to worry about their own safety now. >> democratic congressman patrick murphy, also a candidate for u.s. senate in that state. that's "all in" for this evening. msnbc's breaking coverage of hurricane matthews continues next with brian williams. >> well, good evening from our headquarters near in new york as we settle in for what is going to be a night covering this history-making storm that is approaching the coast of florida. our first job here is going to be to talk to meteorologist bill karins because he's been tracking along with all his colleagues in the weather business, an interesting little bit of movement over the past hour or two along with this structural changes, few changes on the winds at the core, and so without delay, what do we make

of this little, let's call it a jog to the north after it passed over nassau, the bahamas. >> every little jog, when a storm is coming, it's paralleling a coastline, ten miles is the difference between historic, if it goes towards the coast or ten miles off shore maybe a moderate hurricane. >> it affects millions of people. >> billions of dollars. now, here's the forecast map. we've been watching this little black line. hurricanes wobble, especially the powerful ones especially when they're having what we call eye wall replacement cycles like we had near freeport. in general it's still heading in this northwestward motion. we have reports that they're seeing flashes in the sky. this is about when we've expected to see the stronger winds show up. this is the beginning of this

sustained and stronger gust tropical storm force winds. that's enough to knock down some power lines. that's enough to get those flashes and the power outages are beginning right around the west palm beep area. the core of the hurricane, if we're going to get catastrophic winds that's still located in this narrow area. this would be the equivalent of a strong tropical storm lower end hurricane. we're guaranteed to have that. we know that for a fact which would make this a minor to moderate event no matter how far or close to the coast it goes. these are our models. these update every six hour, some are every 12 hours. these are what we call our spaghetti lines. a lot of the lines were bringing this on shore around vero beach or melbourne. there has definitely been a shift. so small, 10 or 15 miles. but off the coast, the stronger portion is this northeastern quadrant. that may keep some of the really intense winds off the coast. so no longer will we have

catastrophic wind damage out of this. i think it's too late for the storm surge. i think that will be historic. the storm is too strong, too close to the coast and those winds will pile up the water on the coast regardless if it's 20 miles off shore or not. the only thing this may event is how much wind damage we get out of this. we're going to keep updating. this model updates every three hours. the current version of this has the hurricane winds along the coast as we go throughout the next hour or two and then brings it right up the coast. i hit the wrong button right there and fast forward right past it. the bottom line with this, as we go throughout the next couple hours, this is the wait and see time. we're pretty much done looking at the forecast models. we'll stare at the radar and see if there's any little wobbles or shifts. there's still question whether this will be a historic wind damage or notp about storm surge is coming. the worst tonight is around the kennedy space center. then we bring it up to daytona beach at daybreak, jacksonville

florida tomorrow afternoon. >> the merritt island out there, all those places crucial to the space center and the folks that live out there. >> the vehicle assembly building obviously historical artifact in our country's history only geared for 125-mile-per-hour winds. that's what it was built for way back before andrew went through and the building regulations got more severe. there are structures out there that could be in jeopardy. there's no one out there. it's completely evacuated. so they're safe. >> i have a couple questions. >> of course, as many as you want. >> west palm, the correspondent there, they're going to get this weird northwesterly wind. the wind is going to come back around the other side. >> north at about 50 to 55. that yellow on the radar, those are the initial bands in the tropical storm force winds. from here on out we'll probably be losing people in the west palm beach area. they'll be losing their power and if they're lucky they'll get

it on the generators they're fortunate. if you're familiar with the intracoastal water way, you go down from melbourne area southwards and although they may not get the strong winds on the north side, the winds will whip around the back side and in a strange way. it's not maybe the beaches that will get the worst storm surge flooding south of the melbourne area. it will actually be on the intercoastal. they'll blow the water towards and off shore, but they can't because you have the barrier islands. >> we have a very popular nbc station there locally. we assume and hope people are able to, while they still have power, see us maybe with a portable device. some of them are in shelters. it's not going to be fun to be in west palm tonight, but northwest wind means at least that they missed the worst of this. >> they did. you need to kind of go up the map. we cleared miami. miami, that he be hardly any damage whatsoever. i woke up this morning and some

