Not a single day goes by when you dont think about the loved ones stolen from your life. Today our entire nation grieves with you. With every family of those 2,977 innocent souls who were murdered by terrorists 16 years ago. At that sacred field in shanksville, pennsylvania. You heard the president at the pentagon. We begin with Tropical Storm irma now churning northward and spreading north and east. A massive storm at more than 400 miles wide and affecting millions in florida, georgia, South Carolina and alabama bringing storm surge and flooding and punishing winds. For much of the southeast, they wont be packing the power they did over the florida peninsula. It affected every major city. They had a massive evacuation of six million people. Leaving waters full of hazardous debris. Before anyone can return to the keys by car. The winds were so strong, this Apartment Building and the sun is shining now. Marco island is hammered with wind and rain. Winds like this can rip trees from the ground and power poles. 5. 8 million homes and businesses lost power. Thats my bed. Most people dont know where to begin. No major city in florida is escaping the wrath. In jacksonville, severe flooding. Tell us what you are seeing and the winds are picking up. Historic flood levels will get worse and they continue to hit us. Dry ground behind me and in the middle of Downtown Jacksonville outside the omniville hotel. You have to swing a couple of streets around to look like a boat landing right here in the middle of a town as the waters of the st. Johns river flow up into Downtown Jacksonville up the street. Water and International Street to me at the lest. If you are familiar in jacksonville, the landing is a popular watering hole that is under water. This, john, is just the beginning. High tide will be here. Authorities say the flood levels we are seeing will continue to rise. Maybe four to six feet above that high tide level here. Here you count go east. They are trying to go that way and trying to get people off of the islands. Westbound traffic is allowed for any people who tried to ride out the storm there. First responders in position to make rescues if needed. We learned from the sheriffs office, they were making rescues today. The caution as we see, the fellow here to my left with his cell phone out, observing the site downtown. The caution is so high as you can see the wind gusts that i am feeling. These water levels will continue to rise. Thats amazing the unpredictability it shows. The high tide is a couple hours away. We will keep an eye on the situation. Hurricane irma has been historic and the strongest atlantic hurricane ever recorded was a 5 for three days. Packed sustained winds of 185 miles an hour for 37 hours. Another record. From the weather center, now a Tropical Storm. What has florida seen and whats next . It came onshore close to key west. The long island chain, the lower keys. Close to marco island and napeles and just to the east of tampa and orlando. Right about here right now. The onshore flow pouring into savannah and jacksonville with record flooding going on. Roars set back in 1860s when they started putting sticks in the bank to see how high the water was. This was higher. What you are seeing there, higher than Hurricane Dora in 1964. Certainly for savannah, higher than matthew that we saw just last year. Here is the rain shield in atlanta and anywhere up there, you will see wind gusts today at 45 to about 60. Thats the story, but the onshore flow and even one tornado there to the north of savannah and charleston. They are the two resort areas and any time you see one big cell, you can see in the neighborhood of an ef1. The jacksonville flooding up the st. Johns because the water is trying to get out of the st. Johns river and funneled through jacksonville and out to the ocean. It cant get through this choke point. Thats why it is flooding so badly right now. If i get rid of this, one more thing we are watching is pool video. This is what is the stretch. This is from homestead to key largo. We are following the track of this helicopter as it flies through. This looks like the highest part of this bridge. It is a bridge that used to be very, very low and the opening and closing bridge. They fixed that and made it high. It was a threelane road and anybody could pass in the middle. It was a dangerous stretch as they called it. The stretch. Now its safer because they put a barrier in there. Now we are coming down here to key largo. This is south. This is going towards key west. This is the state park through here. We will continue to fly this way and the numbers and the mile markers will get lower until you get to zero which is key west. As they go further, we will see more and more damage. We are getting closer and closer to the eye. It will come back. They are getting as far as they can and get the game back up on the helicopter. We will continue to watch it and tape it. If i see anything significant, we will jump back on. If you see anything significant. Our viewers are grateful for all your help and guidance. Showing you the map, they are heading south and people in the keys were told they were on their own if they didnt evacuate and no one would be there to pick up the phone if they called 911. Tim jones rode out the storm and took video. You see some of it here. He has been through hurricanes and said irma was the biggest. You have been through a half dozen of these, maybe eight of them. Why was irma the biggest . Mainly just because she took so long to get through. 