Onshore this way, wolf. The storm will track up here. Flooding here, wind damage here and here and then flooding from this side, too. So because were going to move it right up and its as big as the state, if not wider, with Hurricane Force winds, everyone will see damage. I dont think there will be any True Community that doesnt lose shingles maybe a window. Be very careful when tried to get in or out of your house if you are staying, because when the wind blows those doors slam shut. And let me tell you, ive seen it. And peoples fingers get caught in the doors. Wind howling through it. You dont expect it, bam, in trouble. Try to go to the hospital and the winds blowing 100. Please, please, be careful here and have some cash. Today is the day to get cash. When the wind blows, power lines go down, and also the le electricity down, credit cards dont work. When you need something, you need cash. The storm comes around 2 00 tomorrow afternoon. Miami finally see 50 mileperhour wind gusts. But look at this white ball. Thats 100 Miles Per Hour or greater over the entire keys and then over the everglades and then because the evergrades isnt really land, its water, it gets bigger. Gets bigger again. We have winds 100 Miles Per Hour all the way across the florida peninsula tomorrow afternoon. And into sunday afternoon. So this is going to be sunday afternoon. This is going to be a big event for everyone onshore flow up and down the east coast. Onshore flow on the west coast causing flooding there and you know, 16 Million People will see Hurricane Force gusts. How many people are going to lose power . Wolf, 2 million, 3 million, 4 Million People without power just by power lines and trees and limbs down alone. Going to take a long time to put that all back up let alone the possible loss of life if you do the wrong things and stay in the keys or in places where officials told you to leave. That explains, chad, why there are all of these enormous number of evacuations in florida from the west coast, st. Petersburg, to the east coast, in West Palm Beach and south from there. Is there any part of florida, really, thats going to escape this . No. Although i will tell you that where we were yesterday with the storm somewhere in here, which is worstcase scenario for miami, west palm and hollanddale and jupiter and all this. Over here a little farther, now the east coast slightly less. Probably 20 Miles Per Hour less here, but now 20 Miles Per Hour more here. So we have shifted the wind toward naples, pinellas and fort myers, getting 20 Miles Per Hour grauter than you would have received yesterday with the track that we had yesterday. It will still rain. It wont be a rain or flood event. This is a wind and also the surge event for you, and i believe the eye is going to be very, very close to the marathon airport, key colony beach. Just south of grassy key and duck key, and thats going to push the water north of there to surge, key largo, islamorada and points northward. Push all the water eventually over make surprise into key biscayne. Thats when you flood downtown miami and looks like six feet of water will do a lot of damage in that town which is at sea level. Yes. Certainly will. Chad, stand by. West palm beach, florida, certainly one. Areas under mandatory evacuation now. Just under 1. 5 Million People live in the county. And brian todd, cnn, is on the scene. In West Palm Beach across the water over there from palm beach. How is the evacuation process going . Reporter well, wolf, a complicated process, and very anxious process. Well show you what it means physically to see all this. Trying to get people off the barrier island. Thats palm beach right there. Low lying. Mobile homes there. A lot of vulnerable population trying to get them across the bridges and here to West Palm Beach, a slightly Higher Elevation where we are and get inland into general population shelters if they can get them. The mayor of West Palm Beach says they want to try to get people off the roads by tomorrow. That mandatory evacuation for palm beach started this morning at 10 00 a. M. Three hours ago, about. In parts of West Palm Beach, wolf, theyre still adhering to volunteer evacuations but also parts of west palm, they are instituting some mandatory evacuations in some lowlying areas. Storm surge will happen here. Five to ten feet. Im only standing five feet above the surface in the intercoastal waterway. Wash up here, inundate. Talking five to ten feet above this level you see here, plus wave activity on top of that inundating here. If it indoundates here, certain it will over there. Another big complication, wolf, securing and protecting elderly during this evacuation process. Trying to get them off palm beach and into a special need shelter here in west palm and then elsewhere in palm beach county. A huge challenge. A lot of ederle people did not want to move. The ones that want to are not easy to move. A short time ago i talked to the coowner of an alzheimers care facility run out of a small house. Not really any bigger than these houses over here, and he has four alzheimers patients, probably move them from that facility to another of his own facilities further inland in palm beach not necessarily to a shelter. He thinks he can take care of them better himself. But hes worried. They get scared, confused. Only four of them. Youre talking about a county full of elderly people a lot need special needs. If they go to a special needs shelter, there is one probably filled to capacity. They have to bring their caregivers with them, because there is just not the personnel there to take care of the special needs of the elderly. You know, wolf, there are hundreds of thousands of elderly here in palm beach county. Certainly are and broud county, fort lauderdale, miamidade, and worried about the elderly. Well get back to you. With billions and billions expected in damage, fema will have a major