msnbc's coverage of hurricane matthew continues right now. daylight is expected to bring a scene of heavy damage this morning as hurricane matthew begins to batter parts . the storm has weakened to a category 3 overnight but at its peak packed winds topping 130-mile-per-hour as it approached florida, georgia, and the carolinas. it's the most powerful storm to threaten the region in more than a decade after killing well over 100 people by some counts at least 300 across the caribbean. the combination of whipping winds, torrential rains and a vicious storm surge had officials warning for the worst. >> this storm will kill you. time is running out. >> storm surges are going to go much further inland than people realize. >> this is like none of those. >> i'm not saying this to be

theatrical. i asked do you have body bags? if people do not leave and we get 140-mile-per-hour wind gusts in some of our mobile home places, we're going to have fatalities. >> this is like no storm in the record books. we're concerned about people staying in areas under major evacuation orders. >> thousands of people took that advice and made for safer ground but others decided to stay to ride out the storm and hope matthew weakens as it comes ashore. good morning. it's friday, october 7th. welcome to msnbc's continuing coverage of hurricane matthew. with us, white house correspondent for "the huffington post." there's a big political impact with this storm.

we'll get to that in a moment with sam. the strongest hurricane to hit the u.s. coast in a decade is showing signs of weakening. matthew has been downgraded to a category 3 but the danger is still very real. sustained 120-mile-per-hour winds recorded parallel to the coastline with an 88-mile-per-hour gusts on the shore near satellite beach. the western eye wall is now approaching cape canaveral push along the i-95 corridor toward jacksonville. after speaking individually with governors from along the southern atlantic coast, president obama signed emergency declarations in florida, georgia, and south carolina. the president also spoke with governor pat mccrory in north carolina who activated federal and local responders with a state of emergency in all 100 counties. but the most massive action has taken place in florida where wind gusts have reached 71 miles per hour in vero beach and 74

miles per hour north of barefoot bay. there's an extreme wind warning for the northeastern county in effect until 7:15 a.m. a 102 mile wind gust recorded there. governor rick scott is tweeting if the national weather service issues an extreme wind warning, move to a interior room. stay away from windows and stay indoors. that is if you have not evacuated. >> let's bring in meteorologist bill karins. 24 hours ago you gave us a sobering forecast raising names like katrina and andrew. where are we at at this hour? >> we're off the top of the list. instead of top 10 just that next category down to 10 to 20. catastrophic impacts of category 4 on the coast is a lot different than a category 3 just off the coast. this storm is only about 10 to 20 miles further to the east

than what expected 24 hours ago. that has a world of difference and billions of dollars in difference between the damage that's going to occur. here's the latest forecast path. we no longer have it predicted to be on land at any point with an official landfall. as far as yesterday was concerned, we had this on the coast. it's a small shift but because the storm is paralleling the florida coast, that makes a world of difference. models are in agreement with this off the coast scenario. very close to south carolina later on tonight. we're not out of the woods. still a slight possibility of a landfall there near charleston. here's a look at the radar. we mentioned that extreme wind warning issued for cape canaveral area. they're going through the western eye wall. we have the center of the storm. the center is where the calm is. that's not that big of a deal. what you don't want to get into is the actual eye wall itself. that right now is only about 10 to 20 miles off the coastline here from melbourne area and right on the coast there near melbourne.

melbourne is seeing the worst of it right now. high winds are arriving. let me go closer in on this. this is the eye here. the center of the eye is the calm of the storm. this area to the north, this is where we're watching the hurricane force winds. titusville area, you are in danger of the winds. the outer eye will get the worst wind daniel. this is a representation of that showing red coloring. that's where worst damage is. orange is tropical storm. in red is when destruction can begin. as far as what i'm most concerned with. wind damage today will be in moderate hurricane category. big deal if you're along the coast. monetary damage. we won't see houses blown to pieces. as far as the storm surge goes, this is still the part that can be historic. this area of red. this will happen this morning. daytona beach as we head toward

the noon hour in jacksonville and tonight the georgia coastline. i'm sure you've been up around hilton head area. they could experience 10 to 12 foot storm surge in areas of south carolina. the most monetary damage would be in the florida area but i think we could have equally as bad of damage in south carolina. i'm thrilled and happy for our friends from miami to ft. lauderdale to west palm beach. it's even now looking pretty good around ft. pierce area. even melbourne area. good for them. it still looks to be bad today if not horrible to areas of the north. >> some people will wake up and hear the storm has weakened a bit and think we dodged this one. what you're saying is there's a big potential for problems today up and down the coast? >> we have this to be in major to historic category for storm surge in areas of northeast florida all of the way through

the georgia coast and south carolina coast the next 36 hours. that's what usually kills the most people and that's what usually causes the most damage and most monetary damage too is the storm surge. we have a chance for a foot to foot and a half of rain over the next 48 hours in southern portions of georgia and south carolina and that could easily cause damage. >> we'll be checking in with you all morning. stay there. we've got reporters fanned out up and down the florida coast this morning. let's start in orlando where we find msnbc correspondent. good morning. what does it look like where you are? >> reporter: this is supposed to be vacation paradise, instead there's a curfew in effect until 7:00 in the morning here. there's no one in the streets. everything is closed. 1,000 people in shelters in orange county. tourists, evacuees people that flew across the world to be here and spend a different day with their families and instead are

