who is in harm's way needs to prepare for the worst and pray for the best. >> let me assure you that we are not overreacting. we need to be ready >> if you live in one of these areas, spend time with precaution. >> battering the bahamas. in nasa, jim, what has the damage been there? >> reporter: candy, a little a little bit of palms here with high wind and strong rain. here in nassau, the main tourist areas, no damage or floods whatsoever. the power lines -- [inaudible] they are so confident that the tourist areas -- [inaudible] >> jim, i'm sorry. i'm going to have to interrupt you here. we have really bad -- i can't hear thaw well. from what i can tell, not that much damage where he is in nassau. we will get back to him we can e audio problem. the latest forecast from the national hurricane center says irene will approach the north carolina coast saturday. cnn meteorologist chad myers is here to fill in more of the details. chad, you and i have talked for a couple of nights now, and i keep asking you where is the storm going to go, and now i think the answer is everywhere. >> it is. it will be an approach of the north carolina coast, anywhere from wilmington, although that's far on the left side, to cape hatteras, although that's far on the right side. somewhere down the middle of that cone will be morehead city, atlantic beach. all day long this storm just ran through the bahamas and it wasn't very organized. it was a 100-mile-per-hour storm. it just didn't have its act together. well, now, on the very last couple of images, candy, the eye is back. and when the eye comes back, the storm begins to generate itself again. this storm is not going to be the potential category 4 according to the hurricane center that it once was due to today. it just didn't generate anything today. now, we do have some rain. we have some showers on the florida coast and we even had some airport, some cancellations out of miami and ft. lauderdale due to those squalls coming onshore. we are still seeing and that's all we're going to see are those big waves coming onshore in the atlantic. yesterday at this time, we talked about waiting for the turn. this is where the storm has been. here's irene. i'm just kind of smoothing it out for you. but you notice the last few hours, the turn is here. the turn that has been forecast for days is now here. the turn will continue. if you follow the track, that's how the american coastline goes, the turn, in fact, will be the worst-case scenario for this storm. directly over the outer banks. it won't slow down much over the outer banks, because really the outer banks there's a lot of water there. there's not much there there, there's not much land. and then you get past over virginia beach, a direct hit there. and along the coast, think about all the homes and all the property, the beautiful sea line that's along the coast, and the storm is going to eat it all up. it's going to just travel up along the coast, all the way up the jersey shore and all the way into new york city as about an 85-mile-per-hour storm. still, i know, it can go left, it can go right, but the cone is getting smaller now because the storm is getting closer. as it gets closer, the error is smaller and smaller, and an 85-mile-per-hour storm right over new york city for this weekend will cause a lot of flooffed i flooding and power outages that may not be fixed in a week or two, we'll have to keep watching it, candy. >> chad myers, we'll keep watching it with you, thanks so much. what are coastal residents doing to prepare for hurricane irene, and joining us is sheriff bill sawyer jr., thank you for joining us. can you describe the scene in areas around you? are people starting to leave or is it one of those things we always see, you go to a beach area or coastal area and people don't seem to be paying much attention? >> no. it is [ inaudible ] we're about 26 miles from the outer banks on the west side of pamlico sound. people are doing a lot of moving, people in the low-lying areas are getting their personal property up out of the way so it doesn't flood. see a lot of that going on today. a few people boarding up windows and stuff like that. that's what's been going on most of the day. >> we're hearing reports already of long lines of traffic in your state, presumably moving east to west. should people start moving now where you are? and it sounds like some of them are. >> i think so. i talked to a bunch of the older commercial -- and farmers in the area today, and when they're concerned, it's something to really be concerned about, and a bunch of the older fishermen and farmers in our area are really worried about this one. >> and as i understand it, you will have a voluntary evacuation down there starting tomorrow. >> that's right, ma'am. >> judging from what you're hearing from fishermen and from others who have seen storms come and go, is voluntary enough to get folks out of your region? >> i think it is. we have -- most of our tourists -- and we don't have a big tourist population right now. most of what we have are local people, and we've been through this several times, you know, our coastline gets hit seems like on a pretty regular basis, even though we haven't had one in several years. but i think people know what they're doing, they know what they're up against, and they're prepared. >> and for those who are not evacuating, who will stay in that region, certainly near the coast, if not on it, what do you recommend? what do you tell them to do in order to stay safe? >> well, of course, if they're in low-lying areas, and most of my county is in low-lying areas, go to a shelter, go to a family member who doesn't live in a low-lying area. get away from the low-lying areas. and most of the folks will. you have some that will stay and -- but most folks will get out of the low-lying areas. >> sheriff bill sawyer, you have a busy 24 hours ahead of you i know in pamlico county, thank you very much for taking the time for us from north carolina. >> all right. you take care. and god bless you. >> you, too. heading further north, the governor of maryland issued a state of emergency earlier today, and he joins us from baltimore. from what you see, governor, and thank you for joining us, i know it's a busy time. how worriy eied are you about t oncoming storm? i know you must be talking to weather forecasters as it specifically applies for maryland. >> we are concerned. we drill for a direct hit hurricane and that's the worst-case scenario and we do it every season. we've been very fortunate up to now. this is a very slow-moving and very