has been through the bahamas. it is on its way to the united states, on its way to the coast of florida. landfall expected sometime late tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. again, that actual landfall as dylan dryer said, that may not be the most important part. a lot of coverage ahead. that will do it for this hour, though. i'm steve kornacki, and chuck todd picks up our coverage right now. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington, and we begin with the very latest on hurricane matthew. it is a massive category 4 storm, and at this hour it is heading directly toward florida's east coast. governors of florida, georgia, and south carolina are telling their residents to evacuate the most vulnerable areas there. weather centers warn that devastating catastrophic winds could cause severe damage even to well-built structures. hurricane matthew has already claimed 114 lives internationally, 108 in haiti

alone. in florida where landfall, partial landfall, is expected later tonight, governor rick scott has been issuing dire warnings all day long telling and begging floridians that time is running out and just simply list ten to safety instructions. >> if you need to evacuate and you haven't, evacuate. this storm will kill you. if you're watching and living in an evacuation zone, you need to leave now. >> we should not be putting people's lives at risk because you made the foolish decision not to evacuate. >> last point there, don't be selfish. don't be selfish. this matters especially in the cleanup. the governor has activated the national guard to help with evacuation and sheltering operations. president obama signed an emergency declaration for the state of florida this afternoon. roads are packed as floridians are trying to seek refuge out of

the storm's path. it's getting difficult especially in southern florida. let's go to dylan dryer with the latest track on this. dylan, is this eye going to come ashore? >> it's going to come close, and the latest information we have from the hurricane center has it still just a little bit offshore. the hurricane force winds extend 60 miles out from the center of this storm, so it doesn't have to make direct landfall to feel the effects of hurricane force winds. take a look at how big this storm is right now. we have rain from nassau in the bahamas all the way to tampa and naples. with some of these downpours and feeder bands coming off this storm, we could see tornadoes develop as we go through the night tonight. so that's going to be a major concern before the eye of the storm even approaches the coast. so the latest information maintains the storm as a category 4 hurricane with winds up to 140 miles per hour, so it has not weakened any, but there

is the possibility it could weaken before it gets to jacksonville, florida which i'll show you in just a second. we still have hurricane warnings extending from north of miami all the way to the southern coast of south carolina, including savannah, georgia. we are looking at this storm perhaps to skirt right through, right past cape canavaral, florida still possibly as a c s category 4 storm. then it could weaken to a category 3 just off the coast of jacksonville, florida. but look at a category 3 storm, 120-mile-per-hour winds. either way it is still a major hurricane. it could weaken to a category 1 as it goes along the coast of georgia and south carolina. jeff, we talked about this yesterday. look at this loop that we're going to see this storm continue to weaken and perhaps meet up where it is right now. so a very bizarre situation, but i want to point out if that were to happen, it would be a much weaker storm. here's where we are tonight. we're looking at the heavier rain bands to continue to

approach ft. lauderdale, florida, the eye of the storm getting close to west palm beach. as we continue through the early morning hours, that's cape canavaral where we could possibly see some sort of landfall. then as we get into the afternoon hours on friday, we're looking at it to approach jacksonville. to use jacksonville as an example, i just want to point out that it's been since 1898 since jacksonville has seen a storm of this magnitude, meaning it's in nobody's history what will happen when a storm like this makes its way onshore. we could see the barrier islands, the lowest ones, inundated with water, and we really have nothing to compare it to. that's kind of the issue we're running into and that's why people need to take this very seriously. >> look, not to personalize this, but my mother just told me she's in longwood, florida, which is just north of orlando, and she said they have now in orlando, which is in the center