hunkered down in hotel rooms waiting for this category 3 storm to pass. all four disney world theme parks are closed. universal studios is closed as well as seaworld. coastal communities bear the brunt of the storm. you don't see that activity right now but we're waiting for these winds to pick up and we're hoping for the storm to pass central florida as quickly as possible. >> all right. thank you so much. extreme wind warning has been issued for cape canaveral florida. let's go to kerry sanders nearby in satellite beach. kerry, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. we've got the winds buffeting out here although they're not as strong as i think i sort of expected here. i'm going to change the camera as we're driving slowly down the road here. we take a look out the front as we're going down. it's kind of hard to make out because it's early. the most interesting thing i think here is we are literally a

block from the beach. there is just to our left of this picture like parking and maybe some park area. there are the sand dunes and then there's the water. that's how close we are. so i think the surprise is that what we're looking at is that the storm surge has not come over the dunes and made its way here onto a1a. we'll position the car by turning a little bit left here because the wind is right now coming to us from the north. as we do that, i'll switch cameras and step outside so you get a better idea of what the wind is like because it can be rather deceptive when we're looking from just inside a vehicle. okay. so i've made my way now outside. let me change microphones here.

>> all right. as kerry moved outside of the car there, i think we lost his microphone. we'll get that synced up and go back to satellite in just a minute. >> problems with airports have been epic. hurricane matthew has canceled 3,000. even more than a couple. at this point the cancellation have extended out as far as saturday. the first major airport to close yesterday was ft. lauderdale. that happened around 10:30 a.m. it is expected to open back up at 11:00 a.m. this morning. good news for you travelers. miami international airport closed at noon yesterday. they didn't us is pepd all operations. we should let folks know that they say operations are expected to gradually resume there today in miami. joining us from ft. lauderdale, florida, blake mccoy. good morning to you. i think folks there feel like they're waking up and dodged a

bullet. it's rainy and there may be coastal flooding? >> reporter: it's breezy. it's rainy. all of the warnings have now been lifted here in ft. lauderdale and in miami. so the worst has certainly passed. that's why we're seeing flights resume in both of these cities this morning. it's because the hurricane actually stayed about 100 miles offshore as it passed, which was further than expected. so while it did bring wind and rain with the outer bands of this hurricane, we did not see hurricane force winds make landfall here in ft. lauderdale so what we're going see this morning is people waking up and assessing what they expect to be very minimal damage here in south florida. we expect businesses to reopen and airports to reopen as well. it's going to be a return to normal here in south florida as attention now turns further up the coast. alex? >> okay. thanks for that. we should mention also that international flights, 1,800 canceled along those lines. big mess in the skies.

>> we're also looking at the official death toll from hurricane matthew which reached at least 128 this morning. 122 of those are in haiti. but by some counts, it's much higher. the country's embassy expects that number to rise because some areas are inaccessible right now. aerial video shows the storm left a broad path of devastation. hopes and buildings torn apart. many areas still flooded. the damage was also extensive in other areas of the caribbean in the bahamas there was flooding, downed trees, damaged rooftops. according to the national hurricane center in miami, nassau was hit with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour yesterday. it was enough to rip the roof off this home. at one point, authorities in the bahamas have not reported any immediate deaths. we'll be watching that though. >> the u.s. military is mobilized for hurricane matthew. this tweet from the florida national guard went viral yesterday showing residents on one side of the highway moving

out while service members on the other side were moving in. the florida national guard has activated 2,500 soldiers and airmen. south carolina has updated up to 2,000 troops and north carolina has 300 up so far. u.s. navy also in the mix deploying the "uss mesa verde" and two others. a senior new york official told nbc news yesterday that new york, task force here, will head to areas hit by matthew for disaster relief today. task force one is the same unit that went to hurricane katrina in 2005 and haiti following the earthquake in 2010. the unit is comprised of members of the new york fire and police departments trained in disaster response and in first aid. >> matthew is also forced closure of three of the world's most popular tourists attractions, those being disney world, seaworld and universal orlando resorts closed their

doors early yesterday and will be closed all day today. it's a rare move for parks that are typically open 365 days a year. disney closing for only the fourth time ever. they encouraged guests to just stay indoors. restaurants will be open. cancellation fees have been waived for all of their customers there. universal orlando of course parent company who owns msnbc news. college football. fans here for the southeastern conference got some schedule changes to talk about. the lsu-florida game scheduled for saturday at noon. nope. that's postponed. also the saturday night matchup between georgia and south carolina in columbia, that's now going to be played on sunday afternoon instead. meanwhile, in the acc, saturday night showdown between miami and florida state for now that will be played as scheduled in miami we hope. >> let's go to nbc news

correspondent gabe gutierrez in jacksonville, florida, for the latest there. gabe? we'll get his mike. all right. we'll get his mike as soon as possible. a lot of water issues with the mikes. we'll continue to track hurricane matthew's progress as it carves up florida's atlantic coast and we'll look at how big storms have made huge impact on presidential elections in years past like hurricane andrew in 1992. you're watching breaking news coverage of hurricane matthew right here on msnbc. we'll be right back. is it a professor who never stops being a student? is it a caregiver determined to take care of her own? or is it a lifetime of work that blazes the path to your passions?

