and it is midnight eastern time. you're watching cnn's breaking news of hurricane irene. i'm kyra phillips. thanks for staying with us. >> and i'm martin savage. >> hurricane irene is slowly turning up the east coast, as we've been telling you, the philadelphia airport has ceased operations until sunday afternoon. new york's transit system is shut down. we've also been talking about boston's subway service. it has been suspended. >> and we're talking about only an category 1 hurricane, but irene moves at such a snail's pace, and that makes it especially dangerous. at least nine people have lost their lives since irene made landfall this morning. 2 million homes and businesses now without power tonight. >> now, the hurricane has spun off at least two tornadoes. that one hit lewes, deleware, damaging more than 30 homes. five homes were destroyed in north carolina earlier today by a tornado there. and then a tornado watch is now in effect for parts of new york. >> the center of the hurricane just off the maryland coast, near ocean city, but that storm is so large that its outer rain

bands can be felt from north carolina to new england. the worst of the storm is expected to reach new york city by sunday, i think, morning, actually. we say afternoon here, but sunday morning as a category 1. >> and we've got cnn correspondents, of course, strategically positioned all up and down the east coast, to give you the latest and most crucial information as irene continues to move. >> and poppy harlow is awaiting the storm in new york city, where there has been a great deal of concern. poppy, how are things at this hour? >> reporter: well, as mayor mike bloomberg of new york put it, martin, this storm is coming, conditions are deteriorating fast. i want to take you, we are just on the edge of central park here. this is central park south by fifth avenue, cnn bureau here would usually be very full on a saturday night. obviously, not the case at all. i want to give people a sense of where we are right now. the mayor has just told everyone in new york there's a tornado

watch for all five boroughs. tornadoes often comes with hurricanes. that is in effect until at least 5:00 a.m. as he said, conditions are deteriorating very quickly. what's also important is you know zone "a" where we were reporting from earlier today, we were all supposed to be evacuated, some 370,000 new yorkers. for those that chose to stay and not evacuate, stay put, it is now too late to evacuate. you have to do the best you can with where you are. we're getting a lot of rain here, as you can see. the wind is yet to really pick up here, but, again, the storm is felt all the way from north carolina up to new york. i want to show you some very interesting pictures of how this city is preparing for what is coming, whether it hits us as a category 1, whether it hits us as a tropical storm, let's pull the photos up, guy. this is interesting, the long island rail road amtrak, they are preparing. they're putting these long, white tubes in place that call those do is that they protect from a storm surge. if we see a storm surge of a

number of feet coming towards manhattan and coming towards the tunnels and coming towards the railroad tracks that will protect them from severe, severe flooding. so an interesting look at how manhattan is preparing for all of this, guys. what we are hearing now is that the worset of this storm is going to the start hitting this city at about 4:00 a.m. eastern time. we will be live with you throughout the night and we will venture from here to downtown as far as we can get and brng you live reports from the top of the hour and as the wind picks up we will get in the car and head downtown. >> all right. poppy, thank you very much, and we will stay in touch with you. >> all right. we have been talking a lot with jeanne meserve who is putting in long and treacherous hours in ocean city, maryland, where she is getting the brunt of it. jeanne, it has picked up? >> yes, it has, kyra. i have just talked to the emergency operations here in -- excuse me, i'm having an audio

problem and let me turn this down. i just talked to the emergency operations center here and they told me that sustained winds are now 48 miles an hour with gusts up to 68 miles an hour, and about eight inches of rain has fallen already, and they told me that an offshore buoy here is measuring the average waves between 15 and 20 feet. we can see a little bit of the damage that the storm is doing if you look beyond me here, you can see that some siding has come off of one of the houses adjacent to us. i must say at this point in time we have not been able to see a lot of physical damage, perhaps because we have not been able to move much from this location. the city tells me that at this point in time, there is some minor flooding here. they don't know how extensive it is going to be, and they had braced for something fairly serious, and obviously, they won't have a full ags cessment until daylight. there are also some power outages in the city, and our