of our short-term guys had this coming in close to ft. lauderdale, miami. ft. lauderdale still looks like straight power outages. i don't think we'll get anything significant there. the significant damage starts west palm beach. as we go into the next category into highly significant if you want to call it that, that's ft. pierce to the melbourne area. i still think if we're going to get the historic damage out of this storm looking back on it, i'm really targeting areas from the new smyrna beach, volusia county line, up to flagler and augustine and southern georgia, too. that's where the storm surge should be the greatest. ten feet of water rushing in even if the storm is off shore, doesn't matter. >> for the first time many times over the course of tonight, please repeat about the storm surge, what you've been saying all day and the fact that in hurricanes about a quarter of the loss of life is a direct result of wind. storm surge takes most people. >> predominantly. that's why you heard so many of

the emergency managers, the governor and all the senators and congressmen, they were saying get off the coast, get off the beaches because we can't save you from the storm surge. there's a saying that says, you run from the storm surge, you shelter from the winds. and most times unless you're dealing with a category 4 or 5, you can stay on the coast from the winds about this being a 4, we didn't know if it would go right inland or notp about even with the winds, they were saying get out. even when we hear about the storm surge we talk about it often is it like a tsunami what's it kind of like in the biggest thing how can i put this in a way for a laymen to kind of understand this? picture your bathtub quickly rising with about 100 miles per hour winds and ten-foot waves. >> worse than the frog boiling experiment. it comes up on you accompanied by so much storminess you don't always notice the gradations in the rise of the water. >> all of a sudden it just starts coming up and it starts coming up then all of a sudden people start panicking because they realize they can't get out

any mp more and that's the scary part. >> i make to you the counteroffer the weather center is right over there 30 feet from us. if you learn anything, know anything, and all those times you're i hadding refresh, just holler and we'll let you on the air. bill karins, we'll be seeing a lot of him this evening. correspondent miguel almaguer is in west palm beach, florida. as we said, they're not going to have a whole lot of fun there tonight, but this could have been so much worse for that metropolitan area. >> yeah, absolutely, brian. unfortunately we're not out of the woods yet. we have been having bursts of very violent weather. right now, believe it or not, this is fairly calm from what we saw over the last several hours. the wind speeds are certainly picking up. the rain is blowing sideways and we're just a few blocks from the coast. bill karins was talking about that storm surge. fortunately it sounds like they won't get hit with a difficult or bad storm surge here. but we were here just about 30 minutes ago.

we saw the sky explode and bright lights of green. it was transformers exploding. power went out all across this area. we're near hotels where generators have kicked back up. i want to show you the scene here, brian. this is one of the major thoroughfares in this area. you can see the wind is blowing sideways. the street lights fortunately are on. the good news is there are no cars in this area. over the last several hours police have been driving up and down this area over their loudspeakers telling everyone this is a mandatory evacuation. you must leave now. i can tell you just about an hour or two ago, brian, we saw actually people walking down the street taking pictures. we even saw children with their parents out here. fortunately they've all seeked shelter at this hour. the police tell us later on tonight they expect this storm to blow out windows in this area. they say more debris will be flying through the area. in this area they say they're safe in this location. as the storm continues to move, they will ask us to take shelter. but again we're in a fairly safe

situation. the rain here continues to come down. that will be a problem here for folks. of course, brian, those power outages, many will have to ride out this storm in the dark. >> miguel, there's every reason to believe that the lights including those immediately around you are on temporarily and a lot of west palm is going to fall in the darkness. the hope is that's the worst it gets. >> yeah, absolutely. we've been driving through the city. we moved live shot locations to get our satellite truck in a more secure area and pin it up against a building to protect it from the wind. i can tell you as we were driving through the area we did see some downed trees. we saw obviously palm trees with palm leaves all spread about this area, but we haven't seen any major disruption here. that's because the wind, while certainly very aggressive, has not been over the top. i say that as the wind gusts here begins to kick up here. about an hour or so ago, it was difficult to stand. the wind has been easing up a bit. the rain has been coming and