your personal success takes a financial partner who values it as much as you do. learn more at tiaa.org waiter: here's your check. oh! you--you got it. you know, since i got rid of my car, i really enjoy walking. ok. got it? no, i'm good. announcer: getting pulled over for buzzed driving could cost you around $10,000 in fines, legal fees, and increased insurance rates. oh, you're home early. you live with your mom? announcer: that'll set your game back a few years. buzzed, busted, and broke because buzzed driving is drunk driving. sureor put themhave ston a rack.e tires. but the specialists at ford like to show off their strengths: 13 name brands. all backed by our low price tire guarantee. yeah, we're strong when it comes to tires. right now during the big tire event, get a $140 rebate by mail on four select tires.

♪

>> we are talking 50, 60 miles an hour. spinni inning horizontal rain whipping around. oh. oh.

the reason you have to turn away is because it's too painful even with the glasses on. >> that's weather channel's mike seidel reporting overnight from ft. pierce, florida. one thing we're keeping a close eye on with hurricane matthew is storm surge for these coastal cities. cal perry joins us for that angle. >> storm surge kills more people in hurricanes than wind and rain. this was the lesson learned from past hurricanes. it may be the story at this one as we look at our model and how it's tracking. as it tracks north all of this water is going to be pushed up against the coast and specifically let's take a look at jacksonville and this is a way to simulate out what we could see. this is taking a look at a category 1 hurricane and the blue areas are going to give you water up to three feet. yellow up to six and then orange will give you six feet and over. as we go to a category 2 you see how it spreads inland. this is why we saw such massive evacuations. this is what a category 3 hurricane would look like. that's what we're looking at

right now. this is why in south carolina there was such mass evacuations getting people at least 100 miles off this coast and that was from governor nikki haley and you can see why. it's that storm surge. the one thing i can't simulate for you is how quickly this happens. this is what we saw in hurricane katrina. that water really flooding into people's home. that was the lesson learned from think, wow, it's only a category 3 storm. there's no such thing. that storm surge is really still a danger. >> cal, thank you very much. this morning we're getting an up close and personal look at the inner workings of this storm thanks to the brave and women who fly into the middle of these meteorological monda meteorological monsters. this shu nu -- new video through the eye wall of hurricane matthew and into the eye of the

storm. no thanks. my gosh. teams like this take on these dangerous missions to help gather critical data to figure out where the storm is headed. the crew collects information that's difficult for satellites to measure like wind speed, air pressure and other variables. should we try gabe? is his mike working. let's go to jacksonville. gabe, can you hear us. take it away. >> reporter: sorry about the audio issues. what happens when you cover a hurricane on live television. so we just had a rain band go through, mika. heavy rain for about 15, 20 minutes or so. the wind actually has died down just in the last minute or two but jacksonville is expected to get hit hard later this afternoon. the concern here as you have been mentioning is this concern for storm surge. the mayor here in jacksonville ordered the evacuation of 450,000 people. you think, listen, people in florida are used to hurricanes. well, this area is not used to a

hurricane quite this size. the last time a hurricane impacted this area was 1898. with it taking a bit of a different track, that may limit the wind damage in this area as bill karins has been talking about. concern is for double digit storm surge. behind me is st. john's river. we expect the wind and rain to really kick up in the early afternoon into the evening hours. back to you. >> gabe, thank you. coming up, from political ads to early voting, hurricane matthew is already impacting the 2016 election. we'll have that plus the latest on the storm's path straight ahead right here on msnbc. the pursuit of healthier. it begins from the second we're born. because, healthier doesn't happen all by itself. it needs to be earned every day. using wellness to keep away illness. and believing a single life can be made better by millions of others. as a health services and innovation company

optum powers modern healthcare by connecting every part of it. so while the world keeps searching for healthier we're here to make healthier happen. i'm going to theank, to discuss a mortgage. ugh, see, you need a loan, you put on a suit, you go crawlinto the bank. this is how i dress to get a mortgage. i just go to lendingtree. i calculate how much home i can afford. i get multiple offers to compare side by side. and the best part is... the banks come crawling to me. everything you need to get a better mortgage. othing optional. lendingtree. when banks compete, you win. okay! ...awkward.

"just checking my free credit score at credit karma. "what the?" "don't you know that checking your credit score lowers it." "actually, checking your own credit score wh credit karma doesn't affect it at all." "i guess i could just check my credit score then." "check out credit karma today." this car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. to win, every millisecond matters. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm.

confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. cause no one knows & like at&t.