of the peninsula there, they have hurricane warnings up as well. so how far inland in the state will we see sustained hurricane force winds? >> well, if the storm were to make its way and actually make landfall on the east coast, again, with those hurricane force winds extending 60 miles out from the center, you only have to go 60 miles west of the east coast to still deal with hurricane force winds. if it went in a little farther, you could take those a little farther to the west. but even once you get past the hurricane force winds, you're looking at tropical storm force winds, which is still up to 73 miles per hour with some isolated higher gusts, and then you throw tornadoes into the mix as well and we could see wind damage all across the state. >> explain why -- last question, dylan. explain why it will be weaker if it does the loop. i mean, we're going back into those warmer waters. why are you confident that it's going to be weaker? is there a front coming? >> well, remember yesterday i mentioned there was still that

block that would keep it from going away, and that's why it's kind of looping back around? keep in mind the water temperature does start to cool off a bit as it approaches georgia and the coast of south carolina, so you're not looking at 80-degree water temperature anymore? water is the main fuel for a hurricane, so if the water does start to cool down, it does look like that should weaken the storm. keep in mind this hurricane itself is churning up the water. so when you have the upwelling of colder water at the bottom of the ocean, as that gets lifted to the surface, it's actually cooling itself down. >> but there shouldn't be a fear that if it comes right back down to the bahamas, that it's not going to restrengthen? >> it should not. because of that upwelling, the water is much cooler than the first time the storm passed through. >> i love being able to ask you these questions and i love that you have all the answer. dylan, thank you very much. i appreciate it. let me turn to craig fugate,

fema administrator, and efhe wa dealing firsthand when florida got hit with the spaghetti strings of hurricanes back in 2004. mr. fugate, how are the evacuation procedures going? what do you know? what can you tell us? >> he's got about 1.5 million people in the evacuation zone, and you can hear from his and also local officials that this is no nonsense. you have to evacuate. as you move further north, as you point out the history, you actually go back a little fu furth further. a hurricane in savannah, georgia literally killed thousands of people that didn't have a history of hurricanes back in the modern times. as we move north, we're seeing people not familiar with the hurricanes. they have tropical storm winds, they've been grazed by them, but

this is a fairly dangerous situation with storm surge and that's why it's an urgency to get people to move to higher ground. >> let me ask about your restorr resourc resources. this is going to be a vast mass of land dealing with destruction. normally you have at least you have a smaller swath you're dealing with. how stretched are your resources going to be next week -- you're talking about cleaning up from vero beach to savannah? i'm trying to remember the last time we had a storm that did something like that. >> we've been focused primarily on the infrastructure to the east of i-95. as your folks were pointing out, it's going to depend how far inland the hurricane force winds go. but the first thing will be search and rescue supporting the states. the more people who evacuate, we can shift to recovery conditions. we could be throughout these weeks in this corridor.

we've been looking at resources that would be required in four states to support the response. obviously, as we get the impacts, we'll be coming in right behind the storm. so we've been looking at this from the standpoint of how bad is it going to be not waiting for reports to come in that says we may need to do something. >> and i assume you've got power folks coming from 44 other states now? >> well, the primary power companies in florida and this part of the state will be the municipalitie municipalities. what we've done since hurricane sandy, we'll actually work with the industry with what else can we do to support them, facilitate getting equipment into the area and coordinating our response to know where we need to point generators where they're going to have the longest power back up so we can prioritize generators based on where they can get power up quickly where they're not putting the generators where it's going to take longer.

>> were there for sandy. is that the only new lesson you learned from sandy that you're applying to this, or what else did you learn from that recovery effort, which another one, extraordinarily expensive and over quite a broad stretch of the east coast? what lessons from that do you feel like you're able to apply to expedite recovery procedures? >> well, part of it is we're not going to see the population densities we saw in new york and in parts of new jersey. there is some areas of -- you know, jacksonville area, as we move up and down the coast, you've got brunswick, savannah, further south you have daytona, but we don't have the population density, so this is going to be for us a lot of impacts over large areas, but not necessarily all of it heavily concentration of population. so part of this of working with the state are where are the heavy hit areas with populations, but also remember we have a lot of rural areas that may be difficult to get