going, but when it does hit, it can be violent. >> kerry sanders is next after us here in ft. pierce. it will be interesting to see how conditions differ from where miguel is in west palm. kerry, there you are. this is not your first rodeo as a longtime floridian. while you were on the air last time a transformer blew. i imagine we'll see a lot more of that during the night. >> yes. i suspect we are. we've had a couple power outages here in the area, and the lights have flickered back on. you know, it's interesting to note especially since we've had 11 years since a hurricane has hit florida. you can see here comes the authorities. they're just going around checking on people making sure that people are in their homes. but it's interesting to note that since we had that last hurricane, there's a law on the books that requires grocery stores, gas stations to actually have generators, so when the power goes out and life returns to normal in a day or so, maybe there won't be power but there

could be power that could restore if they had the generators as they're supposed to at the gas stations and grocery stores. tonight the real concern is about those mandatory evacuations and those who decided that they would ignore the mandatory evacuations. up and down the east coast here we've had police going door to door. it's kind of obvious if people are actually hold up in their homes because you see a car there, there's an indication that everything is sort of maybe boarded up except a door, that somebody's coming in and out or they're just out walking around. so the authorities went around and they started writing down on a little legal yellow pad and getting it all radioed in, here's the name of the person and this is where they are. that way the authorities say they can go back afterwards, but they won't go out there if there's a 911 call tonight. we're four to five miles inland. we're on u.s. 1. over on the barrier islands we were there a couple hours ago. yes, there are people staying there and as we were talking earlier, and i heard you talking

about storm surge, that will be the serious concern for people. maybe they don't understand or ignoring the fact that a storm surge of 12 feet also can go a mile to two miles inland, sometimes even further as we've seen with other hurricanes. and so that wall of water -- and it's not really a tsunami. it comes, comes, rises and rises and as we know from people caught in them before especially with hurricane ivan, they're in their house, the next moment know there's water at their feet, then at their knees, then at their hips, they're scrambling to get up into the attic. the authorities say the people who decided to stay put made a big mistake and they should not have done it. i want to point out because you mentioned it, this is not a hurricane yet. where you see me standing. the winds blowing, a protective wall. if there are folks inside their homes and watching this and trying to get an idea what's going on, maybe we can go outside. don't go outside. the hurricane hasn't hit yet. it's coming. you really need to be prepared for what eventually will come

maybe when most people are sleeping assuming they can sleep through those creepy noises that come when you're boarded up in your house and you hear things that just kind of scare you. >> thank you for making that point. we especially worry about the high population of old folks who are watching us tonight depending on us to learn where this thing is and what was that sound they just heard, kerry. so many people are in structures without any sense of what's going on outdoors, oddly, except for watching it on television. and again, we hope people are able to run off a genny or a portable device. kerry sanders who is just up the coast. this is not the i-95 hurricane that people predicted a day or two ago. but just up the road enough we can follow the radar bands to tell which of our correspondents will be in the thick of it when we go to them. if you take ft. pierce where kerry is and drive slightly

south and west, you'll end up in a place known around here as the winter home of the new york mets and that's port st. lucie, florida, and the mayor is standing by via telephone to talk with us. mr. mayor, do you think you've done all you can do? >> we have. very, very proud of our emergency response team who has really executed the playbook. and we're in that wait and see mode. and you're talking to a hurricane, a miami hurricane and we're rooted for white right. >> we were just talking about this path. you're not a meteorologist, i'm not. but you kind of cheer for every little northward turn, every twitch to the north because that would be such good news for people in coastal florida

especially when we get up into georgia, south carolina, some of the real estate in this country that is the most flood prone we have, you at least have the barrier of being inland a bit. >> too true. you hit the nail on the head. every wobble protects the i- 95 nightmare corridor that we've feared for decades. let's keep on seeing those wobbles right. >> what is your population? and by percentage how many folks preferred to stay and ride it out and how many folks did you feel like if you could, you would forcibly get them out of their homes? >> well, we have 179,412, but who is counting? but we predominantly shelter in place. we do have five shelters open in the county, two in the city proper. but most of us, you know, the codes, the florida building code has been so much better since

1992 with andrew. it's really robust. as you properly shutter your house, your house is on good shape. you're on the interior, able to shelter in place especially if we're fortunate enough to get a glancing blow rather than a direct hit. >> we'll be thinking of you along with all the communities up and down the coastline from florida to georgia to south carolina. we'll still be at this, of course, tomorrow. hopefully this thing gets shredded along the coastline and gets dumped down from a 4 to a 1 and takes that right turn and dice an ugly death over the right ocean. we'll fit in our first break here. we're in tonight for the long haul with so many millions waiting and watching the progress of this storm along with us. the very latest tracking for you when we come back from this next break. before taking his team to state for the first time... gilman: go get it, marcus. go get it.