>> we want to send our thoughts and our hearts are with all of the people and prayers to the millions in the path of what's now known as hurricane matthew. it looks like it's a big one, and it's going to be a bad one it looks like. hopefully it takes that right turn. it looks like it's going in the opposite direction. not good. we have a lot of friends in florida. a lot of buildings. a lot of investments in florida. a lot of great employees in florida. southeast florida has taken the brunt of the storm. to all of my friends in florida, please know that we are praying for you and everyone in the path, you have to take care of yourself. you've got to get out of the

area. you have to listen. you have a great governor. governor scott. >> while the impact of hurricane matthew remains to be seen, the politics of the disaster already paying out on the campaign trail. as of now sunday's debate will go on as scheduled. yesterday republicans were quick to pounce on hillary clinton after the democratic nominee bought $63,000 worth of ads on the weather channel in florida. the clinton camp later said the ads would be delayed until the storm passed. the storm may impact voter registration in florida. tuesday is the last day for new voters in florida to sign up ahead of the election. governor rick scott said last night that he will not extend it past the deadline. scott serves as national chairman of the pro trump super pack. robby mook said he hoped it would be extended. south carolina officials extended their registration deadline from october 8th to

october 11th. sam, why wouldn't he extend it, rick scott? what's the concept there? >> the governor said that people who are florida have had sufficient amount of time to get registration done already. >> is there data that shows that? >> the best data we have is to compare what happened in 2012. i talked to an alum of the obama campaign. keep in mind, voter registration works like a hockey stick. it paces along and toward the deadline it goes high because people are procrastinating. the actual data was 86,000 votes in 2012. the margin by which obama won the state was 74,000 votes. the number of registered voters

does not say that obama wouldn't have won. this stuff does matter. rick scott's point is there's been ample time and numerous ways in which floridians can vote. >> sounds like what you're saying is that he's doing this for political reasons. >> i don't want to get into his head. obviously the clinton campaign feels that way. as someone that is chairing a trump super pac you can make the clear case that he has conflict of interest in this case. i don't think this is end you will be all of what's happening in florida. there's already talk of lawsuits to extend the deadline. hopefully, this is a big knock on wood here, ultimately it doesn't matter because the hurricane is a bit further out and won't disrupt voter registration deadlines and they can reopen these things. if it does, you would imagine you'll see lawsuits from democrats. >> as we watch that big spinner on the split screen on the side, has either of these candidates handled it one way or another? we haven't heard much.

>> i think from the clinton campaign's perspective they want to wait and see. it was surprising they leaned into voter registration thing. it was very tepid. trump put out a statement and read a statement on camera. i think what will happen is they're waiting to see what obama does. keep in mind as tragic as it is, back in '92 hurricane andrew, bush took a hit. i think they'll wait and see how the federal government responds to this and see candidates engage themselves. >> we did see donald trump who went down to louisiana and he did things like that. interesting to see if he goes down or she does either. >> sam, thank you. up next, a small shift in the storm's path has spared florida a direct hit so far. but the effects of hurricane

matthew could still be historic. bill karins has the latest track next on msnbc. this is me, using a wrench to build a jet engine. well we thought ge programmed machines to talk. ge is an industrial company that actually builds worlchanging machines. machines that can talk to each other digitally. hello? they don't talk to each other like that, ricky. shhhh, you'll anger it. he looks a little ticked off now. ♪balance transferot to othat's my game♪ bank you never heard of, that's my name♪ haa!

banthank you.r heard ofuh, next.my name♪ watch me make your interest rate... disappear. there's gotta be a better way to find e right card. whatever kind you're searching for, creditcards.com lets you compare hundreds of cards to find the one that's right for you. just search, compare, and apply at creditcards.com. ♪a one, a two, a three percent cash back♪ upgrade ur phone system and learn how you could save at vonage.com/business

on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates... maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurce.

>> here the winds are picking up. you see debris here on the roads. a lot of these -- we won't go further. it's hard to see but over here there is a marina and a lot of different boats that are getting battered right now by this storm and just down the road there is a mobile home park down this road there's a senior citizens home that has been evacuated about 100 senior citizens have been taken to, we believe, orlando. right now these conditions as you can see are getting much more hairy. we're going to fall back a little bit and have an update in

just a bit. >> that was nbc's gadi schwartz. we're following breaking news of hurricane matthew all morning long. the national hurricane center says matthew is moving just offshore with sustained 120-mile-per-hour winds. downgraded to a category 3. 102-mile-per-hour wind gust was reported where there is an extreme wind warning in effect until 7:15 a.m. the hurricane's western eye wall is approaching cape canaveral pushing along the i-95 corridor toward jacksonville. after speaking individually with governs from along the southern atlantic coast, president obama signed emergency declarations in florida, georgia and south carolina. the president also spoke with governor pat mccrory who declared a state of emergency in all 100 counties of his state activating federal and local responders. but most of the action so far has taken place in florida where

the first wind gusts to reach hurricane strength were recorded around 3:00 a.m. this morning. the governor urged the residents in the storm's path to evacuate, evacuate, evacuate and many heeded his call packing into shelters like this one at a recreation center in palm beach county where 250 people and nearly as many pets hunkered down. others rushed into service. 3,500 national guard troops activated to help with evacuations and prep for search and rescue operations. the latest count for power outages stands at almost 350,000 affecting customers almost entirely in florida. overnight governor scott asked people to charge all smartphones while they still have power. the national hurricane center sends push notifications during the storm. do not ignore. it could save your life. >> let's swing back around to