there but they'll still be needed out there. we're balancing the lessons we learned from sandy which we learned from katrina and everyone else who said we can't wait for them outside. we need to get ready now in case it's bad there. if it's not, we can redirect or go home. >> i'm going to give you the last word here. anything more you want to say to the public that may be listening down there? >> everybody is focused on when will there be storm surge. that won't be the greatest risk or loss of life. water is the biggest killer of hurricanes. surprisingly, people always worried about wind but it's water. storm surge has been the biggest threat for loss of life. that's why we do the evacuations, that's why it's so necessary for people to go now. as it gets dark, you're going to run out of time. don't wait. go now. you still have time, but it's going to get too late and you won't have good options. that's what we're focused on now, to get people to evacuate to higher ground.

they only have to go 10 miles, not hundreds of miles. that's the greatest risk we face. >> and every single school down there is built to be a pretty good shelter. anyway, craig fugate, thank you, sir. appreciate it. >> thank you. joining me now from ft. lauderdale is our own blake mccoy. all right, blake. they're not in the eye, but they've been getting -- explain what you've been feeling. has it been the tropical storm-like conditions? it looks like it's relatively calm right now. >> reporter: yeah, right now it is. it's been coming in waves, in bands, chuck, as the outer bands of the hurricane have swept through. you can see right here all of the businesses here in ft. lauderdale are closed. they've been closed all day in preparation for this storm. the roads here in ft. lauderdale are also closed. i'm told it's a symbolic closure. they're not going to go around giving people tickets, but they really want people to stay off the roads and stay home. as you just heard the fema administrator saying, the big

concern here is storm surge. you can see the waves out there right now. they've been picking up all day long, and the last time that a major storm came through here, sandy, it came through here as a tropical storm. it actually washed away part of the main highway here, a-1-a, in ft. lauderdale. that's one of the big concerns right now. chuck, i can tell you after 3:00 today here in broward county, the shelters told people stop coming. at this point, they're past the point where they're accepting new people at the shelters. they say it's better at this point just to stay home and take cover and find a safe place. >> well, that's oddly good news. it means people were listening and people have heeded these warnings. all right, blake. thanks very much. we're going to continue to follow hurricane matthew as it makes its way towards the east coast of florida. up next we're going to hear what the mayors of various beach communities along the east coast of florida are doing to keep residents safe. stay tuned. >> a lot of people that have

never been through this and are still waiting to evacuate, there is no reason if you're in an evacuation zone, if you're on barrier island, if you're prone to flooding, if you're in an evacuation zone, get out now. or when it's convenient. it's using state-of-the-art simulators to better prepare for any situation. it's giving offshore teams onshore support. and it's empowering anyone to stop a job if something doesn't seem rig. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. my business wafety is never being satisfied. but i keep it growing by making ery dollar cnt. at's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means

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hurricane matthew making its way to the east coast. it's going on right now in haiti where there are already 108 people confirmed dead from this storm. the state department says it's not confirmed of any death of american citizens overseas. the election in haiti has been postponed. asid is coordinating with the military in jamaica to provide disaster relief to haiti. more with how florida is preparing for this major hurricane in just a minute. stay with us.

matthew is forecast to hit the mainland or just about at full force later tonight with potentially some catastrophic effects, particularly central and north part of the east coast of florida. i'm joined now on the phone by mayor jay cramer of vero beach, florida and vero may get so close to the eye that it will be very uncomfortable. mayor cramer, what can you tell us about how your evacuation efforts are going, are residents heeding your warnings? what can you say? >> in touring some of the evacuation facilities, and we've got a good number of people that are there, however, we've still got an awful lot of room and a lot of reports that people are deciding to try to ride this storm out. we're trying to broadcast that message out there that you need to start thinking about heading