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we are back. our all-night-long coverage of this approaching major category 4 hurricane as it gets closer to the coastline of florida and with every little twitch to the east or west that decides a lot about people's fortunes and futures. sadly, just about all the models, even if this never makes landfall, and just ends up being scrubbing the coastline, corroding the coastline, all of them bring it either very close to or right over top of daytona beach, florida. a favorite location for generations of americans. nbc news correspondent ron mott is there. ron, i need not remind you it's home of the great daytona international speedway. a place where the beaches are so flat and so wide you can drive on them, which a lot of people

from the east and west coast just have never seen before, but there's not a whole lot to stop the water if you get what's predicted. >> yeah, brian. and they are very worried about the beach erosion tonight. we're just getting some of these outer bands just now moving over daytona beach. this is mild compared to what we're expecting to see in the overnight hours. the beaches are cleared fortunately now. we did see people violating orders from the lifeguards running up and down telling people to get off the beach, that the beaches were closed. if you go up and down atlantic avenue, it is virtually empty. we did see a few cops who are stationed at certain intersections and stopping cars making sure that people know that they need to go inside somewhere and not out joyriding. we can tell you the surge here is predicted between 6 to 10, maybe 11 feet, brian. as you mention these beaches being as flat as they are, that water, once it comes in, is going to quickly overtake the dunes that are there and so we

do anticipate that water will reach portions of atlantic avenue and maybe even beyond that, depending on how much wind is blowing at the time we're getting that high tide coming through. we were out earlier today, brian, with the mayor of daytona beach. he was walking through a neighborhood by himself, had his umbrella with him. i asked him why he was out going door to door. he said if i can ask these folks to vote for me, i should be out here knocking on doors making sure that everyone is safe. he did ask a lot of people to get to a better locations than they were in their own neighborhoods. some of them heeded that and some of them decided to stick it out and will stick it out there. this is going to be a major event, brian. the real concern here is how long it's going to stay over parts of florida like daytona beach before it's out of the area. you have covered these hurricanes. we know that usually after 8, 10, 12 hours, it's generally safe to go back out and start to assess whatever damage. this thing, matthew, may stay over portions of daytona beach and along this coast hugging it

for 24, 30, 36 hours maybe even early saturday. so that's the real concern is just how long this thing will stay overhead and how slow it's moving. last i checked it was between 12, 13, 14 miles an hour. that's a slow pace compared to some of the hurricanes we've seen that are moving along pretty fast, 20, sometimes 30 miles an hour so they hit, they quit, and they're out of the area. we do anticipate that the damage from this wind could be substantial just because it's going to be in the area for a long time. but the surge that everyone's concerned about because it's the surge that will typically take lives. we hope that we can minimize that here in this area of volusia county and up and down the storm zone. >> because i've seen what can happen when a palm frond lets go in the wind, are you sheltered at least locally. i know you're getting one of these rain bands right now. >> we are staying at the hotel. we're on a veranda now. we did lose one of the ceiling fans. we were concerned about these

fans blowing around. fortunately they're shaped like palm fronds themselves, they're soft. we hope that the damage is minimal if it hits any of our crew. after we are off the air with you, we do move back inside. the winds sustained maybe 25, 30 knots with some gusts stronger than that. three or four hours from now, it will be a whole different story out here. again, there is a mandatory evacuation up and down the coast. some people have decided that they're going to ride it out. we did speak to a woman who this isn't her first hurricane. she's from upstate new york. this is her third year down in florida. she's very nervous. her son has been checking on her all day. she did manage to get into a shelter. she took a dog across the way to one of her neighbors. they live in a mobile home park. i asked her if she's worried about her pet and her neighbors. she said their motor home is sturdier than hers, it's a

double wide. it has a metal roof. she thought they would get through it. i'm not so sure. you talk about the location of the eye, that's the critical x factor going forward because if it jog just a little bit and we head up on the eastern side of that eye, this is going to be catastrophic potentially if we stay on the western side it still could be very damaging, but that's the side everyone wants to be on, brian. >> ron, just for our audience. they see how it is behind you. daytona beach is not even on the initial radar map we're showing. it's too far to the north. this storm is still so far away from daytona beach, the storm in chief, that these are the outer northern and western bands that we see going on behind ron mott. and ron, one more thing, and that is so much of the economic beating heart of daytona, florida, and we worry, of course, most about citizens and those who chose to stay in their homes, those who thought they had no other option.