meteorologist bill karins keeping us updated on the path. people went to bed with one idea and waking up to a different one. >> the message yesterday morning and afternoon was this was going to be historic catastrophic. that was path of a category 4 storm up the coast from west palm beach northwards. we had a shift yesterday afternoon of 10 to 15 miles further off the coast. that's spared the worst of it for a lot of areas from melbourne southwards especially. here's a wider view of the storm. where it took that shift. the eye was supposed to go in between these where freeport is located and west palm beach. it was closer toward the freeport area. that slight shift had implications in the track. instead of being along the coast that track was further off the coast overnight. that spared horrendous damage further to the south. let me get to the radar. you can see what you need to avoid is the eye wall. that's where the strongest winds in the hurricane are. the eye wall, this is the

northeast quadrant, northern quadrant of the eye wall, this is western quadrant. this remained offshore all night long sparing us horrendous damage from areas from melbourne southward. it's been strong enough to knock out power probably for a couple days in those areas. houses remain standing, which is what we were afraid wouldn't happen if this had been on the coast. just a shift of 20 miles has made a world of difference. i'm thrilled for those people down in those areas. unfortunately that western eye wall is now going to be very close all day long to the coastline of daytona beach up to jacksonville. just because they were spared to the south does not mean our friends to the north are still looking at grave dangers throughout the day. here's the hurricane force windshield. it's right over the top of the space coast where they had 100-mile-per-hour gusts. that's where the extreme wind warning continues and that could be extended up toward orange city, daytona beach as the western eye wall is close to you

all morning long. a difference between five miles between significant damage in the areas or maybe minor damage. a close call. as far as storm surge goes, we just had a four-foot storm surge in cape canaveral. everyone south of there avoided storm surge. that's fantastic noise for coke cocoa beach. the storm will be closer and because of the angle of approach and the way winds will pile up water on the coast, that red coloring is up to ten feet of storm surge. we haven't even seen even half of that up to this point yet. that's why this storm has a chance to be historic. that's why you still need to be away from the coast from northern portions of florida through georgia and south carolina as we go throughout the day today and then tomorrow we'll bring that back up into areas of south carolina. so once again, the path of the storm is going to be parallel to the coast. we may not expect a landfall of this major hurricane.

we still have the great fears as we go throughout this afternoon and this evening here along the coastal areas. again, just because it hasn't been historic and catastrophic effects that we thought were possible for west palm beach, ft. pierce, melbourne, doesn't mean those to the north won't have it. >> extreme wind issue for cape canaveral florida. let's go back to kerry sanders. the man on the move is in satellite beach, florida. kerry, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. we're sitting in the car here on a1a on satellite beach. there's a police officer coming here so he's checking up on us while we're here. go ahead and switch back inside and roll down the window and tell him what we're doing here. good morning. we're from nbc news. we got permission from the police chief to be out here this morning.

>> making sure you're okay. >> we're in good shape. that's what officers are doing is making sure people will not put themselves in jeopardy. we'll move up the road here a little bit. as we come up here, as we look out the front here once again, there's not too much debris. we've had a pretty amazing light show here this morning. the lightning inside the storm at times will fill the sky here. we may get it again while we're driving along here. it turns this just beautiful aqua marine color. unusual sound of thunder. not the thunder that we're all used to. it's like somebody is rubbing a very large piece of wood on concrete. a very strange sound. this is pelican park here. we'll go in. as we come around, we're looking out the front here. i have a feeling with the lights of the car you might get a better chance or better understanding to see the strength of the wind here on the palm trees that are blowing

there. i think we have an opportunity here because the winds while they're strong are not as strong as we sort of expected at this hour here this morning to maybe position ourselves over here. i haven't gotten out of the car at this location yet. i think what we're going to do is get up here because there's a walkway. biggest surprise -- we heard bill talking about it -- is about the storm surge which was expected. the storm surge hasn't happened at least in this area because right on the other side of the sea grates, that's where the ocean is. we're going to switch cameras. give us a moment. it will take a second to get everything organized.

okay. so again, the hurricane is that way. it's north of us right now. it's a big hurricane and of course the tropical storm winds are behind us. if you walk up here, i want to just see -- we don't have a whole lot of light here. >> it's not working. >> all right. we're having a little bit of trouble with your mike. we can hear the sounds of the ocean though. no question about that. water churning out there. we'll get back to kerry in just a few minutes. >> he's trying to put a light on things for us. meantime, hurricane matthew is heading up the east coast now but before that it caused significant damage and massive flooding in the caribbean. in the bahamas, some american tourists are stranded on what

was supposed to be a dream vacation. not so much now. nbc's tammy leitner has these details. >> reporter: hurricane matthew slamming into the bahamas gaining strength from a category 3 to a catastrophic category 4. winds at 140 miles an hour shearing roofs off houses. an enclosed balcony offering little protection. look at this wind. these are more than 100 miles an hour. there is an enormous tree that has come down on six, seven cars over there. boats lifted straight out of the water. the driving rain flooding streets. officials shutting off power across the island to protect the grid. all flights canceled. vacationers forced to ride out the storm in their hotels. >> you know, it's been a really bad storm.