hotel is dark and operating on emergency power, and for instance they say interestingly enough, because there are no people in ocean city, there is no one to call in the outages, so they don't have a clear sense of exactly how widespread the outages are. the power company in any event won't be doing any response in this kind of weather. also, police and other emergency vehicles staying off of the street for the most part and they are taking emergency calls and deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to respond. back to you guys. >> okay. our jeanne meserve there in ocean city, maryland. jeanne, please keep us updated and continue to stay safe. >> yes. and karen mcginnes is joining us tracking irene in the cnn hurricane headquarters. karen? >> well, we had the latest update from the national hurricane center at 11:00, and we will be seeing another one in the next hour or so, but jeanne certainly is getting whipped around by perhaps the strongest portion of the system which is

along the northern and the western edges here. the center of the system now just to the south, southwest of ocean shores, maryland. there you can see the northern edge and the western edge is where we are seeing the heaviest bands and also where we are looking at a tornado watch which is currently in effect across the region. i will show you that in one second. there is the embedded cells which has actually picked up a little bit of speed over the last, as the last update from the national hurricane center. it is moving toward the north and northeast at just about 16 miles an hour. beforehand, it had been moving at 13 miles an hour. so the fact that it is moving a little more quickly tells us that the rainfall totals that we were looking at on the order of 6 to 12 inches may be revised a little bit, but nonetheless, we are going to see a higher than normal astronomical tide right around mid-morning, just about the time that this hurricane is

going to sweep across the northeast and into new england. i want to show you a closer view later, but right over here, around perth amboy and staten island, that is where a lot the water is piling up. where you see the orange shaded area, that is perhaps the highest tides and perhaps six or eight feet, and sometimes up to 11 feet above what we would normally expect for the high tide to reach for this time of year. i want oshow yto show you what happening as far as the tornado watch is concerned. it encompasses portions of maryland extending to the border of massachusetts, and we have seen a couple of cells one in lieu w lieuis, delaware, but they were reporting damages with a short lived tornado, and that is the kind of thing we will see. we won't see a long track tornadoes that we typically see across the great plains and typically in tornado season. these are very, very different and this is the rotation from

the warm moisture that is moving on shore. as you heard over and over, that water is piling up. as it does pile up, and there you can see the images coming in as we look, and that is i believe the chesapeake region if i'm not mistaken and you can correct me if i'm wrong on that, but they are looking at the rainfall totals between 6 and 12 inches of rain. now, i will tell you that in places like boston, they have seen about three times their normal amount of rainfall for the month of august, and that is not a three-month rainfall total, and that is just for the month of august, so you will see an additional perhaps 6 to 12 inches of rain, and we have some serious problems, and you have also probably heard about the trees being very compromised. the root system is very loose, and you will get a wind, and those trees are going to come down quickly. also for philadelphia and a lot of the i-95 corridor regions where the airports are going to be severely affected over the

next 24 hours, we have already seen that, and it looks like this system as it begins to push across the region in the early morning hours, we will see not just air traffic, but all kinds of traffic that is going to be particularly hampered, and they are saying that the lower level of the george washington has been e closclosed off and you c imagine why because of the storm system that is moving through there, and we will have another update coming up in 20 minutes. kyra and martin, back to you. >> and now we will check in with one of the affiliates. who is it? >> it is from ocean city, maryland, and let's listen in. >> well, it is with the intense wind, they thought there would be some flooding, but i have not had a chance to look around, but it seems not too bad of a situation here, but down where there was a seawall, there was water coming over the seawall and lower down in ocean city and then we have to worry later about the water coming in from

bayside. but that is what we are seeing from the vantage point at this point. let's take it back to you, derrick and anita. >> well, how do you find the temperature now after midnight and still a warm rain? >> well, from there to the affiliate wkyw in philadelphia. >> it is hitting atlantic city very hard and check out the wild waves in atlanta city, a nd thi is daylight outside and the situation is much worse in atlantic city, and our robin reghr has been there since 2:00, and she has seen the weather deteriorate in a big way there, but this is the strong surf that we saw earlier and as we watch throughout the day, we saw the tide come up far and the wind whipping up and the rain was coming down hard and we started to see the flooding and this crew there had to take shelter at the convention center to get themselves and the live truck out of harm's way. >> well, a terrific job as all of our crews have. this is the scene in avalon and our walt hunter is there now,