12 to 24 hours and she was here for three full days. We had 24 hours of hurricane plus winds at the marina. When you got off, you live on a house boat and you took shelter in the marina. Give us the extent of the damage or did you get off easier than you thought . The marina building we stayed in is probably only 15 or 20 feet from the boat. We were in and out checking on the boats and making sure they were okay. We lost a couple that separate the boat and it is we were able to keep the boats from riding up on top of each other. All the boats survived and one of them lost the mast that is not bad. We lost a couple of sails, but everything is good. We have a lot of clean up and debris. No power and water. That kind of stuff. People were told to get out and there would be no emergency services. Why did you stay . You just kind of weigh the options. The biggest thing, these are our homes. We love these houses and boats and cruisers. You weigh the options and been through it before and we knew what kind of storm this marina could handle and keep the boats safe. This one was not predicted to be big enough that it was going to push it past that point. You weigh the options and dot math and go with the answer. The answer was to stay. You can better protect the boats and yourself and be here if you need to do something. We are on our own now. We did manage to score pizza at a pizza place. The biggest thing is keeping cool and finding basic services. Stuff is coming in line. Kudos to the agency that came to u. S. 1 and push the debris off so we could travel on the highway again. We are watching live pictures of helicopters flying over. You mentioned a pizza place opened up. What is the extent of the destruction and the damage in the area and whats the biggest challenge at the moment . Its getting around most of the destruction we are seeing related to the foliage and a lot of trees and branches down. And the ocean side and the carports and the aluminum stuff off of the trailers and on that side of the road. Most of the destruction is on bayside. Oceanside got hit hard. One of the Favorite Places to eat down by the fisheries by three or four feet. A lot of flooding damage there. Like i said, mostly its just debris and trash at this point. How many people rode it out at the marina . There were six of us all together at our marina and one at the marina next door. So seven. A couple of us left real late in the storm and they didnt need to stay on the island. Tim jones from close to key largo, florida where he rode out the storm. Glad you made it safely. We will keep in touch. Airports remain closed while irma makes its way north. This is how the skies look like on a typical monday. Today air traffic virtually shut down over florida and georgia. They forced the cancellation of at least 12,000 flights. More coverage in a moment. Well be right back much at ally, were doing Digital Financial services right. But if thats not enough, we have 7500 allys looking out for one thing, you. Call in the next ten minutes to save on. And if thats not enough, well look after your every dollar. Put down the phone. And if thats not enough, well look after your every cent. Grab your wallet. Access denied. And if thats still not enough to help you save. Ooo i need these well just bring out the snowplow. You dont need those well do anything, seriously anything, to help our customers. Thanks. Ally. Do it right. We believe in food thats anaturally beautiful, fresh and nutritious. So there are no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives in any of the food we sell. We believe in real food. Whole foods market. And its also a story mail aabout people and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you. These are storms of catastrophic severity and we are marshalling the resources to help mellow americans in florida, alabama, georgia, texas, louisiana, tennessee and all of those wonderful places and states in harms way. That was President Trump this morning pledging resources to help those impacted by Tropical Storm irma. That includes the military. More than 10,000 military personnel engaged in the response to the storm. Barbara, walk us through what the military is doing to deal with the imbakt of irma. Most of these are National Guard activated by the governor at this point, but what is taking shape of the possibility of a significant operation involving the pentagon. Abraham lincoln and several other ships have arrived and are arriving shortly off the coast and getting ready to start operations to help in southern florida. The u. S. Military would never just march into a community in the United States. It has to be worked through the governor, state, and local authorities to offer that military assistance and have it approved by state and local authorities. It is expected that that will come the final signature not just idea, but everyone is looking towards that. We are looking at dozens of helicopters beginning to start aid flights. Food, water, supplies. There are hundreds of medical personnel on stand by that can bring them into the areas down in the keys to help with hospitals and medical care perhaps not being available for sometime until power is restored and things get back moving. These ships are already running into heavy seas and high winds, but they are expected to be on station off southern florida ready to begin operations as soon as later today. In the caribbean island, the u. S. Military is wrapping up an effort to evacuate americans out of the virnlg upgin islands. About 2,000 american citizens have been evacuated out and they expect to finish that up as soon as today. All attention on southern florida and the florida keys to see where the military can work with the state and local authorities and is it step in. They are looking at the prospect of opening up small air fields in southern florida so they can get closer to where people need the help and get it to them faster. John . Barbara star live at the pentagon to remind us of the diversity of the missions. As members of the National Guard, look at the homes staved from flooding. We skoont get further back. How did you get the families out . I got out on foot. Nick is with oregons interNational Guard at the air base in florida arrived shortly before irma. What is Mission Number one today . First off, thanks for having me talk today and our thoughts and prayers are with the people in the path of hurricane irma. Right now early this morning about 6 00 central time, we