to the shelters. you only have a window of a couple hours left to make that decision and we would like to see you make that decision to go to the shelters. >> mr. mayor, when is the last time vero was in line to get something this powerful or -- frankly, i'm trying to remember the last time a hurricane hit the vero-fort pierce area. >> that was back in 2004. we actually had four major storms that came through the area, but the two big ones were hurricane francis and hurricane gene. francis was a category 4 and gene was a strong category 3. >> how did vero hold up? >> well, we did sustain an awful lot of damage. francis dumped an awful lot of rain and cleared a lot of vegetation. and gene had much stronger winds and we had more structural damage. and it was burned in our

memories pretty good, which is kind of why we're stressing that people need to get off the island. this storm could be even stronger than that. >> for situations like this, coordination with state, federal and local is obviously very important. are you getting the support you need from state and federal at this point? >> absolutely. we had declared our emergency status back on tuesday and the governor had reached out to us and opened up some lines of communication. so did the fema, and so we've got those lines of communication open and actually we're already coordinating for materials such as food and water to be delivered about 10 hours after the storm. we should have stations open for people to pick up provisions already. >> before i let you go, in case anybody in the area is listening, any final thing you want to say to residents? >> you know, we're already sustaining damage. the water levels are coming up.

if you're going to change your mind, the shelters are open and they're ready to receive you. i would urge everybody to go to a shelter and not try to play games with this storm. >> jay cramer, mayor of vero beach, florida, which may see this eye about as close as any part of the state of florida. mr. mayor, thanks very much. let's move a little farther south down the coast of atlantic florida to west palm beach. mayor, west palm, good news. it looks like the eye is going to go farther north for you guys, but that doesn't mean you're not going to get a lot of wind and rain. what's the situation? do you still need people to evacuate? >> yeah, it looks like we probably will get a lot of wind and rain. at this point, we have some people who have evacuated, not everyone, and at this point we're telling people to shelter in place. our shelter in our city is just

about filled. it's only taking walk-ups. and we're getting to the point that it's too late to evacuate, so we're telling people to shelter in place. >> how about -- look, palm beach county has quite a few senior citizens. some of those folks may not have ways there. are there alternative ways that you're helping with folks that maybe have transportion issues? >> yes. there are cars going to pick up people who need help. we have a special needs shelter in our county. on the other hand, in our city we have a lot of young people living in our city who have not been through a hurricane, and i hope that they are not taking this for granted or looking at this lightly. and our downtown is in the evacuation area, so we're hoping that people in the evacuation area did get out, and if they

didn't, they need to shelter in place at this point. >> same question i had for federal and state. are you getting everything you need so far? >> as far as i know. we have an excellent relationship with county and they are in communication with the state. you know, we've been through this before so we know what we need to do to get fema here and keep track of our time and other expenses. so, unfortunately, when we did have francis and gene, we learned a lot -- well, i guess fortunately we learned a lot. we've been able to apply it to what we're doing today. >> unfortunately, you live in florida long enough, you become experienced to this kind of stuff. mayor moya, thank you for joining me for a few minutes. i appreciate it. >> sure, my pleasure. we are following the path of hurricane matthew as it moves closer towards our shores. next up, we'll talk to florida senator bill nelson who is also

heeding evacuation orders. in fact, he's evacuating. stay tuned. >> we strong the encourage people who live in the areas that are likely to be affected to heed the warnings and instructions of local officials, including evacuation orders. i'm terrible at golf. he is. but i'd like to keep being terrible at golf for as long as i can. new patented ensure enlive has hmb

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so that's the view of this deadly hurricane from the nasa space station satellite. look how massive this storm is with sustained winds of 145 miles per hour and that means gusts up to 160, 170 miles an hour. trust me, during andrew, gusts got up to 200, especially on the back side of that eye, and maybe that's the one piece of good news here for the state of florida is that the back side of that eye may not make it to landfall and those gusts that would get close to the 200 range. he is live in daytona beach where this is expected to hit in the next hour, and they have to brace for how much of this storm they have to deal with. ron, what are you feeling out there, what are you seeing, and are residents taking it seriously? >> reporter: they certainly are taking it seriously, although i'm sure officials would not want to see some of the curiosity seekers on the beach.