but you can see the waves are crashing over the jetty, and this is when it was still daylight and the conditions in avalon grew pretty desperate this evening and although it has been quiet. >> all right. now into wcbs and the coverage of hurricane irene. >> well, you know, again, no power so i can't see much of anything, but it looked like flashes of light going by and it looked like -- whoops. it looked like a big bus and i don't know what for, but it was driving around as well and we heard a couple of hours ago a bull horn telling people they had to leave. so now we are not seeing, well, i can't see, but i don't know if anyone is still coming down here to experience the winds, and that is what we had an hour ago and just thrill seekers who wanted to come and throw themselves into the wind, because it is incredible. >> it has to be a little disconcerting, crystal, you are in the dark and the rain is

coming down sideways and the water is collecting and you are in logjamed new jersey, and what is that like? >> well, it is one of those things as a reporter, you try to have a line, you know, where you know that you are doing something for a story, you know what wha what, as we are talking the live truck literally did a move there. there. and you are listening to the affiliates as we cover the stories, and we will continue to do the same. lower manhattan is the area under the focus and area of of concern. we will check in there. >> we will talk to retired general russell honer ori as we. he will tell us which states are doing well and where there needs to be some work. stay with cnn, your hurricane headquarters. go-gurt?

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following the storm in their local communities and continue to bring their coverage as well as our own. >> that is right. as new york braces for irene, the police are trying to reassure the public that everything is going to be okay. >> we spoke with the new york police department commissioner ray kelly who says that the officers are out in force. >> we have a deployed, you know, block numbers of police officers out on patrol for specifically that reason, order maintenance, and that is in fact that you do leave your home and leave your valuables, it is understandable that you are concerned about that and we trying to allay the concerns by having police resources in place. you know, we are a big police department, but, we have devoted a lot of the resources in that regard to the areas where evacuation was man dated. >> how about the fact that this is a weekend? i presume it is a great help for

you? >> yeah. i mean, you know, the fact that people are not going to work, and obviously, the lessons that, you know, the pressure and the effect on the business community, and i mean, we know that the businesses certainly are impacted as a result of this, but it would have been much greater if in fact it happened during the work week. so, you know, there are other businesses and entertainment businesses and other things that are affected on the weekends, but i think that the effect would have been much greater if it had happened in a work week, so we are thankful for that. >> that was new york's police commissioner ray kelly saying they are ready, however as we know and general honore knows that you can say you are ready, but you don't always know what is about to approach and if indeed you can handle it. so far, what do you think with regard to new york and its preps? >> well, so far, so good. again, the game-changer is if

that area is threatened, you to see what two to three feet of water gets in there and people are isolated on the electricity is off and people trapped in buildings and the transportation systems stop, then you will always have that situation where people will try to take advantage of a situation, and go into the store and now you have police more concerned with security than they are with search and rescue as we saw and have seen in the disasters since katrina. >> there is criticism and backlash in new york city saying too much made by too little of a storm, but when you are in command of a city like the mayor is, you don't have that luxury and you have to plan for the absolute worst, right? >> absolutely. that is what the leaders have to do. this is not a popularity contest, but it is a contest to do the right thing for the people to protect them. in this situation, we have seen a shift in the last couple of

years of leaders like the mayor making a decision to close the city down rather than leave it exposed and try to go along with business as usual with a storm approaching. look, before katrina, we had a football game in new orleans on friday night and a football game in baton rouge saturday morning and katrina came sunday night, and major disruption to the evacuation plans for the great state of louisiana and the people of louisiana. we still got 80% evacuation, so the lessons from that, that we continue to talk about is, look, let's focus on the storm and stop the commerce down, and stop the games and stop the broadway plays and let's get people evacuated. that is what they did. it has come to a rest, but it is the right thing to do. >> and here is what is tough, too, the mayor already said they dealt with as he put it very reckless behavior with the two kayakers out there wanting to check things out, and it took

nypd resources to go to rescue them and pull them into a boat to get them out of there, and you had to deal with a lot of foolishness as well during katri katrina, and i mean, how do you convince, you know, people like that that, look, you know, we don't have time for this as emergency response people, and you know, you are putting your life at stake. >> well, absolutely. you will find that aberrant behavior in every disaster, and the first responders learn to deal with it, but that being said, the people out doing news-type activity, they are not watching television. they are out for the thrill, and the good news is that only a few of them, and on this case, it is two people they caught. trust me, there are many more people out there taking risks that just haven't gotten into the position where they need help yet. >> all right. lieutenant generalhonore, and we will have you back next hour. >> thank you.

