Watch CBS News

Hurricane Hunters Report From Eye Of Hurricane Irene

BOSTON (CBS) - Some residents along the East Coast are already buying up storm essentials like plywood and bottled water.

Hurricane Irene is a gorilla in size, as the view from space illustrates, even though Hurricane Hunters flying through it found a weaker storm.

Follow: Hurricane Irene's Track

"It was pretty disorganized and we could see pretty easily why they had downgraded it," says Hurricane Hunter Paul Flaherty.

WBZ-TV's Ken MacLeod reports

WBZ spoke with Flaherty from his plane inside the storm Tuesday night. Flaherty is a native of North Quincy.

He says flying into storms is, "not as bad as you would think, but when it's bad it's a heck of a lot worse than you would think."

After ripping through the Caribbean for 48 hours, knocking out power to a million people in Puerto Rico, Irene will roll over the Bahamas with 90-plus mile per hour winds.

But after that, the experts believe it'll gas back up to a category three -- or maybe even a monster four -- and head for the Carolinas. Something they haven't seen since Hugo wrecked Charleston in 1989.

And if it comes up the coast to New England, which is a real possibility, some experts are already making comparisons to Hurricane Bob in 1991, or worse yet a similar hurricane in 1938 that killed some 600 people, mostly in Rhode Island.

Flaherty says all the models so far show a large population of the East Coast will be affected.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.