as a nascar fan, though, that speedway has been added to and added to over the years. it is a gargantuan structure. and it's never really been tested. it's several stories high. but we can't say this often enough. they haven't had a major hurricane through this part of florida going back in some places to the beginning of records in the 1800s. >> yeah, this is an extraordinary event, brian. we both covered katrina. this is going to be an extraordinary event. i just passed the speedway a couple of times today. it is a mammoth structure. obviously world renowned racing track. it is obviously empty tonight. we'll just have to see when these winds stop plblowing how well daytona speedway has fared here. there are some people across the country who planned a holiday at the wrong time. we met up with a young lady from the netherlands who is in a hotel here.

her plans have suddenly changed and she's nervous about what her 48 hours ahead will entail. but given that they are anticipating this storm having hurricane force, maybe strong tropical force winds going well into friday and maybe even into the early hours of saturday, there's no telling. this is sort of unprecedented just in terms of the time factor that this storm is expected to batter the coast and then we're talking about this thing turning around, making a hook and coming back for these same communities. >> i'm not yet ready to deal with that idea. ron, thank you very much. if you say you trust the veranda, we have no choice but to put our faith in that veranda. chiefly we're worried about you and your crew and your safety. we know you'll be reporting for us when and where you can. our friend ron mott is in daytona beach, florida. thanks. we have a shot from orlando, florida, where, again, still a long distance away from the center of this storm.

this is just a robo tower cam, a web cam sponsored by the folks who collect your tolls. tolls that have been suspended, by the way, so people can get out of dodge during this storm. this shows us nothing in particular except for violent wind shaking the camera and visible rain there. one special note about orlando, in the whole history of walt disney world it's only closed four times. and this is one of those. it will be closed tomorrow. the three previous closures were also for hurricanes, but this really is a first. we're going to be watching especially closely where that eye ends up in relation to orlando, florida. we have one of the great specialists waiting to talk to us. michael lowery, weather channel hurricane specialist. i've been watching you on television as well. should we put any faith in this slight northern jog of the storm? it looked like it was turning to

get out of the way of nassau almost or are you just not ready to say that that means anything? >> yeah, good evening, brian. no, unfortunately not when the hurricane gets as strong as this, they sort of wiggle one way and then wobble back another way. the trajectory here is northwest at 13 miles per hour. and you know, you've been talking a lot about the storm surge threat. the wind threat is obviously a concern. but with that wind threat comes the potential here for some devastating storm surge. we get these updates from the hurricane center, brian, every hour now because it's within radar range. here's the 9:00 update. still a category 4 hurricane. northwest at 13 miles an hour. just to see the foreign cone here, the worst of the impacts may be coming overnight into the day tomorrow, but the real concern begins, brian, there's been structural changes within this storm. if this grows in size, even if the maximum winds come down a little bit, it will be

catastrophic to potential to catastrophic storm surge here southeast georgia into south carolina. this is a strong category 3 hurricane and if the storm were to stay off shore just a little bit, it's still tapping into the very warm waters there and then moving up into parts of the most vulnerable portions of our coastline, really about the geography of the coast. when you see the coast cave inwards like it does between jacksonville up to savannah and charleston, that tells you this is an area especially prone to the coastal flooding from the storm surge. as you've been talking about this very unusual loop potentially back toward florida, right now we have most of the east coast of florida basically from palm beach up to jacksonville, that includes flagler and duvall county, orlando is under a hurricane warning. they'll get the winds, but 90% of the deaths in hurricanes are from drowning. they're not from the wind. 10% historically have been from the wind.