>> reporter: at the resort on paradise island, guests took refuge in a conference room sleeping on mats. this california couple here on their honeymoon. >> we'll make do. >> still ahead this morning -- >> before nightfall, highways leading inland from the beaches were jammed. 1 million people were asked to evacuate. along florida's heavily populated gold coast. but not everyone left. >> there's a lot of people staying which is hazardous. i don't think anybody should stay in this low lying area. >> authorities warn residents to expect up to eight inches of rain, seas up to ten feet above normal and the possibility of tornadoes as well. >> those were the preparations from 24 years ago as florida prepared to weather hurricane andrew. with that storm came political ramifications. we'll talk about the history of that when we continue our coverage of hurricane matthew here on msnbc.ty

oesn't come in . it's not a banner that goes on a wall. it's not somethg you do n and then. 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 right. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. ♪jake ree, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪ke reese, "day toeel alive"♪

[rock music playing] [music stops] [whistle] [rock music playing] [record scratch] announcer: don't let e. coli mosh with your food. an estimated 3,000 americans die from a foodborne illness each year. you can't see these mrobes, but they might be there. so, alys separate raw meat from vegetables. keep your family safe at foodsafety.gov. now that i work there, i value dothe food even more. i feed it to yoshi because there are no artificial colors, preservatives and it's made with real chicken. i'm so proud to make dog chow natural in davenport, iowa.

sprint? i'm hearing good things about the network. althe networks are great now. we're taing within a 1% difference in reliability of each other. and, sprint saves u 50% on most current national carrier rates. save money on your phone bill, invest it in your small business. wouldn't you love more customers? i wod definitely love some new customers. sprint will help you add customers and cut your costs. switch your business to sprint and save 50% on most current verizon, at&t and t-mobile rates. don't let a 1% difference cost you twice as much.

>> i'm on the orange county line. we're on the st. john's river. flood stage here is 2.8 feet. it's already near 2.5 and it's expected to reach a record high of 4.6 feet today, which means that some communities along the st. john's river could experience some flooding. that's something that officials are watching and very concerned

about. here not too long ago, this was lit up. we watched as power went out and rain is picking up. wind is definitely picking up. a couple minutes ago i had to brace myself against one of these trees just to stand. where i am right now it's fluctuating in intensity but obviously for people who live around here, now is not a good time to be outdoors as the rain picks up and the wind picks up and for the rest of the night into the early morning this is only expected to get much worse. back to you. >> that was from along the st. john's river. dramatic pictures to show you from nasa. hurricane matthew from the international space station. the space station sent back these pictures of its flyover late yesterday. >> you know, hurricane matthew bringing damaging winds and rain and irony.

a $1.2 billion spacecraft tauted as a complete game changer in america's weather satellite coverage but it's currently parked in titusville, florida. we saw gadi schwartz reporting from there earlier. clearly matthew is dumping inches of rain in titusville. this week teams were building tents over that satellite trying to give it extra protection against the storm. a spokesperson for noaa say it's held in a building that can sustain a category 4 hurricane. >> hurricane matthew is the latest in a long line of storms that had an affect on u.s. presidency. in 1992, hurricane andrew slammed into the florida coast causing nearly $27 billion in damage. soon after, president h.w. bush toured the impacted region but was criticized by some for reacting too slowly with aid and

bill clinton surveyed the scene and said the federal government's delayed reaction should be looked into. despite the criticism, "the new york times" cbs news poll showed 61% of florida voters approved of bush's handling of that disaster. 13 years later, bush's son, president george w. bush, would not be judged as kindly for his handling of a similar natural disaster. in august 2005, hurricane katrina ravaged the gulf coast and the bush administration's response was widely criticized throughout the country. 54% of the americans disapproved of bush's handling of the crisis and his approval rating dropped to a new low of 42%. bush would later call his infamous flyover of new orleans days after the crisis a huge mistake. years later another hurricane would impact u.s. politics. days before the 2012 presidential election, hurricane sandy made landfall in the northeast causing unprecedented

damage in the region. many supporters of republican nominee mitt romney were irked when new jersey governor chris christie warmly greeted president barack obama upon his arrival to survey the damage. christie was asked about the encounter as recently of february of this year responding in part, i didn't hug him. >> that story was always silly to me. the idea that the governor of new jersey wouldn't expect federal help from the president of the united states and shake his hand and stand with him as his state was under water. >> it was absurd. there are lives at stake and for christie to solely operate out of political scheming was never going to make sense. but to dismiss the politics of it doesn't make sense either. i remember talking to stu stevens, mitt romney's chief strategist for 2012, and he said to me that he thought that the response that obama had to hurricane sandy paused all of the momentum that mitt romney had going into closing weeks of the election and effectively

guaranteed -- he's not saying that it never happened mitt romney would have won but the optics of the president being there acting presidential and there's nothing mitt romney would actually do. if you recall, he tried to have a charity drive. he tried to get money donated to the victims but it seemed mundane and trivial next to president obama. these things do end up mattering. >> after severe flooding in the deep south this summer, president obama was criticizeded for remaining on vacation in martha's vineyard while louisiana residents were under water. donald trump and mike pence made a trip to baton rouge to survey the damage. seven weeks later now, hillary clinton still has not visited that area. >> we continue to track hurricane matthew. some 300,000 customers are without power so far. the big issues for the southeastern u.s. right now, the storm surge as well as heavy

wind and rain. our coverage of hurricane matthew continues in just a moment right here on msnbc. ♪ using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the framework... wire... and plants needed to give my shop... a face... no one will forget. see what the power of points can do for your business. learn more at chase.com/ink

see what the power of points can do for your business. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine.