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25 minutes past the hour of midnight on the east coast and you are looking at the affiliate coverage as they follow hurricane irene as it approaches new york city which is likely to face its greatest threat since

the 1930s as a result of the storm. our chris lawrence is in chesapeake beach, maryland, where more than half a million homes an bizd businesses are wit power tonight. chris? >> yes, marty. this storm is different in every location you go to and also seems to be different by the hour. last hour we were pelted with some really intense rain, and the wind was really whipping up. now, we are feeling the wind starting to die down a little bit and the rain lessen up. and i will step away and obviously some gusts like that, but the sustained winds that we were feeling just an hour ago, we are not feeling right at this minute. now that since we don't believe we have hit the brunt of the storm yet by no means do we believe we are out of the wood, and we believe it is a temporary lull perhaps in between some of the bands. but the real concern here obviously is the storm surge, if

it comes, and high tide here in this area is expected to be about 3:30 in the morn, and so, the concern is the soil erosion that you can see a lot of the homes are built up on the cliff, and how much water will be pushed through the chesapeake bay. marty. >> real concern, chris. and the flooding that is expected in that area is going to go down when? i mean, is this something that will last a couple of hours? or something that could go on for days? >> i think that a lot of it really depends upon how the winds blow, because that is really going the determine exactly where that water in the chesapeake gets pushed to. you know, when we saw, you know, years and years ago in this area tropical storm agnes, you know, that had a lot of water, but it was mainly because the rain was concentrated further inland and a little north so it ended up sort of flooding the potomac

river. in all actuality keeping the majority of the rain closer to the shore is actually better in the sense that you have a lot of beach front, a lot of soil and sand that can better soak up that rain rather than an area like people are bracing for in lower manhattan and an area of concrete and sky crescrapers an areas like that where the rain and the accumulation of water could cause some real ubl tro, becau -- trouble, because there is no ground the soak et up. so you would ideally like to see if the rain comes in great force, you want it concentrated more on the shore so at least you can hope that the beach and the soil there can help to soak up some of the effects. now, too much, obviously, that would overwhelm even that barrier, and so, the danger here is not so much -- no one is thinking at this point that there is any sort of catastrophic wind damage here, but the damage, but the concern

really is the damage that high-rising floodwaters could do if we get 4 to 8 inches of extra water in here, and exactly how fast will that come in, and what kind of flood damage could it do to the area around here. >> chris lawrence in chesapeake bay beach, maryland. thankses very much. >> as we go to new york, they are expected to get hurricane-force winds and rain by tomorrow morning and we are talking about where this storm is going if go, g f ging to go, there live, and also to new jersey. stay with us for more breaking coverage of hurricane irene. sometimes, i worry my pipes might leak. but i learned there's something more i can do. now, i take care with vesicare. once-daily vesicare can help control your bladder muscle and is proven to treat overactive bladder with symptoms of frequent urges and leaks day and night. if you have certain stomach or glaucoma problems,

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breaking news coverage of hurricane irene continues in the "cnn newsroom" and i'm martin savage. >> and i'm kyra phillips. thanks for staying with us here in the cnn headquarters. >> and to off of the coast of ocean city in maryland, more than 2 million homes an businesses are without power. >> and hurricane irene has spun off two tornados now. this one, it hit lewis, delaware, damaging more than 30 homes there, and five homes destroyed in north carolina earlier by a tornado and then a tornado watch is now in effect for parts of new york. well, irene could be the worst

hurricane to hit new york city since 1938 and lower health cma is bracing itself. >> and we were talked by phone from an area where i is an evacuation zone. >> well, the thing that is interesting, martin, even though we are in the evacuation zone, we are seeing the vehicles and vehicles that are the no emergency vehicles, but look to be those of average ordinary citizens. >> ann, explain to us the concern here, because it is the water, but the water from what direction? >> the concern is the water coming from the south which would be to my right. i'm going to have nick parker pan over to the right and it is a dark shot, but what you will be seeing is the tip of manhattan, and brooklyn battery tunnel and beyond that, that is new york harbor and the concern is that the surge of water will come up through new york harbor and flood this area that you are seeing below us in the lower portion of the shot. >> wind has to be a concern as