sent out two california helicopters and they did an assessment and make communications with the county emergency manager and start reaching back via satellite due to the networks and land lines being down. They are getting all of that information of the vit cal needs and all of the medical supplies and all of that stuff being routed through the Operations Center here in the field. We are working dill jebtly to get all of these people ready. Our air field is doing an assessment of marathon and helping what we have right now. 150 firefighters and our guys down there are clearing the air field and getting it ready to receive whether it be military aircraft or civilian aircraft to bring in all these much needed supplies for the people that are affected. Do you have any sense of both marathon and key west on your mission list. Any sense of when they will be ready some. Well, we have got the initial reports that they should be ready to receive aircraft in the next couple of minutes whether it be 15 or 30 minutes. We are still waiting to make communications with the federal Aviation Administration to make sure they are ready to start receiving aircraft at those locations. Thats quick progress. We applaud the work. You mentioned getting in and maybe its medical supplies and maybe food and water. From the radio traffic, whats the greatest need and where . Well, its just to be from the reporters that we got, to the north of the southernmost key from mile marker 10 to mile marker 50. They are in serious need. We have gotten a request for some antibiotics, iv fluids and starter kits. Gas and diesel. We have highly trained paramedi paramedics. Some palettes of food, water, and other humanitarian supplies. From the National Guard, do you have hurricane experience in the past or is this a first . Well, to be honest with you, about a week ago i was in houston for harvey. Whats the biggest difference . I think the biggest difference is with this one there is a lot more debris and damage that we are helping to take care of. Last week was a volume of water that was coming on the mainland. And you mentioned the two helicopters up this morning. They are available for search and rescue. Is that the idea or for whatever you get the incoming request for need . Right now they are working with the county emergency manager and they are providing search and rescue operations from about that mile marker 10 to mile marker 50. They have. Para rescue men from any person in need from the situation and either hoist the affected personnel to safety or help coordinate whatever they need at that location. Senior sergeant from the National Guard. Thank you for your service and everything you are doing. Its a tough story when you see the pictures of the destruction, but its heart warming to hear people volunteering and doing military service and helping people out. Please thank everyone down there and keep in touch. Before we go to break, millions of floridians without power. One of the Companies Said they are going to unprecedented lengths to get the lights back on. We have an army of 17,000 restoration workers, the largest we believe in u. S. History. On the west coast from what we have seen, we are literally talking about a rebuild that could take weeks. That goes beyond assuming ingredients are safe. To knowing they are. Going beyond expectations. Because our pets deserve it. Beyond. Natural pet food. You know win control . Be this guy. Check it out selfappendectomy oh, thats really attached. Thats why i rent from national. Where i get the control to choose any car in the aisle i want, not some car they choose for me. Which makes me one smooth operator. Ah still a little tender. vo go national. Go like a pro. On a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. Your Insurance Company raises your rates. Maybe you shouldve done more research on them. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Gloria always went big. So we helped her plan a Memorial Service that no one would soon forget. This ones for you, gloria. Only a dignity memorial professional can celebrate a life like no other. Find out how at sanfranciscodignity. Com. Hey youve gotta see this. Cno. N. Alright, see you down there. Mmm, fine. Okay, what do we got . Okay, watch this. Do the thing we talked about. What do we say . Its going to be great. Watch. Remember what we were just saying . Go irish see that . Yes im gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. Find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. Allergytry new xyzal®. Ou have symptoms like these for relief is as effective at hour 24 as hour one. So be wise all take new xyzal®. When irma hit florida, it hit the keys first. Bill, what are you seeing . Well, john, we are starting to get the first glimpses of the devastation. We are in key largo and heres the story. We are running on fumes. There is no gas here. The roads are cutoff because they have to inspect the bridges. Instagram angel named shirley said my friend katherines dad has gas in his shed. After climbing over the roof that came off of that mobile home, those angels bought us a few more hours of live shots. These days our car is our home and our office. You get a sense of one of the homes here. This scene is repeated. An apocalyptic street scape. This is how they gauge distance in this part of the keys. Just about every home has sustain some damage. The mobile homes more than others. The post andrew heavy stone construction. It seemed to survive unscathed, but we are dieing to get down south to the lower keys. The department has to inspect the bridges before they open up u. S. One. Since there are 43 islands, you can imagine what a huge job that is. You may have to wait a while. They came by to assess the damage of her friends house. Tiffany. Good to see you. How are you . Good. How are you . This is incredible. We are ab toeshing it. Whats your impression of the damage . A lot of peoples houses are damaged pretty badly. The water came up high in a lot of areas. We were up