all seems beautiful to me. of the track team, and if i'm late... she doesn't really think she's going to get out of here, does she? be nice. she's new. hello! is anyone there? rrr! wow. even from our standards, you look awful. oh, sweetie, what happened? girl: me? my friend becky got to talk to this super-cute boy, and i tried to act like i wasn't jealous, but i so totally was, and then, out of nowhere, this concrete barrier just popped up. maybe itas a semi. u mean you were driving? yeah. i mean, i know the whole "eyes on the road" thing. but this was a super important text. maybe you have to know becky. texting? great. but it was only, like, 5 seconds, and i'm a really, really fast texter, so it wasn't even a big deal. actually, has she texted me back yet? [squishing sound] wow, i get, like, no bars in this place.

i wonder if they have wi-fi here. daylight is expected to bring a scene of heavy damage this morning as hurricane matthew begins to batter parts of the southern atlantic coast. the storm has weakened to a category 3 overnight but at its peak packed winds topping 130-mile-per-hour as it approached florida, georgia and the carolinas.

it is the most powerful storm to threaten the region in more than a decade after killing well over 100 people by some counts at least 300 across the caribbean. the combination of whipping winds, torrential rain and a vicious storm surge had governors, law enforcement, and our friends at the weather channel yesterday warning of the worst. >> if you need to evacuate and you haven't, you need to. this storm will kill you. >> storm surges will go further inland than people realize. >> this is like none of those. >> i'm not saying this to be theatrica theatrical. i talked to my detective captain earlier today. i asked him do you have body bags because if people do not leave and we get 140-mile-an-hour wind gusts in some of our mobile home places, we're going to have fatalities. >> we're concerned about reports of people deciding to stay in areas under mandatory evacuation orders.

i cannot overstate the danger of the storm. >> thousands of people took that advice and made for safer ground but others decided to stay to ride out the storm and hope matthew weakens as it comes ashore. good morning, everyone. it's friday, october 7th. welcome to msnbc's continuing coverage of hurricane matthew. i'm mika brzezinski alongside willie geist, alex witt and sam stein helping us with the political impact the storm is having on the presidential race. first, the very latest on the storm's path. a new peak wind gust and strongest hurricane to hit the u.s. coast in a decade. matthew has been downgraded to a category 3 but those dangerous 120-mile-per-hour winds are starting to be felt onshore. a 107-mile-per-hour gust reported at in northethe area.

the storm is pushing toward jacksonville. after speaking individually with governors from along the southern atlantic coast, president obama signed emergency declarations in florida, georgia and south carolina. the president also spoke with governor pat mccrory in north carolina who activated federal and local responders with a state of emergency in all 100 counties. the national hurricane center says that would be hurricane moving parallel to the coastline is difficult to specify where exactly the worst impacts will be felt. they say only a small deviation of the tracked forecast could bring the core of the hurricane onshore and that strong winds will occur well inland. >> bill karins has been following this storm minute by minute over the last couple of days. we were talking earlier that big population centers. miami, ft. lauderdale dodged a bullet. >> vero beach areas. those people are celebrating this morning. when they left their houses,

they weren't sure what they would come back to. it's now pretty much assured those areas -- they may not have power for a couple days but your homes will be intact and you can live in them once again. cat 4 along the coast was a possibility. we'll show you what we've been dealing with and what changed and what didn't overnight. the storm itself has gone from category 4 to category 3. only about 35 miles off the coastline of the space coast. it's paralleled the coastline overnight. it took a tiny jog. ten miles. that took it more offshore and spared the eye wall from being right on the coastlines from west palm beach northwards overnight. that's fantastic. moving northwest at 14 miles an hour. moving at a decent clip. it's going to be deteriorating. here's a look at the current radar. here's the space coast. that's the center of the eye. if you notice, this is the northern eye wall and this the western eye wall. this is where we got that

100-mile-per-hour gust because they went through the western eye wall. it will be a very close call if this eye is onshore. if it remains offshore, that's fantastic news for flagger. you will not get the wind destruction. looks too late for the storm surge. that's already building and going to come onshore later tonight. that's why this could still be an historic catastrophic storm as we go up the coast. here's the latest forecast path. 5:00 a.m. update. next update at 11:00 a.m. everyone in georgia and north carolina and south carolina staring at the center line. yesterday the center line was on the shore. that's why we were thinking worst case scenario. cat 4 on the coast. now it's a cat 3 off the coast by 30 miles. that's why we had significant improvement and a lot less damage than expected from the space coast southward which is great for you. we're not going to get as much wind damage as we once feared. let's talk about what could possibly still go wrong and make

this storm historic. here's radar here. here's the wind. this is the wind field. this shows you where we're dealing with hurricane force winds. that may or may not move up the coast. very close throughout the day. what we do know and what does appear more certain is the storm surge. the water is building. it was cat 4. huge storm. pushing the water toward the coast. you see where it dends here. at water gets trapped. it can't easily escape as that eye approaches. that's why we have a chance for historic storm surge. the water should start going up in daytona beach and rapidly go up this morning. this area of red here, that's still 10 feet of storm surge possible northeast florida, georgia and south carolina. some people are, like, maybe they shouldn't have evacuated. this is life threatening. if people stayed and they're still in their beach areas on the coastal locations, they could die easily in storm surge of this magnitude expected today. >> storm surge and flooding may be the story of the weekend. bill karins, thank you. we'll get back to you in a second.