some of the people have been going up and down with a bullhorn telling people to evacuate and others keep streaming in. i want to show you, chuck, just a little bit of the sky up here. you can see the clouds are coming toward our camera. this is a start of this counterclockwise circulation. this system is just about here. probably in the next hour or so, we're going to start to really see the rain pick up and we'll certainly see the -- feel the wind pick up. one thing to note is after andrew, as you know, in '92, a lot of these buildings in central and south florida had to be retrofitted, those that were already standing, and certainly new buildings were built to much more stringent code. a lot of hotels have evacuated their guests. they are allowing media, first responders and people of that sort to stay here and do our jobs, but a lot of the condos here should be able to withstand, some of that glass should be able to withstand some of the stronger winds. one thing we're hoping continues to happen here is that that eye

stays out over the water because we don't want to mess with the business end of that eye which is the northeast end of that quadrant where the winds can get to 140, 145 miles an hour. we're start to go get a little rain in this area. we can tell you based on the light traffic we saw in the daytona beach area today, we suspect a lot of people got out and heeded the warnings to get out yesterday, so that's good news. we were at some shelters today. they are filling up. we did speak to one resident. she's fairly new to florida. she's been here three years and she's really scared because she's never gone through a hurricane, but she did have the good sense to leave her mobile home park and head into a high school here that is holding several hundred families, i would suspect, by the end of the night. chuck? >> anybody who has never been through one, just assume, however bad you think it is, it's worse than you think and it's longer than you think. ron motte, thank you very much. i'm joined on the phone by florida senator bill nelson who is in orlando after evacuating

from broward kaye to the east. you've evacuated to a city that also has an evacuation warning. >> here in orlando there will be gusts up to 100 miles an hour. >> so you heeded the warnings, you evacuated. what are you seeing? are people doing that? do you feel as if, look, i am seeing it seems as if everybody is taking this as seriously as they should, that we're not seeing as many sort of, you know, idiot oz ts on the shores things like that. >> chuck, i think there will be people that will stay, and they do so at their peril as this monster moves up and tears up the coast. it's going to bring a wall of water 9 to 11 feet.

if that happens at high tide, you get the picture, combined with 140-mile-an-hour winds, and there are going to be some people that are going to be in trouble because emergency operations can't get to them in the middle of the storm. but as it gets on toward jacksonville, we are seeing light traffic coming from the beach in jacksonville. and i don't know if that's because they have already evacuated or if some people at jacks beach, atlantic beach had decided to stay instead of evacuate. >> let's talk about the resources that you're going to have to fight for as a senator, whatever federal dollars are going to be necessary to rebuild florida, and we're talking about a part of florida that has not had a hurricane knock down some

parts of it in over 100 years when you talk about jacksonville. you know, this is going to -- obviously, we always find the money for this stuff, but this could be more expensive than anything the state of florida has dealt with, including andrew. >> and chuck, you know how hard it was and how long it was to get the money for the zika crisis. and so i certainly hope we don't have that problem after this storm. for example, i just spoke to bob cabana, the director of the kennedy space center. he is all buttoned down. but he knows that since ground zero is the kennedy space center on this storm that he's going to have a lot of damage and he's going to need some appropriations. they just planted dunes with grass. if this thing churns up all those pads, especially 39a and

