> let me remind you that this kind of forecast is very imprecise, and we're talking about something that is a long time away in meteorological terms. so what we have to do is assume the worst, prepare for that, and hope for the best. >> obviously new york mayor michael bloomberg ordering the e vakss of senior centers and hospitals in low-lying areas. he asked people in those places to consider leaving voluntarily tomorrow to try to cut down on traffic. they're getting ready in washington as well. troops here filling sand bags at a military base along the potomac river just across from national airport. moments ago we got word that dedication of the new martin luther king memorial scheduled for sunday in washington that, has been postponed. the navy is sending 27 warships based in norfolk, virginia out into open ocean where they will be safer. three subs are also putting to sea. other vessels moving inland for safety. moments ago we got the announcement of this. take a look at this. >> this is the capitol of nassau, looks pretty rough, bahamas outlying areas really got hammered. san salvador, long islands report taking direct hits. no death so far there but serious damaging and major flooding as well. joining us max mayfield former director of the national hurricane center. you say one of your nightmares is having a major hurricane go up the whole northeast coast. why? >> well, just because the population. and i think people up through the carolinas, they've had enough experience with hurricanes, they know how to respond. but you get too far north of there and a lot of people just understandably don't have the experience with hurricanes. so that's a big, big concern. and as chad mentioned there, this is a large hurricane. and you really don't want to focus on that little skinny line. because it's a very large circulation in this case. even if that inner core weakens a little bit as it moves over eastern north carolina and over the colder water up north, that large circulation is not going to disappear. they're going to deal with the storm surge, large waves on top of that surge, winds and rainfall. this particular hurricane is going to have a large rain shield well out in advance of it. so that's not a good thing to have a lot of rain then have the winds come in . that's going to knock over trees and power lines will be down. and if you remember hurricane isabelle, there were 6 million people who lost power in isabelle. most of that occurred in areas outside of hurricane-force wind. >> hurricane bob i think in '91 was the last major hurricane to hit the northeast. so the comparisons with irene i guess make sense. how similar are they? >> well, this is a lot larger than bob. i remember forecasting bob when i was at the hurricane center that. just clipped the eastern tip of long island, but it was a much, much smaller hurricane. this is going to be different. and i would say that you don't even have to have a hurricane up there in the long island area, new york city area and cape cod area. this is such a large system with the waves and the storm surge, it's going to do a lot of damage. so people really need to heed the advice of local officials. the weather service offices are talking to the local emergency managers and people need to heed their advice when they're told to do something. >> i was talking to someone on the subway today. a lot of new yorkers i just don't think are ready or have even begun to kind of realize what this could mean or how bad it could get. i don't want to cause some fear unnecessarily. when it comes to the path of this storm, though, i suppose worst case scenario would be a direct hit on new york. >> well, that would be true. and in 1893 there was a category 1 hurricane that we think the coney island ships were pushed in half a mile, central park had tremendous damage. they've had hurricanes a long, long time ago. and this one is different. this is not going to be like the long island express in 1938. that hurricane was moving very, very rapidly and maintained the core of that hurricane. this is probably not going to do that. this is moving slower, so the maximum winds may weaken in that inner core, but the large circulation is going to remain intact. and it will do a lot of damage. and i would expect a lot of power outages. let's just hope we don't have loss of life. >> let's hope not that. hurricane of '38 was just deadly, killed a couple hundred people out in long island. max mayfield, appreciate you joining us. more with irene all night as new updates come in let us know what you think. we're on facebook. follow me on twitter @ anderson cooper next the very latest on the hunt for muammar gadhafi plus never been seen video from the battle to take gadhafi's compound. nic robertson has the latest. also on the manhunt going on now. we'll talk to john burns of the "new york times" with us in just a few minutes also tonight an exclusive interview with one of the journalists who were held captive by gadhafi's hen muchmen. and we'll talk to the cnn producer who's being credited for persuading the captors to let everyone go. she's an arab speaker. she talked to them for days and days and finally they relented. she'll tell us how she did it. first isha sesay as max mayfield says, it's a serious possibility not just a nightmare scenario anymore. tunnels flooded, airports underwater, damage, even death. the frightening reality of a hurricane hitting new york city. we'll talk to disaster author steven flynn about what could happen and what people can do to prepare when 360 continues. if something is simply the color of gold, is it really worth more? 