dangerous and potentially dangerous hurricane. we're taking this very, very seriously. we're forwarding assets. we ordered an evacuation in conjunction with our partners. the mayor of ocean city. and so that has already begun. that's a mandatory evacuation. we've -- we are also evacuating some of the bay islands and some of the lower-lying areas as the gentleman in your prior interview said, we're encouraging our coastal residents to find a family member that you can hunker down with for the weekend. if you're in a low-lying area, find somebody that you love that's in a higher elevation, because this is potentially a very deadly and dangerous hurricane. >> and obviously you have different advice for ocean city, maryland, which is basically get out and get out now, than you do for, say, someone inland in bethesda. but this could potentially obviously come into d.c. and in bethesda which borders as you full well on washington, d.c., what are you telling residents that are not immediately on the coastline? >> well, what we're telling residents is they need to be prepared in their own family, in their own home to provide for themselves on their own for 72 hours. the ground is very saturated. the slow-moving storm has a lot of rain and a lot of wind. trees will be knocked over. power outages will happen, and people need to be prepared to be on their own for a 72-hour period of time. the breadth of this storm will range in our state all the way from frederick on the west to ocean city. so, this is a very large and wide storm that will be cutting a path of destruction, felled trees, felled power lines and the like. so, this is the time when we all need to be stronger together and take -- and also take special responsibility for the most vulnerable among us, whether it's elderly parents or neighbors that we know are vulnerable. >> basically for three days, maryland residents, wherever they are, need to be prepared to be on their own without power perhaps without water. >> absolutely. >> okay. >> that's what every family should be prepared to do regardless whether in this case a category 2 is coming right at ocean city, the eye of the hurricane, passing over ocean city, and there will be power outages, and unlike past instances, candy, where you can call on mutual aid from north and south, i mean, i've been in touch with my colleagues, beverly purdue is doing a great job and governor mcdonald in virginia and others. but, hey, this is going to be a wide storm and it's going to be pulling up all of the assets up and down the east coast to take care of people in their own states along the track of this hurricane. >> governor, you have a nuclear plant in calvert county, what are you doing special, if anything, to make sure that's protected? because as we know now looking at japan and fukushima, the problem there was the flooding. >> right. well, fortunately the elevation of that particular plant is fairly high on the bluffs of calvert cliffs there. it is always a concern of ours in the recent earthquake. it continued to function and functioned properly without any problems, and the elevation there is pretty high, and very immune from the sort of tidal surge that we'll have in the bay. having said that, other areas of the bay are not immune, and predicting the tidal surge in the bay is a very, very tricky business. it's a bit of a shallow bathtub, so as this hurricane comes up and pushes water up the bay, a lot of low-lying areas, especially in somerset, dorchester, even in annapolis and potentially in the city of baltimore will be very vulnerable to the tidal surge that comes with the hurricane, along with the winds and the felled power lines and everything else, so this is a very serious and potentially deadly storm. >> governor martin o'malley of maryland, like all the governors along the coast, be prepared to fend for yourself for a while, take care of yourself and your family and anyone in your neighborhood who might need some help. thank you so much, governor. >> mach, candy. more on irene on the program tonight, including one governor's warning that the hurricane is not a cry wolf syndrome. and libyan rebels act on a tip on where gadhafi may be hiding out. ♪ with diabetes, it's tough to keep life balanced. i don't always have time to eat like i should. and the more i focus on everything else, the less time i have to take care of me. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes, which can help lower a1c. glucerna products help me keep everything balanced. [ golf clubs clanking ] [ husband ] i'm good! well, almost everything. [ male announcer ] glucerna. delicious shakes and bars. helping people with diabetes find balance. the new dodge durango is a performance s.u.v. that can comfortably seat seven professional drivers. the bad news is, only one of those seven seats is the driver's seat. [ tires screech ] [ engine revving ] the s.u.v. is back. right now, get $2,000 cash allowance or 0% apr financing on the 2011 dodge durango. i know you're worried about making your savings last and having enough income when you retire. that's why i'm here -- to help come up with a plan and get you on the right path. i have more than a thousand fidelity experts working with me so that i can work one-on-one with you. it's your green line. but i'll be there every step of the way. call or come in and talk with us today. [ male ] using clean american fuel is just a pipe dream. ♪ [ female announcer ] we're rolling away misperceptions about energy independence. did you know that today about a quarter of all new transit buses use clean, american natural gas? we have more natural gas than saudi arabia has oil. so how come we're not using it even more? start a conversation about using more natural gas vehicles in your community. officials along the east coast are going out of their way to persuade people to take this storm seriously. here's how new jersey governor chris christie put it this afternoon -- >> i've lived here my whole life, and i understand the cry wolf syndrome that you talked about before. probably participated in it once or twice myself when i wasn't in government. the fact is that this is not wup of those circumstances. >> with us now fema administrator craig fugate, mr. fugate, you just heard what chris christie had to say about this oncoming storm. a hurricane expert on the weather channel just said, and this is a quote, this storm has the makings of the hurricane of our lifetime for the mid-atlantic and the northeast. so, i know you have to walk the line between overreaction and underreaction, but is it that