39b at the kennedy space center, they are perilously close to the ocean, and the ocean has already been intruding. >> well, this is a reminder that this is going to be -- the work is only just beginning for you and many elected officials local, state and federal. any final words of warning you want to add to floridians right now? >> the good news, chuck, is that, number one, the president has already signed the pre-event emergency order. i expect, and i know that fema is a very professional organization. it's run by a fellow, craig fugate, who used to be the emergency director in the state of florida, so he knows his business. and as i've been in six emergency operation centers over the last two days, these are

very professional people at the federal, state and local level, and they're ready to do business. so that's the good news. >> great. senator nelson, who heeded warnings himself and participated in the evacuation from orlando. on the phone, senator, thanks for your time. >> okay, chuck. we just learned from the white house that president obama called the governors from georgia, north carolina and florida. up next i'm going to talk to fema administrator michael chertoff who was at andrew.

welcome back to "mtp daily." you've heard my geuests talk about the slew of hurricanes that hit the state in 2004 and

2005. since then they've moved to the coastal communities since '04 and '05. many new residences have been built. the last time a category 4 hurricane hit, that was andrew in 1992 and that was before the rapid growth in the last ten years. adjusted for inflation, hurricane andrew did $46.4 billion worth of damage and damage destroyed more than 125 homes. in 2005, florida took another direct hit of a hurricane when wil wilma hit the southwestern part of the state. it costs $23.4 billion. the most devastating was the latest one in 2005. we invited you on to talk a little politics, national

security. it's an unusual endorsement you're making, but i'm keeping you here because you've done this before, you've been involved. explain the lessons learned from katrina. we know a lot of lessons learned and how fema -- how you wanted to change fema and how it's changed over the years via the idea that it's another type of securing the homeland. >> the lesson that was learned, i think, is planning is really the most important part of emergency response. >> a pre-plan. >> the pre-planning. florida has actually always been quite good at doing that. they have evacuation routes mapped out, they have very skilled operation in terms of emergency response. craig fugate, the head of fema, used to be the head of emergency response if florida. so the planning is important. getting the assets in place, not directly in the target area of the storm, but nearby, that's important. good coordination between federal, state and local is important. you have the coast guard. you have the state officials, and of course the local

officials are right at the front line there. so all those elements are critical, but also critical is people have to be prepared and they have to listen. and when the governor is out there saying you have to evacuate, it's not time to play around with it, you have to follow instructions. and one of the main reasons is this. there are going to be people who can't evacuate. they're sick, they're old, for whatever reason they're incapacitated. if the rescue people have to go and rescue able-bodied people, they're not going to rescue those who really need help. if not for concern of yourself, for concern of your fellow citizens, get out when they tell you to get out. >> it's a selfish move. >> right. >> one of the reasons -- everybody says how did florida pull this off and louisiana struggle? one difference between katrina and all those other hurricanes was water and flooding. >> yes. >> florida, for better or worse, the hurricanes usually don't create the flooding problem -- not to say there isn't flooding -- but you don't get

the flooding problems you had in louisiana. what, though, has fema done since to be better prepared for flooding? >> well, so you're quite right, first of all. it's water and not wind. that's where craig fugate is at. the challenge in louisiana, of course, is a lot of new orleans is below sea level. it's not that the water comes in and then recedes, the water actually stays there. if you move a little east of katrina into mississippi, you would have seen the impact of a storm surge that literally took automobiles and threw them a quarter of a mile to half a mile inland. there is nothing you could do to stop that. what fema did was, first of all, worked closely with the state and local governments to actually have a sense of who is incapacitat incapacitated, who do we need to get out? then there was a call on the

national guard and even military assets to come in and assist in the process of evacuation, getting medical supplies and medical personnel in place quickly and beginning to give these people some sustenance because they may be out of their houses for a period of days. >> how do you deal with fraud and gouging in a situation like this? on one hand, given what happened in katrina, after that i watched now all state, local and federal. it was like, check here, here and here. and i get it. but we know a lot of people take advantage of when the government is just there to throw out help. any good safeguards these days that you've come up with, or do you have to basically budget for fraud? >> chuck, you're right, and it's sad. and it's true in every disaster, the national human impulse is to quickly get assistance to people who need it. it's not just the government, by the way. many of the big retail companies -- >> charitable organizations. >> cannotexactly, they get out and give to the needy. but there will be people taking