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[ gunfire ] >> the intensity of the fighting in order to take over that gadhafi compound. as we said, there are still pockets of fighting in tripoli and elsewhere in libya, shelling in towns west of the capital. the no, times reporting clashes in zawarah. resistance in sirt and another stronghold to the south, saba. the focus is on one city, tripoli, and one man with a price on his head, gadhafi. nic robertson joins us now. nic, you spent most of the day with opposition fighters searching for gadhafi. what did they find? and how organized a search is it? >> reporter: it seems to be a somewhat chaotic search. and it seems to be rumor driven. and sometimes one rumor then feeds into another rumor. the first rumor that we heard was being taken very seriously by rebel commanders. they'd sent additional troops. we talked to the commander. they thought that gadhafi was in an apartment building close to his old pal as compound. we went there. we couldn't find evidence of the fire fight. then we were told it was actually centered in another neighborhood, a neighborhood that's got a lot of gadhafi loyalists. we went there and we found fighters who said no, it wasn't gadhafi and his family in an apartment complex, it was another family who was supporting him. then they went into that building and there was nobody there. so it's just rumor on rumor that rebels are chasing at the moment. and they're chasing ghosts. they're coming up with nothing right now, anderson. >> so they don't really have solid information about his whereabouts at this point. but to the members of the opposition you've talked to, how important is it that they capture gadhafi? and why do they think it's so important? >> reporter: they think it's number one psychologically important because that will just be very clear to everyone, even those that still support him, and there are some tribes here whose loyalty to gadhafi hasn't been tested in the south of the country, in the west of the country people are holding out still loyal to him. so they think that that will show these tribes that the end has come and they've got to work with the new national transitional council. so that's one reason why it's important. emotionally it will be very important. it will be absolutely symbolic for them that they have a real victory. as long as there are people fighting them on the streets, the battle's not over. and they daerl want to get this over and done with. they just moved the national transitional council leaders here to tripoli to try to begin to manage and rebuild the country. but they're still fighting the battles on the streets, anderson. >> nic, stay with us. i want to bring in john burns of the "new york times" who's done a lot of reporting over the years from libya, recently was just kicked out of libya for some of his reporting there by the gadhafi regime. john colonel gadhafi released this tape we just played. he is -- seems delusional in this tape. he's saying do not leave tripoli for the rats. he talks about a wave of people coming to rise up. it doesn't sound like he is really in touch with the reality of what's going on or he's just making stuff up. >> of course that's been true of gadhafi's statements for really quite a long time. a lot of them have just been gobbledygook. and this goes along, sigh kite terrorists presumably could have a field day with this with the kind of deadly cunning. there's an edge of deadly rationality to this. so it doesn't bode well. and we saw those television maniages today not only of the subterranean complex but the compound in central baghdad. he's he's clearly not there. television crews were there today. but just as interesting to me was another report of a house in a baghdad suburb on a street appropriately known as shadow street where completely-normal looking house from the outside, inside was palacial with a deep 40 foote bunker. and you could see how many times that could be replicated. there might be, probably are, many places like that in areas of tripoli which are favorable to saddam beg your pardon, freudian slip there to gadhafi in the south. >> in terms of the mood amongst opposition forces, how is the morale? and again, i'm sort of really interested in the organization of these folks. is there a central commander who is -- who is controlling the opposition's movements? or is it just small groups of fighters who have banded together as we saw early on in this, kind of doing whatever they can? >> you're asking me, anderson? >> sorry, no, nic. >> reporter: there is a sort of central command. which ever area you go through you will find a command headquarters and you'll find somebody who's smart, who's knowledgeable, who's respected by the rebel fighters around him. and he will direct them to do things. the commander we saw today directed additional troops, additional rebel fighters, out to try and encircle this apartment building. but that's where the control -- effective control of the forces ends when he sends them out. they don't have real sort of good means of communications. we saw them trying to talk to each other by mobile phone. the system wasn't working properly. they couldn't always get through. so that's an issue. and out at the street level, the fighters are very jubilant. they're very youthful. they're very exuberant. they really feel that they've achieved something. and you sense their euphoria. but it doesn't make them an effective coordinated force. and you literally get people, groups of fighters rushing around in pickup trucks with large machine guns on the back. and from where i stand, it looked very chaotic and seeing the limited communications i sense that it really is somewhat chaotic, anderson. >> john, one of the things i've got to say i just found so surreal and bizarre and oddly fascinating out of this today was this photo book that they found dedicated to condoleeza rice in gadhafi's compound. page after page of condoleezza rice photos. you can't make this up. >> you can't. and you know, so much of this is of what we saw in baghdad in april 2003. a regime that presented itself as populist and socialist that was not only utterly brutal but utterly corrupt, living in extraordinary luxury. i'm not sure i would use the word pornography that was used once or twice today to refer to stacks of playboy magazines, but certainly living lives with odd things like that. what to make of that. it would be interesting to know what condy rice thinks. >> i was thinking wow who's going to get a statement from her and what would you say about that? >> what came to my mind looking at that was t