Ophelia moves up the coast with dangerous impacts

AccuWeather's Bill Wadell gives an update from Bethany Beach, Delaware, just one of the coastal towns with flooding and howling winds.

Transcript

00:00 Now we do have teams up and down the East Coast as we continue to track Ophelia.

00:04 We are also keeping tabs on severe weather in the plains with meteorologist Tony Labak

00:10 and Dr. Reed Timmer. We'll be checking in with them later on this morning.

00:14 But for now we want to check in with AccuWeather's Bill Waddell who is still live in Bethany Beach,

00:19 Delaware for us this morning. That's just one of the many coastal towns dealing with flooding,

00:24 Bill. We can see all that flood water behind you.

00:28 Yeah, that's right, Ariella, Bernie. Good morning to you. We're getting a break from the worst of

00:32 the wind and rain that we've seen. Not too bad at this moment, but you can still hear just the wind

00:37 howling as it goes between the buildings. And there are a number of streets here on the north

00:41 side of Bethany Beach that have gone underwater, including this stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that

00:46 is flooded for several blocks. This is from all of the rain that's been drenching Delaware since

00:51 late last night. And we've also seen utility crews out just a few blocks away. They're checking on

00:56 neighborhood power outages. Now check out this video from early this morning right around high

01:01 tide at 3 a.m. You could see the rough surf and the wind hammering the boardwalk at Bethany Beach.

01:07 We only saw a handful of places that actually rolled out or put up storm shutters before

01:12 Ophelia arrived. Now up in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, you could see the wind and the rain

01:17 blowing between some of the buildings. High tide brought rough surf up the beach and not far from

01:24 the edge of the boardwalk at points. More than 4,000 homes and businesses across Delaware have

01:30 lost power. Now we spoke with firefighters before this storm hit. They told us they knew that some

01:35 of these streets in Bethany Beach and honestly all up and down the Delaware coast could be flooded.

01:41 And they are urging people if they stayed here for the weekend or visitors that came in yesterday

01:45 hoping for a beach weekend, at this point you'll want to hunker down. Hopefully your car is parked

01:50 in a good point. That's why guys yesterday we told you if you're in town visiting ask the locals

01:55 where to park because unfortunately some people are waking up and finding out that their car is

01:59 surrounded by water this morning. Bill the other concern as we go forward today, our next high

02:06 tide in the early afternoon and there's lots of information say that for some spots this could

02:12 be a top five record high tide as we continue to have that onshore flow. Yeah and what we saw this

02:20 morning we made the drive from Ocean City Maryland up to Rehoboth Beach and we did see crews out

02:25 burning with spotlights in the dark checking some of the dunes those potential weak points because

02:31 a lot of these beaches they were hit hard by lee when it passed by just a few weeks ago. Some of

02:35 the restoration projects they hauled in tons of sand just washed away. So again the high tide at

02:40 3 a.m. as you say beat up some of these beaches and they're going to be keeping a very close eye

02:44 on the next high tide that you said later on this afternoon. I believe right around four o'clock.

02:48 Yeah yeah. Atkiller's Bill Waddell reporting live for us in Bethany Beach,

02:52 Delaware this morning. We'll be checking in with you all morning long. Stay safe.