advantage of it. one of the things in the last few years, we're much more engaged with our smartphones. there's much more data available to prove your identity and also locate where you are and even validate you to some extent. so i've been out of the government for a while now, but i think there are now capabilities to vet people and to see whether they're -- at least the basic elements of their identity and their experience can be validated before you actually turn over a large check. obviously, if people need food and water, you're not going to do a background check. but it is important to safeguard the taxpayer's assets and not waste it on people who are using it to commit fraud. >> before i let you go, i invited you here because we wanted to talk about -- there's been quite a few former bush cabinet officials who have either not endorsed donald trump or have decided to endorse hiary clinton. but yours seemed unusual because there was a time you investigated her. there was a time you may have wanted to prosecute her. why are you comfortable supporting her, and what did you learn investigating her that

makes you comfortable wanting her as your commander in chief? >> chuck, again, i wasn't a prosecutor. i worked with the senate committee that was investigating whitewater in the '90s. in many ways the storm kind of underscores this. i was on duty in 9/11. i was the head of the crime division. i worked very hard to prevent another attack from happening. as i look back on my experience in the '90s, i realized we spent a lot of time pursuing pretty small things when we could have spent a lot of time looking at what's happening in the middle east, looking at bin laden and what was happening and what we did after 9/11 to protect ourselves. the most important thing the president does is protect the country and respond when there is an emergency. that requires a steady temperame temperament, good judgment, knowledge and experience. i have to say dealing with both secretary clinton recently and giving some advice but also when

she was a senator and i was secretary of homeland security, she really understands the issues. i found her to be steady, to exercise good judgment, and frankly, to care. and i saw her, the way she looked at people in new york after 9/11. she really cared about them. when you look at an incident about what we're having in hurricane matthew or, god forbid, a terrorist attack. you realize that is requirement number one for an american president. >> do you regret your work in the '90s? >> i don't regret it. i was a lawyer, i was hired to investigate. i'm sure i was a tough investigator. i regret that sometimes our politics have been more involved in gotcha than looking at the major threats we face in the world. honestly right now we're in a very challenging situation not only with terrorism, we have an aggressive russia, we have an aggressive china and these have to be top of mind if we're going to protect our way of life. >> thanks for sharing your expertise when it comes to fema

and all that. appreciate it. next up, we'll have an update on hurricane matthew's path. as you know, we're about to get the 6:00 p.m. update that comes before 6:00 p.m. we'll be right back. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin.

with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out10 even achieved completely clear skin. do not use if you are allergic to taltz. before startg you should be checked for tuberculosis. taltz may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. for an inftion or havsymptoms. or if yohave received a vaccine or plan to. inflammatory bowel disease can ppen with taltz. including worsening of symptoms. serious allergic reactions can occur. now's your chance at completely clear skin. just ask your doctor about taltz. joining me now is meteorologist and hurricane specialist brian norcross. full disclosure, brian norcross was the voice of reason for me and my family in 1992 i south florida during hurricane andrew. mr. norcross, it's a pleasure to have you on.

well, walk us through this one and what are your concerns about what you don't know about this storm's path? >> well, chuck, i didn't know that. we got through it. >> we go way back. >> way back, 24 years ago. it's unbelievable. i want to talk about what you were talking about with secretary chernoff in just a second. 140-mile-an-hour hurricane at the top of the hour and moving to the northwest, so it is right on track, moving for the center to come ashore probably somewhere south of cape canavaral. this storm is kind of expanding this afternoon. the area of wind is expanding. you can see there was the old center, now it's expanded out. so as that comes up here, those strong winds are going to affect even parts of south florida, especially down palm beach county, maybe clipping broward county where ft. lauderdale is. but the main effect is going to be to the north,chuck, and going to what you were talking about in terms of the storm surge threat and the flooding threat