well with the very tall buildings that you have got and a lot of glass. >> absolutely. there is a lot of glass in lower manhattan, and especially from the world trade center and ground zero site, there is a lot of glass there. some of the windows are boarded up. a majority of them that we have seen today are not. the buildings around, the building i'm in does not have any boards on the window. so there could be a lot of glass flying around. >> well, from the producer tos the correspondents to affiliates we have an advantage that we can link in with a number of local affiliates covering the hurricane as well, and let's listen in to wcbs. >> over the railing right there, a lot of us have been down to battery park, sue, and that grabs your attention, doesn't it? >> well, think about this, maurice, i'm 6'3", 6'4" and about the same size as you and three feet over this, hello? really? over my head. they have -- take a look over

here the vegetation with the plants and the things, and if you could pan to the left, greg, there are buildings over here and solve to windows and to the left, greg, some of the windows can become an area of concern depending upon how high the water goes, so yeah, it does get your attention, and it does get your attention. >> you better believe it. scott rappaport, thank you so much for us tonight, or this morning in battery park. and we have a couple extra seconds, scott, are you still there? >> yes, aim there. >> that is wcbs in new york and we will check in with atlantic city right after this break. ♪ 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.

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ask your dealer or go to carfax.com. just say, show me the carfax. on its current track hurricane irene will hit new york's long island sunday and right now, we are going to check in with wcbs one of the affiliates and talk about resource resources, they have reporters going live driving through the streets of new york and this guy apparently is in midtown manhattan. well, he was. >> okay. >> right at the moment we said that, boom. away with the signal. >> they knew we would take him live and he didn't want his conversation all over the country. >> and susan candiotti is joining us on long island where the storm is beginning to lash tomorrow morn, but you are

feeling it, susan. >> i am glad you are talking to me, because i just as soon talk to you now so we can take some shelter in a moment. but this is the strongest wind gusts that we have felt since we have been out here since early this morning. the rain coming down not only straight down, but also sideways, and it is getting a little bit more difficult to see where the camera lenses is right now. a couple of hours ago i showed you, there was a little bit of street flooding now. it is getting a little bit bigger, and we are expecting that to get worse as the night goes on. but, again, to give you an idea of where we are in long beach is just barely above sea level, and many parts of the city are actually below sea level, and walking over here, you can find of make it out, and that is the boardwalk which is the highest part of the barrier island and

remember, where we are is, it could very well be the point of impact here for hurricane irene come the morning light. but for now, standing on the streetside, we were up on the boardwalk earlier, and you could see obviously everyone is off of the street. it is really coming down now, and if you point up now, we are going to be keeping an eye up on the power lines as well. we want to see whether they hold up. all of the street lights are still on, so we haven't lost power here yet, and that is a very good thing, and a number of people anyway have heeded the mandatory evacuations because of the low lying area here. we will have to wait and see how the evening wears on and keep covering and reporting back to you, but for now, definitely the worst we have seen it so far. back to you, marty and key ra. >> okay. sus susan, take yourself inside and

what she does not mention is that the rain is not only cold, but it hurts. >> yes, an jeanne meserve has told us that it feels like it is belting her in the back of the head. it is amazing what they have been doing now for hours. it is 12:42 eastern time and worse in parts of the country and parts of the east, and the jersey shore, the casinos are closed now and the boardwalks are desolate and a band of senior citizens stood their ground and refusing to obey the evacuation orders, and 93 of them, i believe. jason carroll has been watching all of the developments out of atlantic sfi. city. >> well, atlanta city is having conditions getting worse, but we have had winds up to 50 miles an hour, and earlier today, we were out there on the beach, but that section has given way to the angry surf that we are seeing, and this is the boardwalk in atlanta city, and empty, and s