serious? >> well, i think it's important that people take steps to get ready. i mean, this is going to be a hard call. we know north carolina's going to probably get a landfall with a major hurricane, but along the i-95 corridor, you know, we're getting forecasts of that potential storm surge, heavy rains and damaging winds could impact a lot of folks, and i think really what we want people to do is take it serious. get ready. people still have time. the carolinas you are evacuating, but for a lot of other folks, you still have time to get ready, but you'll not have much more time. and getting prepared is the key part of this to reduce the impact of the storms particularly for life safety. >> let me get personal here. when you say get ready, i have a son in new york city, what does he do to get ready? >> first thing first go to the new york city office of emergency management web page and look in the information does he live in an evacuation zone. mayor bloomberg and his team were talking about it this morning, his folks in the evacuation zones need to be ready to evacuate and know where the bus pickup points will be and get in the right area. if the power goes out and if we lose water pressure or water goes out and that may be not just for hours, it could be for days. you may lose communication and you may have lose cell service. you need to have a battery-powered radio and the battery for your flashlights and the ability to charge the cell phone if you don't have power whether it's a hand crank, and this is how you get ready. go to ready.gov and the local emergency management websites to get ready. youed into ed to find out now, are you in an evacuation zone, and what to do if you lose power, lose water. maybe not be able to get out and get supplies for several days and what you need to have on hand to get through the first couple of days after the storm hits. >> the communications problem we had an experience in the earthquake the other day when it was just difficult to get a cell out of washington, d.c., to do any phone calling, where the text seemed to work fairly well. twitter was great. what can be done to alleviate that sort of thing? or should people just not rely that those cell phones are going to work in the instance of a storm this big hitting so many people. >> i think you just need to be prepared, not only can we have congestion on the systems, but with a lot of power outages we could have reduced capacity and that's one of the things that use alternatives. again, we saw people using social media and texting, they were able to sometimes get through the bottlenecks, but also remember that it may be difficult to call a lot of people, so do you have an out of the area contact that you can kind of use as your rally point or a facebook posting if you can do that to let people know you're okay versus trying to call everybody and talk to them individually. really want to reserve particularly the phone lines and cell service for the emergency calls, 911 calls and try to reduce the congestion. but that means ahead of time having a plan of how you're letting people know you're okay if the cells are out or if they're congested or if you have limited communications such things as, you know, text messaging or updating a social web page to let people know that. >> when you look at the broad area, mr. fugate, that could be affected, first by direct impact and then the things you're talking about, loss of power, loss of water supply, what worries you the most? >> well, i think, again, i'm breaking it down into the phase of the what we're going to see first, and that's going to be the impacts along coastal areas, to the evacuations and how many people comply with that. that's going to be key to reducing the loss of life and minimizing the impacts there. but then again, it's going to be how far inland do the winds go, how strong are they and how much rain we get. we are very concerned. this area particularly the northeast has had so much rain recently, even today we've had severe weather and flash flood advisories here in the d.c. metro area, so more storms impacting this area, we're afraid a lot of flooding, a lot of tree damage, a lot of power outages, pretty much anywhere on the i-95 corridor from as far south as the carolinas and on up to boston and maine. >> we have indeed, i can attest to the torrential rains we had today. i thought the hurricane was here. let me ask you about fema itself. you're talking about possible loss of water supply. is it fema's job to arrange for trucks full of fresh water to be sparked somewhere outside the storm zone to come in afterwards? what are you doing? >> that's some of what we're doing. we've already had equipment and supplies such as bottled water going into north carolina, ft. bragg. we also have resources going into the mid-atlantic and up into the new england states. one things we learned from hurricane katrina is the private sector does a lot of this, too, so we work very closely with a lot of the big box retailers so as they start moving supplies up into these areas, we're working to fill gaps and looking at that. the state and locals do a lot of this, yeah, we move the stuff ahead of time. we have generators, shelf stable meals. a lot of things we know we'll need, but this is the really key part. if people haven't done steps to get ready, it's going to be very hard to get to everybody in the first days after the storm. we want to focus on the most vulnerable members of the community, the young, the poor, the people that don't have the ability to get supplies and store them. the rest of us needed to did our part to be as ready as we can. >> okay. quickly now give me the name -- give me the website address people can go to see what they need to do to get ready for this or any other storm. >> for this or any other disaster, ready.gov, get your plan on your mobile phones, you can go to m.fema.gov and get it on go. >> craig fugate, you've got a busy couple days ahead of you, good luck. >> thank you. we wanted to share this tweet from fugate today, got a plan? got supplies? prepared to evacuate if ordered? good. you're in charge, not irene. next up i'll ask the head of one of the east coast's major power companies what his people are doing to prepare for irene. and you're looking live at wrightsville beach, north carolina, where the waves are getting bigger and the beach is empty. hey! you want that? you want a warm, super-delicious strawberry toaster strudel yeah but now i have nothing to eat sure you do. hey! you can have the pop tart! pillsbury toaster strudel. the one kids want to