half of those deaths going back to 1960 from the storm surge. and here's the hurricane going up to the southeast part of georgia as well as the coast of the carolinas including charleston there. a lot of real estate under the gun here for this potentially devastating catastrophic hurricane. >> you just touched on this. i heard bryan norcross talking about it earlier, he said it's just an odd construction right now. the infrastructure of this hurricane. he talked about the fluctuation in winds at the core, but how it also meant perhaps a broader reach inland. can you shed any more light on that? and what we're doing here is we're trolling for any good news we can hang on to. >> i unfortunately don't see a good scenario out of this. what happens is when a hurricane gets as strong as this, they undergo what we call eye wall replacement cycles. you'll get an outer ring of thunderstorms form around the primary inner eye wall. and what happens is -- you can see it here in the radar picture.

here is the inner eye wall, then around that there's a secondary ring. hurricane force winds in that ring, but that ring is still off shore here. that's why we haven't seen sustained conditions over florida yet. but this ring succumbs to that outer ring, the outer ring acting like a toll booth for that inflow. the outer ring takes over as the primary ring, almost like a figure skater pulling his or her arms closer into his or her body spins that person up faster and faster. once the eye wall takes over the spins up quicker and we see the winds come up. tonight the pressures are so low. 939 millibar of pressure is really low. even if we see a temporary weakening of the system, the broadening of the wind field will mean a higher threat for the coast as it works its way up

tomorrow. >> michael lowery from the weather channel. a treat to be able to talk to you at a time like this, even though we're looking for good news. it appears this is as big and bad a storm as we always feared. it's just now a matter of degrees, quite literally, whether it corrodes the shore, makes landfall at all or kind of skirts the shore and whether or not that will act as an agent to reduce this in size, speed, strength, intensity, so on. another break. we're back with our live coverage of hurricane matthew as we look at the shot from orlando, florida, tonight. guess what guys, i switched to sprint.

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i want to show you a very unique view of this storm. this is what it looks like from 249 miles up while traveling at 17,000 miles an hour. the crew of the international space station has no control over the path of their next orbits. those are set. they're mathematical. but today their travels happened to bring them over this burge burgeoning hurricane, this category 4 hurricane matthew that has so many millions of people displaced on the move, worried about loved ones. think of how many people across this country have loved ones they're thinking about tonight in the state of florida. the simple answer is if you're in the south near miami, we can officially say that the city of miami has largely dodged a bullet in this storm with

memories of hurricane andrew still fresh for people of a certain age. the gulf coast of florida, obviously inland and the panhandle, it's not going to be an issue. we know exactly where this storm is going to be an issue. it's already an issue, as we've been checking in with our correspondents. there is one place in all of this where they feel personally the responsibility for the healthy -- the health and well-being of upwards of 20 million americans. that's the national hurricane center in miami. correspondent chris jansing is stationed there tonight. you are with the absolutely most serious meteorologists working in the business. they send out the advisories. they plot all of the variables including its track, its projected track. everything starts in that room. >> that's right. and think about what's riding on that, brian. in the case of matthew, 1.5

million people being told to evacuate as a result of those forecasts. businesses are closed as i drove here from orlando we couldn't find almost any place that was open. tens of millions, hundreds of millions, in some cases of hurricanes a billion dollars of business that is lost. how do they get to that forecast? let me give you one little example. so we've got planes in the air 24 hours a day. if they're noaa planes they're coming out of tampa, if they're air force they're coming out of biloxi, mississippi. but they're flying in this triangle. they're going to hit right in the center here with this piece of equipment. this is called a dropsong and it will have a parachute on this end. but this is the heart of it. this is the censor that will send back information like pressure and wind speed and temperature. all of that goes back to those planes which again flying 24 hours a day and then coming back

here because the number one thing that their mission is here at the national hurricane center is to save lives. this is part of it. you've seen him before. that is a very familiar face. he can do as many as 75 hits a day. a lot of them to local stations that are in the path of this storm. but the information is going to go over to that desk. we just had the senior meteorologist jack bevan take a little break. but he's had 19 years here. and this is where the science mixes with art. he's going to take the information from that plane, he's going to take the satellite imagery and he's going to work it because at 11:00 tonight, as you know, brian, they're going to give us another update about the storm, the intensity of the storm, the path of the storm all from here. and because you mentioned andrew, i wanted to come over here. the headquarters of the national hurricane center were decimated in andrew. so now 13 inch steel reinforced

