[Isa Soares, Cnn Anchor:] You are watching CNN's continuing coverage of Hurricane Irma. I'm Isa Soares coming to you live from Miami.
[Michael Holmes, Cnn Anchor:] And I'm Michael Holmes in Orlando, Florida. Time to update you now on Irma's progress. Hurricane Irma yet to make landfall in the U.S., but conditions across South Florida rapidly deteriorating already. The storm back up to a dangerous category 4. It was category 3 for a while. It is expected to keep gaining strength as it crosses warm open water between Cuba and Florida. The projected tasks have shifted slightly west, putting Florida's Gulf Coast on high alert. And we'll show you now some video that gives you an idea of the area of downtown Miami that is starting to flood as the outer rain bands move in. All told 6.5 million people have been told to evacuate the state of 20 million. More than 70,000 people are now in emergency shelters throughout the state. And you can expect to see a lot more images like this of downed trees across Florida. Almost 300,000 customers without power at the moment. That is a figure that will likely go into the millions in the days ahead.
[Soares:] And although of course the hurricane has shifted, has strengthened to category 4, it has shifted northwest, really Miami is not out of the woods yet as authorities keep reminding us. Why? Well, the rain is quite intense. There are storm surge. The concern of a storm surge, but also debris that might come from those stronger winds once we do start to feel them. Bearing in mind that it hasn't even made landfall yet. This is just the outer part of Irma. Let's get the very latest from Karen Maginnis. She has been breaking it all down for us, making sense of it for us. She is following the track, the path of Hurricane Irma. And, Karen, where is Irma right now?
[Karen Maginnis, Cnn Meteorologist:] It is less than 70 miles from Key West, Florida. But over the hours, we have seen the steady increase of winds from tropical storm force. Making winds of 58, 63 miles an hour. Then 74-mile-an-hour gusts, then 83-mile-an-hour gusts. I've been looking at it. I haven't seen a recent update on that. But it's still just less than 70 miles away. Another thing that really got my attention while I was waiting to go on the air is to look at some of these outer bands and some of that moisture that reaches up really far to the north across central, even northern sections of Florida. But there was another thing as our meteorology group was huddled together, looking at these images. Boy, really steadying. What that eye is doing? What these outer bands are doing? What the core of the hurricane-force winds are doing as it pulled away from the coast of Cuba. And really increased. We saw that very dynamically on a satellite imagery. Now has supporting winds of 130 miles an hour, but it's undergoing an eye replacement cycle. You've probably heard that a lot over the last few days. That means the inner wall starts to collapse in on itself, and there are indications now that we are seeing that eye wall replacement cycle, because it's not a really concentric look to the eye, to this hurricane. And it kind of almost see like two blobs together. That's not a very sophisticated way of saying that. But it lets us know that this hurricane is evolving. Coming under the influence of other factors. Mainly, it's interacting with land. Although that land is up very sturdy. It's the Keys. And they're looking at quite the storm surge across this region. The highest point in the Florida Keys or around Key West is about 18 feet. The storm surge is going to be between 5 to 10 feet. We could see 10 to 15 inches of rainfall. There are a lot of things that will happen across the Keys. None of them are going to be good. This is the RPM. This doesn't really forecast where Irma is going to make landfall. It shows you the overall wind field. And there you can see it. It goes past Naples. It goes past Fort Myers. It goes past Tampa, St. Pete. Heads up towards the bend area. Nobody is going to escape Irma's path. No one. A lot of people have been second guessing what's going why you move from the east coast of Florida to the west coast of Florida. Did you go far enough to the north? The impact has been great. It has been broad and wide. And here we can see some of the outer bands here really looking very impressive. Still have that tornado watch out for South Florida. And even over here in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, you're looking at storm surge still here. You're looking at strong winds. I just took a look at the Dade County power outages, Florida light power and light, and they are saying about 170,000 people without power there or at least customers are. That's just one county and it's going to continue because we're watching these very, very strong convective lines moving from the outer bands of Irma and it looks like for this West Coast all the way from Naples, Fort Myers, Captiva, Santa Belle, Marco Island, Sarasota, Cape Coral, Bradenton, all of those area, the storm surge is going to be a huge impact and it's not just the amount of rain you're going to see, it's that wall of water that's going to come up and you probably are going to be not probably, it looks like you are going to be in the worst possible position in relationship to Hurricane Irma. Michael?
[Holmes:] Yes, scary stuff for a lot of people, up and down that west coast of Florida. Appreciate it, Karen. As always, Karen Maginnis there in Atlanta. Our Ed Lavandera is back with us now from Naples in Southwest Florida, which is a place that has been battered by hurricanes before. A lot of damage done in the past and a place where the storm surge is a major fear. Ed?
[Ed Lavandera, Cnn Correspondent:] Hi, Michael. Hurricane Wilma back in 2005, that is the storm that many people who live here in this corner of Southwest Florida measure all storms by. And even talking to the mayor today asked him like, you know I asked him, what do you expect, what do you anticipate, what do you fear the most here as the worst of Hurricane Irma will make its way on shore. And he says, you know, as the storm surge, 10 to 15 foot storm surge, obviously being on the right edge of that eyewall could also create some of the fiercest winds and obviously that is of great concern. But even the mayor here, who was here in 2005 during Hurricane Wilma isn't sure that you can really compare what that experience was to what this experience is going to be here over the course of the next 24 hours. But that's the way it is here. You know, people along these coastlines kind of measure their experiences by previous storms. So people here bracing for the worst. The good news here, Michael, is that many people heeded those warnings. They took off. Not only did they take off here in the last 24 hours. According to the mayor here of Naples, they took off earlier. They had seen for days that Hurricane Irma was making its way up here to the Florida coastline. They didn't care if it was the east side or the west side. The mayor here says that many people took off much earlier. We also spoke with the police chief on Marco Island. A popular tourist destination. About 16,000 people call the island home full time. That's about a 30 minute drive south of where we are. I asked the police chief there. There were a number of people who refuse to evacuate, who decided to ride out the storm perhaps in some of these high rise condominiums. I asked the chief, is it too late to leave? This is what he had to say.
[Al Schettino, Marco Island Police Chief:] It's too late. It's called. When we say it's right now, we're at shelter in place. What you would do, when we ask people to do if they're in a home is to vertical evacuation. That means if they have a second story, they go to high above the water line as they possibly can. If they're in a single family home or one story home, we ask that they get to a neighbor's house that has a second story where they could get high or above the water line.
[Lavandera:] We heard from a couple of people here today, too, Michael, as well that when the storm track on this hurricane had it going more toward the Miami side, the east side of the Florida Peninsula, a lot of people moved over here to Naples to escape it. And now that they're over here, they find that they're now more in a direct line with the storm. And they actually, some of the people that did leave today headed back to Miami. So a lot of anxiety about what is coming. And everyone trying to get themselves to the best, safest place possible. Michael?
[Holmes:] Yes, indeed. Ed, thanks so much for all of your reporting. Ed Lavandera there in Naples, Florida. We can take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our coverage of Hurricane Irma. We will go live to Miami Beach for the latest on this devastating storm. Stay with us. We'll be right back.