and how hurricane andrew, for example, that did not turn out to be the big problem. well, this part of florida, from central florida north, has never had a real strong hurricane hit. if this comes category 4 storm. never in the record books going back to the middle 1800s. and this part of florida is the most threatened for storm surge. so we're going to have a confluence for the very first time ever, of a storm coming in to the most threatened part of the state, in terms of high water. 7 to 11 feet above normally high ground. >> and you just said, "come ashore." you think this eye is going to come ashore? >> it's going to come close enough to cause the storm surge. even if it comes up in here, i think the odds are, it will clip the coast, and probably come just over the coast. best evidence with the models this afternoon, but even if it were to stay just offshore, that big circulation will come ashore. and that will still drive the water into these rivers. so up in north florida, you have the st. john's river and these

other rivers and inlets. and the water comes in and then floods on the backside of those islands. and well away from the ocean. it's not -- ocean flooding is a threat, but inland is the bigger flooding threat, and we're -- then we get up into georgia and south carolina. this is some of the most flood-prone areas of the whole atlantic coast. so this confluence of this kind of storm in this part of the country is very, very bad. >> well, an important warning there about flooding in that part of the state of florida. bryan norcross, appreciate your time. i know you're going to be up all night. we'll be watching. we'll have a lot more. we'll be right back. t t military service goes into my family pretty far back. that makes you more proud to be an american and more proud to be a veteran. i served in iraq in tikrit in 2009. when i took the ancestry dna test, i mean a few results came up that were really shocking. 11% of me cos from the part where i had served. we all come from such different backgrounds that you never know.

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city of orlando. i assume most of orange county. what are you -- what do you need to tell your residents, what should your residents know? >> well, they need to be in place at this point. we have encouraged people not to be on the roads after 6:00 and to be prepared to weather this storm for a good 12 to 18 hours. we anticipate that the most dangerous part of the storm will be in our area in the 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. tomb frame. but that we'll have tropical storm-type of conditions both before and after that. so it's going to be a long storm event for all of us. >> orlando was uniquely in this crosshairs of hurricanes in 2004 and you got of the residuals when it seemed as if it was having a state crisscross the center. what -- what prepared -- what prepared the city now to -- do you feel as if -- what did you

from then, a decade ago, to prepare for this week? >> you know, that was the second year i was in office as mayor and we hadn't had a hurricane here in 40 years up to that point. so we had charlie, francis, and jean, all within a period of five weeks. and up until then, i said, that was a once in 40-year event, which happened to occur three times in a row. but the thing i think i learned the most was that communication is the most important aspect, and the media is our friend in that regard, and making sure that citizens know what's going on. and especially not just leading up to the storm, but in the aftermath, because there's no doubt that there's going to be a lot of people that don't have power tomorrow morning, maybe even some time tonight. and i don't know how long it will necessarily take to get restored. and that's going to all depend on how many and how severe the damage to the tree canopy ends

up being. the coast has different issues with potential for storm surge, but we have a giant tree canopy here in central florida, and there are going to be trees that come down and there are going to be power lines that come down. >> that's for sure, all right. orlando mayor buddy dyer, i know you've got a lot of work to do. so appreciate you spending a few minutes with me. >> thank you very much. >> you got it. and we'll be right back. i had that dream again --

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that's all for this hour, but, of course, keep it right here on msnbc. we'll have continuing coverage of hurricane matthew literally all night long and into the early hours of the morning. ari melber picks up our coverage right now. good evening to you. i'm ari melber. 6:00 p.m. here on the east coast of the united states, where the most catastrophic hurricane since hurricane katrina is, we expect, hours away from making potential landfall in florida. it is the storm surge from category 4 matthew has forecasters at the national hurricane center so concerned this evening. 11 million people in florida under a hurricane warning tonight, 1.5 million under evacuation orders. the governor simply telling them to get out. he's not pulling any punches, warning, quote,