walls. this building that i'm standing in, brian, if it were in the path of matthew and as you said, fortunately for miami it's not, it could withstand 130-mile-per-hour winds, brian. >> wow. and this is not the time or place for politics, but there's been a move afoot for years to maybe privatize weather forecasting in this country. we should emphasize to everybody that is part of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration and these are really civil servants. and the word "servant" is very, very true with so many people relying on the wisdom coming out of that room. chris jansing, thank you very much for -- >> and -- >> yes, go ahead. >> no, i was just going to say, and i think i didn't even realize how few people are involved in this. only 45 people work in this building as part of this. and a lot of them work on marine forecasts. there are only 10 of these

highly specialized forecasters, these hurricane forecasters and it is on their shoulders, as you say, as public servants to do this interpreting of this incredibly scientific, exacting data so that officials, government officials can make these decisions, brian. >> chris jansing in that very important room for millions of people, the national hurricane center, chris, thank you very much. we're going to take a break, and when we come back, as our next guest put it earlier this evening, when the weather channel is getting out of the location, that's when you know it's time for you to get out of a location. when we come back, we'll talk to meteorologist paul goodlow. g ne.

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the damage, oh, it is so extensive. there are power lines down, trees on top of houses, roads completely washed away. keep in mind the winds were about 125 miles per hour.

>> that was tammy leitner, who has just been through the worst of this storm in nassau, the bahamas. we hasten to add that prior to making landfall in the bahamas where this storm didn't spend long and almost looked like it was avoiding the bahamas with a little jog to the west, it took close to 270 lives, most of them in haiti. so when we say this is a killer hurricane, it's not for the benefit of making some graphic more sensational. 270 souls are gone as a result of this storm so far. in haiti, of course, the poorest nation in the hemisphere where they have little ability to cope with the inundation they ended up dealing with and where a major bridge washed out, that was just the start of their troubles. portions of that nation have yet to recover from the earthquake six years ago. as we work our way up the coast

of florida, all these cities and towns you hear us talking about that are still in that cone of uncertainty, they're still on either side of this thing, they all have to be ready. it's one thing to tell people to shelter in place, to evacuate, to come to municipal shelters. it's another thing to deal with what you have to deal with. for a hospital, that means the patients that the first responders will bring in through the door. people also have to realize it may be a while after they call 911 before help arrives, and that help may be in the form of the national guard and not your local emts. nbc's dr. john torres, who is an emergency room doc himself, is in the emergency room at halifax health there in daytona beach. and doc, i guess everyone there is kind of bivouacked there for the night on into tomorrow. i'm guessing they have shifts

stacked up for 24 to 48 hours, and any number of injuries could come through that front door. >> and brian, you're exactly right. here at the hospital, this is the trauma center for the area. this is a level two trauma center, the largest emergency room in florida. they have multiple staff shifts here at the hospital ready to go. instead of evacuating, such a big facility, they want to keep the patients here and take care of patients coming in from the storm. they're housing those doctors and medical staff here. it's over a thousand medical staff, 45 doctors. they'll be staying here one, two, perhaps three nights, everything set up to take care of patients. in the emergency room, i've been in here during hurricanes as an e.r. doc and what you're seeing is a quiet emergency room. there's a quiet calm going on here. but behind the scenes and, again, having been there, you

know what's happening. there's a bit of nervousness here, a bit of anxiety because they know that anything could be coming through the door. you can go from zero to 60 in a matter of seconds where all of a sudden people start coming in the door, 20 people, door, 20 people, 30 people coming in the door with various illnesses. one of the things they do know is they are going to start seeing injuries after the storm starts to pass because that's when people go outside and start to clean up things. they start cutting themselves with chain saws and having heart attacks from cleaning stuff up. it's a double whammy for the staff. in 2004, they were taking care of hurricane victims at that point, and they stayed open. they've exercised in mass casualties drills. talking to the staff, the doctors, the nurses, they're ready to go for anything that comes in the door. one thing that does happen here, which a lot of people don't quite understand. when the winds get to a certain

