Page 2 - Battering Cuba News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Officials say more than 10,000 people have already lost power this morning. we're expect be a new update on hurricane irma from the national hurricane center at any moment right now. it usually comes out at the top. hour. let's go to chad myers, in the cnn weather center. category 5, tell us where it's expected? >> yes, the storm is just leaving the coast of cuba. and cuba did take some stuffening out of the storm. bad news for cuba, but good news that the storm has weakened right now. i don't believe that the 5:00 advisory is out right now they're still tweaking it a little bit. this happens ...

Still very powerful, very dangerous. cuba is going to be recovering from this devastating storm for some time to come, victor. >> patrick, i know it may be difficult for you to hear me, so i just send that on to the audience. but is there any indication how many people decided to stay and not evacuate shady of irma? >> reporter: overall, countrywide, the cuban government said about a quarter of 1 million. maybe 11 million people. i think perhaps the biggest problem is, the people thought it was going to go by the coast. and we have some effects of the storm. you know, that's what we had been t...

Of irma already this morning. >> yeah, the wind has certainly picked up in the last few minutes, but believe us -- this is smog compared to what is coming. you may see a few flashes of lightning behind me over miami beach, so, be prepared for those as well. this storm is on the way. the brunt of it coming in the next 24 hours. it's now a category 4 strength. but don't find any comfort in the downgrade. because it's sustained winds at 155 miles an hour. two miles more, it's back to category 5. cuba felt that strength with winds 160 miles per hour. it's expected to slam florida tomorrow morning ...

We would hope that it would sort of veer to the right and go out to sea. at one point, it became apparent this was our window of opportunity to move north. to go north. so, we drove north until just today. >> all right. hurricane irma, i want to show you what it's doing to cuba here. i believe we have some pictures coming into us. of what is happening there. you see the trees blowing, patrick oppmann is there, he said it felt like a jet engine as the wind hit him making landfall on to the northern coast there, 15 to 26-foot waves recorded and they could get higher as they head to havana. we'll...

Comfort that could be feign in the reduction from a 5 to a 4? >> well, there's say lot of warm water ahead of this system. so, as soon as it moves a little bit away from cuba, it will regain its intensity as category 5 likely. the waters are in the upper 80s. so as it makes a northwest turn, it will likely intensify on its approach to south florida. you definitely don't want to get any sense of comfort from that downgrade to category 4, it's about to move from cuba and likely intensify to a category 5. >> all right, accuweather storm chaser reed timur, thank you for being with us. as we check ...