deserted because all of the casinos have been shutdown and they have boarded up the front windows and put sandbags down there as a precaution. one of the officials out here telling us that they expect the water to actually reach where i am standing right now. that is why they have put out a mandatory evacuation. but that is certainly not going mean that everyone has evacuated. we caught up with a group of seniors who say they are not leaving. >> we come from hearty stock. we aren't moving. >> you are not moving? >> no. >> clearly the case. >> the best reality show you are going to get. >> seriously, are any of you concerned about the storm? >> only our children. my son said he is going to have me committed. [ laughter ] >> you are not frivolous about this. we take it very seriously, but the alternative is a nightmare. >> the alternative being in a shelter for you? >> not only being in a shelter,

but not knowing where we will be. not knowing where we will be. our health does not permit most of the opportunities that have been offered to us. and i think that's serious. we haven't heard anything from the top level that takes that into account. >> there are 92 seniors in all at that apartment building and emergency officials are especially concerned because they say if the situation arises where the seniors need help they may not be able to get there to give them the help they need, and hopefully that situation does not arise and as for the situation here on the ground where we are, the worst of hurricane irene is expected to hit here at about 4:00 a.m., and that is when the eye will pass through here. back to you. ? that was with jason carroll. now, breaking news, karen mcginnes is joining us. >> karen, what about a dam in maryland? >> we are looking at st. mary's park, a state park and part of the calloway county park system there and 12 parks.

we can zoom in, and here is washington, d.c. and here is st. mary's lake maryland. this is in the state of maryland, and we will zoom in more and show you this area right here where we are looking at. this is part of a dam associated with the lake. give me one second here. this is the dam. here is the lake, and they are saying that the folks downstream from this dam lake, and they have seen already seven inches of rainfall. there is great threat to lives here, because they have already seen seven inches as i have mentioned, but this hurricane is as it makes its way towards the mid-atlantic and northeast coast is going to drop additional rainfall so that the dam is very near to its breaking point. they have issued a code red emergency for this region, and they are saying that potentially this dam could burst should they see additional rainfall. that is certainly very likely. given that this storm system is

just winding its way up the coast, and should be affecting a lot of the major metropolitan areas in the eastern corridor and especially along i-95. the national hurricane center will give us another update coming up as of 2:00 a.m., but right now associated with hurricane irene, we have winds of 80 miles an hour, but the rain is the big problem so far as we have seen in coastal north carolina, some 14-plus inches in some areas. back to you. >> karen mcginnes following that, and we will continue to follow that in the early morning hours. >> and the potential threat there. and poppy harlow is the on the phone with us with new information about power outages in new york city. apparently, she has been cruising through the city. poppy? >> well, i have never seen this city so deserted as it is right now in the years i have lived here. we are near the tunnel that

would take you the new jersey right by canal street approaching the bot top tip of manhattan, but it is never as deserted as i am seeing here and the winds are intensifying as since i spoke to you at thep top of the hour. we see at love t lolot of emerg vehicles here on the street, and in terms of the power outages, con edison, the big power provider here in new york city said that we have 97,000 -- 9,700, and we have almost 10,000 right now, and a lot of those in zone a, and those are for people who did not leave, and they will make a decision between 10:00 to 12:00 noon to decide whether to cut off more power to prevent more long term damage if there is more storm surge, and they will make that decision later on depending upon how bad the storm surge is. and we know there is plenty

serious flooding in hoboken which is part of new jersey across the hudson from manhattan where they have had to evacuate one shelter due to flooding. so the situation is worse in the last 40 minutes. we will try to get to the southernmost tip of manhattan, battery park, and i live right down there, and i was evacuated and we will try to get there for you at 1:00 a.m. and give you a report from there at 1:00 a.m. >> thank you, poppy harlow there on the streets of new york. and we go the virginia where deaths have been reported and also the worst place you could be in a hurricane, trapped on a sailboat. that rescue is just ahead. whatever your what if is, the new sprint biz 360 has custom solutions to make it happen, including mobile payment processing, instant hot spots, and powerful devices like the motorola photon 4g. so let's all keep asking the big what ifs. sprint business specialists