level, the ambulance cannot go out any more. what they do here, the halifax health medical center is put their emergency room doctors in with the ems supervisors and go out on calls. so the doctors going out on calls, taking care of patients and bringing them back here as they need to. so even though it's a calm quiet right now, you can sense the energy in the air, the anticipation of what's going to happen. and the preparedness, the staff is ready to go. i have been in situations like this. and you talk to each other about what might be, what could be happening. you check the equipment, you check it a second time and a heard it time to make sure it's working. and it's a matter of when, not if. >> dr. torres of our staff in and among the staff at halifax health there. the e.r., as he put it, eerily quiet, quite literally, the calm before the storm. and a great point there,

ambulances will be parked, sidelined. they are top-heavy and rather light vehicles. fire engines, a lot of them have upwards of 500, 600 gallon tanks on board, gives them a great center of gravity and weight, makes them very stable vehicles, even with hurricane-force winds. so they will send docs and nurses out with fire apparatus. our coverage continues after this. we'll look at the latest track of this storm and check in with the cities up and down florida's coastline. y,t's the phillips' lad

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people do not seem to get it. i'm not leaving, and i have already check issiy checked. i don't lean towards bra view dough. i asked, do you have body bags? are you ready for mass casualties? if people do not leave, and we get 140-mile-per-hour wind gusts in some of our mobile home places, we are going to have fatalities. >> that briefing got attention when the sheriff of martin county, florida recounted that story that he wanted to make sure they had enough body bags on hand. it was a way of scaring people

into evacuating if they were in the zone, and we hope they did. we are joined by paul goodloe who is in jacksonville beach, florida. weather channel meteorologist, paul goodloe, a man we've talked to so many times over the years. i've been watching you all afternoon and all evening. to quote paul goodloe, when the weather channel gets out of a place, it's a good indication everybody should get out of a place, and you're minutes away from pulling out of heaof there right? >> reporter: you're right. you're the last hit and then we're leaving. we're standing about 4 feet above sea level. this do you kn this dune is about 6 feet. to the right of me, notice, there's not a very good dune structure. we're seeing some dunes this tall, but imagine a 10 or 12-foot storm surge, you add

that six to four, that's ten feet. that water would come over these dunes and continue on towards this courtyard, which we have been staying at, i guess for the last ten to 12 hours. we're not spending the night, because it's just not that safe. so that water would start lapping at this first floor. and eventually, even where i'm standing now, we might have water that could be perhaps almost knee-deep. and that's just the storm surge. but guess what's on top of the storm surge. we have waves. this could be maybe, what, i don't know, a four-foot wave. we potentially could have 10, 15-foot waves on top of that, crashing into this building here. i think this building will be fine. yes, it could have potential water damage on the first floor. but there are also a lot of homes here. jacksonville beach, neptune beach and atlantic beach. i was driving through the area today. about half the homes don't have hurricane shutters up or plywood

up. and they don't have as good as a dune structure as we have here in front of the courtyard, so they could be definitely at risk for a lot of surge, flooding and then the wave action on top of that. there have been mandatory evacuations here, but not everyone has been heeding that advice, because the big concern is, you might not be able to get out if you wait too long. this is a barrier island. there are bridges that take us off of here towards the mainland, towards jacksonville, the bridges shut down when the winds get to 40 miles per hour. we'll have that as you head towards your friday morning. right maui haven't seen the outer rain bands yet as we head towards midnight, jacksonville is one of the few areas that have that river flowing through, the st. john's river. we've had a lot of rain here the last few days not associated with matthew that has jammed some of the streams.

st. john's is flowing out towards the atlantic. those waters are running high already. matthew dumping, six, 10, 12 inches of rain, flooding downtown jacksonville, prance even the stadium where the jaguars play. big concern here. so flooding is not just going to be a coastal concern with surge, it's going to be an inland concern in this area of florida. much more coastal concerns south of here. but this first coast of northeastern coast of florida, a unique position with all these threats coming in here. and, again, it's this time tomorrow night we will see the closest approach and the biggest impacts from hurricane matthew. and by the way, a little trivia, bryan, hurricane warnings up here for the jacksonville region, first time since hurricane floyd threatened in 1999. first time we could have