role to play in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Joining us from gainesville, florida, the former administrator of the federal Emergency Management agency. Thanks for joining us. You have a lot of experience on this issue. Whats the number one priority for fema when in a monstrous storm like this is barreling down on the United States . You heard Governor Scott making sure all resources his team will need focuses on search and recue and middle east stableation as irma moves through the state. From critical supplies. Most importantly, additional search and rescue teams from across the nation. Fema was already stretched thin after Hurricane Harvey in texas and louisiana. Was there a plan in place . Is there a plan in place, for a twostorm scenario . Yes. Weve practiced and part of the reason why fema has a tenregion structure to move different regions around and handle the primary region four is focused on this. Region six, still doing harvey. A lot of search and rescue 250eteams back, retrofitting getting said for this storm. And in puerto rico, getting ready when irma threatened those places. What do authorities do to those folks who ignore the Evacuation Orders especially along the coast, in the keys, in miami beach, lets say or palm beach and say, were going to ride it out. What, if anything, can you do about that . Theres nothing illegal when it comes to that, right . Yes. Thats a decision. We want to make sure its a sound decision. Ill be blunt. We talk about storm surge. Were talking about drowning. How you die in this event, if you dont evacuate. You, your family and anybody who didnt evacuate will drown. Thats the risk, and theyll tell you at a certain point youre going to dial 911 to get rescued. Its too dangerous for teams to get out there. Theyll mark your location and as soon as conditions permit try to get to you. Ive been on too many of these, that turns into a rvry operation, not life saving because the lives were lost. This is about drowning. Thats how youre going to die in the storm surge is this bad if you dont evacuate. Why we ask people to heed evacuation, move to higher ground. You need to move inland. This is not something you want to risk or second guess, because once you go to the point where its too late, that may be your last decision. When is it too late . Based on the forecast we have now, when this hurricane is going to hit florida, when is it going to be too late . About the time we start seeing higher tropical force wind gusts start hitting. Now you run into problems particularly coming off the Barrier Islands going across the bridges, getting blown off the bridge. Generally when the Response Teams have to stop and move into their safe locations. So as we start seeing those tropics force winds arriving, your window closeds rapidly to the point its too dangerous to move and too late to get out. You and i discussed these, covered these hurricanes for many, many years. Give us perspective on irma right now. How enormous is it compared to some of the others that weve gone through . Well, for florida, they have not been through this since the 20s. Anybody whos been through andrew, unless you went through the eyewall, hurricane charlie eyewall, very small defined areas. All the hurricanes in 04 will not prepare you for irma. This is a much more dangerous statewide threat. Past experience is not going to prepare you for this. You need to heed Evacuation Orders. If youve ridden them out before, you were lucky. Dont trust your luck this time. You need to move to higher ground. Good advice. Craig, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. And i hope all of our viewers in the danger zone right now are paying very close attention to what you are saying. This is a life and death decision that these folks have to make. Thank you very much. Thanks, wolf. Lets go to south florida. The very first place on the u. S. Mainland that will feel irmas wrath. Joining us from miami now, you couldnt see a radar. Would you even know now that a hurricane is coming your way . Reporter you absolutely wouldnt but heard the urgency in few fugates voice. The risk of storm surge and perhaps no place at greater risk when it comes to the storm surge and flooding than miami beach. I want to show you exactly why this could be so costly and deadly, wolf. Look over my shoulder. Stepping out of the way as you take a look. This is whats the draw about miami beach. Beautiful high rises. Glitzy and new. This is an area thats been booming with development and this is what potentially could make irma hurt this area so much. Thats despite the new building codes in place since hurricane andrew. Woma wolf, take a like at this historical picture from 1925. This is the same place. This is miami beach. It is a completely different area. Just since hurricane andrew. The population of miami beach has gone up 35 . Overall in central and southern florida, the population boom has meant millions more into this area since 1990. With all of these building, infrastructure change what that means, a huge wind event, more debris. Toss in that irma is going to have a huge storm surge. Weve seen all across miami beach people boarding up. They are protecting themselves, because they absolutely anticipate that there will be a massive storm surge. Despite that some people are going to say that theyre going to stay in their upper highlevel high rises. Wolf, we cannot stress more than enough. Spoken to the city today. They are urging everyone to get out of miami beach. Wolf . Certainly are. And many other places in florida as well. In miami for us, thank you. Standing by to join us, the governor of florida, rick scott. Hes telling well who refuse to leave. My interview with the governor coming up. Plus cnn is live right in the middle of the traffic gridlock thats developed as lots of folks in florida are racing to escape. And a stunning picture showing how much bigger irma is compared to the devastating andrew 25 years ago. Youre going to hear from the First Responders who are staying behind as their families leave. When you have to leave them what do you say to them . Obviously, the most difficult part. Hmm. You tell them you love them and hope you make a back. Patrick woke up with back pain. But he has work to do. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. These make cleaning between myi love easy. Sy. Gum brand for healthy gums. Soft picks, proxabrush cleaners, flossers. Gum brand. Get back to breaking news. More than 20 Million People living in florida. Nearly everyone in the state will be affected by this monster storm. Florida governor rick scott joins us oun the phone. Governor thanks, as usual, for joining us. Looking at pictures of long lines of homestead, florida, just outside miami. These lines are people trying to get into a shelter ahead of the storm where do the evacuations stand right now . Still evacuating this part of the south and we know the storm is coming up. And evacuating other parts of the state. Just receiving tampa to go down to fort myers. An area of tampa is leaving now. We have shelters. I shut down all the schools in the entire state to add more shelters. Ive asked for volunteers. Needing more volunteers, getting more every day. Opening many shelters as is necessary and i tell everybody, you cannot wait. Youve got to if youre in an evacuation zone, get out now. If youre going to leave your home, you need to get going now, because as this gets closer its going to get harder to get where you want to go. And i care about the whole state. I love them, but we cant put First Responders in harms way to save you. So take care of your family. We all love our families and dont want to lose one family member, so do it now. Take your action now. Dont wait. We just spoke to fred fugate, former fema administrate here was rather blunt. If people ignore these Evacuation Orders from you and from other authorities, they potentially could die as a result of the storm surge. Is that the biggest fear you have . Im worried that people wont all evacuate. Feel this is the same as before. Lets put it in perspective. This is much bigger than andrew and we have storm risk we didnt have with andrew. Surge between three and ten feet. Weve got a lot of rain potentially. We could have bands of rain, but this, water accumulates and the storm surges, when they come in, they come in powerful and they will just, they can cover your entire house. Its very difficult to survive that. So youve got to take this very seriously. When theres an Evacuation Order theyre taking into consideration when and the storm surge and especially this one the storm surge. And as was said, wolf, this can affect the entire state. Its going coast to coast. This is a big, big, big storm. I just want toing precise, governor. The emergency services, like fire, paramedics, they will be cut off during the worst of it, the Emergency Personnel wont be able to reach people if they get through to 911. Right . They wont be ale to get ot t to you. In the middle of a storm surge, they cant get to you. We have great First Responders and will do everything in their power to keep you safe, but in the middle of the storm, they cant get to you. Between the wind, the rain and storm surge, it will be impossible for them to get to you. So youve got to take care of your now and dont wait. Get on the road to go somewhere, you have to get there now. If you have friends, family or shelter, dont wait. Do it now. We opened up shelters around the state. Do it now. Dont wait. Just think about your entire family. I love my kids. I dont want to lose them or my wife. I love them. Take care of your own family. So bottom line, governor, for people who decide despite all warnings, despite all the pleas, to stay in their homes and to supposedly ride out this monstrous storm, what its your bottom line message to these people . You know, i love you. I want you to be safe. I wish you would not try to ride this out. Please, go to a shelter. Please go to a friends house. Get out of harms way. Wherever you can, well help you but youre putting peoples lives at risk when you do that. Ill do what i can to take care of people and hope every would vuk wait right now if in an evacuation zone. Local officials, we see more evacuations that have come up and we learn more about what the storm surge will be. Showing viewers, governor, live pictures from Marion County in florida. You see the traffic heading north. Huge, huge numbers of cars. Very few cars heading in the other direction on the other part of this interstate. At what point do you decide, you know what . Everybodys going to go one way . What were doing right now is, we all do emergency vehicles to go south. Still trying to get more fuel here. We have tankers coming from the panhandle to bring fuel to central florida. One of my biggest, my biggest focus this week, how to get more fuel in the state, because weve got to continue to get more fuel here. So what weve done is from wildwood to weve done, a lot of people allowed to be on the shoulder, making for an additional lane, and Highway Patrol out there are directing traffic. Trying to keep everybody moving. We have road rangers 24 7 helping people. So were doing everything we can to keep the traffic moving and try to get people fuel. So look, if you can shelter in your own county and not you dont have to go out some place far away, thats a positive. You know there will be a greater chance that you can get where you want to go. But we want to get everybody where they want to go, and, oh, by the way, go to sl 511. Com to see what the traffic is where year trying to go. Theres an app called gas buddy, shows you where the gas is in the state. Gives an idea how to do it. By the way, we will make sure, if you want to get out, if you want to get out well do whatever w