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irene first came ashore in north carolina blasting the state's outer banks and even though it has moved up the east coast, it left behind big problems. our dave mattingly is in kill devil hills. day? >> irene is the storm that won't quit. here in the outer banks we have experienced 30 non-stop hours of rain, and almost as many hours

of -- and this hurricane is not done with the outer banks yet. tonight the problem is flooding. this isn't flooding from a storm surge off of the ocean like we would typically see. this is a reverse storm surge. h is water that is in the sound that body of sound that's between the barrier islands and the mainland of north carolina. communities along this sound are now experiencing flooding, because as this hurricane began to move north, the wind shifted and pushed the water up and out of the banks into communities around on that sound. so right now, we are seeing roads that are blocked, impassable because of the water that has flooded them, and a state highway and federal highway and also seeing some communities that are severely affected by the flooding, and some neighborhoods have been flooded as well. authorities don't know exactly how many houses have been hit, but we do know that water has

encroached into some houses in the low-lying areas. so here on the outer banks, they are not done with the hurricane yet or even assessing. it is still going on here. it is hoped that the water will start retreating soon, and [ muted ] and that is when the damage crews can get out to do an assessment. what has been done and what needs to be done to get this island safe again for the residents to come back. david mattingly, cnn, on the outer banks. >> well, this is the kind of weather that can definitely make going a few yards feel like moving a mile. case in point, a sailboat stuck 200 yards off of norfolk, virginia, and people on board had engine troubles and emergency crews could not reach them initially because of the high wave, but it was the weather that helped to turn it around for the rescuers who saved a man, woman, and cat

their cat. mike from the rescue crew explained what happened. >> the vessel was slammed against the rocks and the jetties ran parallel around the beach, so it made it difficult with the high winds and the treacherous surf that we could not launch swimmers or a boat. on the fortunate side the winds and the current eventually carried the vessel over the jetty and moved it closer and then when it was turned over to the starboard side it blocked the seas and we could deploy the swimmers to get the couple and their cat off of the boat. >> so, captain, you reached these individuals, what did they say to you and how did they react to you? >> well, the crews who were there once they got there, and got the crew off of the boat, they were very grateful, joyous to be back on solid ground. we are very appreciative that

the norfolk fire rescue was able to get to them. it was concerned at first, and we weren't going to be able to get to them. the other relief was the rescuers. as they watched for quite some time. trying to develop a plan on how to get the people off of the boat. naturally, they were relieved, you know, once everybody was brought ashore. >> yeah. i'm curious, why were they out there? clearly they knew of the storm on the way, and what were they doing in the water in the first place? >> well, they left port of portsmouth yesterday morning and the intention was to go to annapolis, and think were trying to outtrun storm. unfortunately they had some engine trouble, and they weren't able to return back in port. so they went ahead, an anchored up, and the intent was to try to ride out the storm, but it was too much for them. >> how bad would you rate these conditions compared to times past? >> very treacherous. we have a lot of northeaster

storms that come through, and these guys today when they were executing the rescue, they were dealing with five to six-foot seas and winds at that particular time that were 45 to 50 miles an hour with 60-mile-an-hour gusts. >> well, the captain tells me that the people who were rescued lived on that boat, and they were taken to a shelter and the cat was taken to a shelter. >> and people are embracing for something they rarely experience in rhode island, a hurricane. gary tuchman is there. >> newport, rhode island, is hours away from the worst of hurricane irene. this region, new england, and the state rhode island, and this city newport is not used to hurricanes. the last time a hurricane came here was exactly 20 years ago last week. it was hurricane bob. the most famous hurricane in 1938, and that hurricane killed more than 600 people and injured 1,700 people, and they get

nor'easters here, but they are not used to the hurricanes. there is a mandatory evacuation order in effect in this resort town, but a lot of people have not left in parts of the town, and people have not left, because there is nowhere to go and so different than the other hurricanes that we cover. most of the hurricanes come to oner two spots and you can e vac wit to the north or the west or the south, but here the north is where the hurricane is going, and the west is where the hurricane is going, and it is going everywhere, so a lot of people are staying. this is 25,000 year-round resident and in the tourist weekends and this weekend more than 100,000 people here, and a lot of people still remain, and what we can tell you at the point is that there is a lot of relief that this storm is not as windy as they thought it would be. still a lot of concern about the flooding and you see the church across the street, that is a greek orthodox church and in 1938, that hurricane, the water went over the steps and that church was 14 years old when it happened and now it is 80 years ole and we expect it to survive this one, too.