let's go to orlando where we find our msnbc correspondent. obviously theme parks. lots of people from around the world gathered in orlando waiting it out in their hotels now. >> reporter: that's right, willie. hundreds hundreds of thousands of people hunkered in hotel rooms. they are having to wait for this category 3 storm to pass. all three theme parks issuing refunds and cancellations for these folks. walt disney world, seaworld and universal studios closed today. >> thanks so much. we can see even the weather has picked up there since we saw you last. let's move over to daytona beach, florida, where we find ron mott in heavy wind and rain.

>> reporter: good morning. we are in the midst of one of these outer bands. we still haven't seen the worst from hurricane matthew. that's still to come. we're getting beaten up here pretty good at this point by this wind and some rain as well. now last night about 11:00 with that last update overnight, we got a little bit of good news we thought in that the forecast tack for the eye was to take it further to the east. looking at the radar since it's still jogging our way too close for comfort. we'll have to wait and see if it will take an even harder turn to the right. what that will do for this community in daytona beach is keep winds down, but we still could see sustained 100-mile-an-hour winds here for several hours. that's the scary part about this storm. and then perhaps even scarier than that because the surge is always what tends to kill people in these hurricanes. we've got high tide coming at 12:45 eastern time. that's right around the time we expect the eye of hurricane

matthew to be near the shoreline at daytona beach. the x factor is how far out over the water it's going to be. hopefully it's 50, 60 miles or more than that. that will give us protection from the strongest winds but it looks right now like it may be coming closer. so all of the homes and businesses along the coastline here in daytona beach may expect to get water in their businesses between 12:00 and 1:00 this afternoon and folks who will have homes along intercoastal waterway that runs the length of florida, those folks are probably going to see a quick surge in the water coming up out of that waterway and it happens very, very quickly. so that's a big concern over the next five or six hours for this community and officials have been warning people when this eye passes don't think the storm is over because the back half of it is going to be just as robust as the leading edge and we could see these hurricane force winds, tropical storm force winds

extending into the evening, 6:00, 7:00 tonight or later than that. >> those are some of the stiffest winds we've seen all morning. ron in daytona beach, thank you. let's move south to lester holt. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. we are -- we hopefully have seen the worst of it so far. the eye passed farther to the east than anticipated so melbourne not getting the punch so far that we anticipated. no one will be complaining. that said, there has been a fair amount of damage. we see a lot of trees down. just about two hours ago i got in the vehicle and did a survey around the area to see what i could see. we to turn back rather quickly because lots of sparks as power lines were snapping. obviously a tremendous danger. on the way back we did see trees blocking roads. a crew of colleagues just returned from the beach. they say there's no significant

damage at the beach here, which is obviously good news. that area had been evacuated because obviously the most vulnerable. the eye passing as far away as it did may have spared it. we're not through this yet as we wait for the backside to storm through here. pardon the pun in the next few minutes. we can also tell you that i went down to a river that's about walking distance from here. we anticipated the storm surge would have flooded that area by now but no signs of the storm surge. we don't know if we're pass that danger. we can tell you right now we've seen no signs of flooding in melbourne at least the area that i have seen. power has been sporadic. we spent the night in a business here on this main street in melbourne. had lights for most of the night. about 5:00 they began going on and off. we're out right now. they've got them down the street. as i said, we've seen lots of sparks on the horizon as some of

the power lines have snapped putting up quite a spectacular and dangerous display. that's the story from melbourne. we'll send it back to you now in new york. >> lester, thank you very much. don't be fooled by the calm conditions that you see there. back end of the storm is coming through. let's stay in melbourne and go up the street from where lester was where we find nbc's craig melvin. craig, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. this is part of the story here. this debris that you see in the street, this is a tree branch. a number of limbs on this main thoroughfare in melbourne. we drove around a short time ago. one of our producers said he saw trees down as well but none of the major flooding that they are expecting here has started just yet. last night we spent time in downtown melbourne on main street actually a few folks who decided to ride out the storm in this restaurant. they decided not to heed the governor's warnings due in part because of the steel structure

they were in. here, i don't know if you can see behind me, guys, maybe we can show, the major story right now, the power outages. you can see behind us a number of the buildings are dark. stop lights dark. roughly 100,000 homes are without power. they are expecting that to get worse. in fact, if you take a look at this clock, power out where we set up home base, went off shortly before 4:00. it has not come back on yet. we're running off generator. we can tell you that the eye of the storm that you were just talking about has actually passed us. it is not as bad right now as a lot of folks were expecting it would be. again, the storm surge something that we're keeping an eye on over the next few hours. here in melbourne by in large right now, right now, it seems as if things are better than they were expecting. >> we'll check in with a bunch of reporters.

we have them all over the place. let's see if gabe gutierrez in jacksonville is up and running. take it away. >> reporter: good morning. we are in between rain bands right now starting to see a light rain and the wind picking up just a bit. earlier we've been seeing wind gusts of 20, 25 miles an hour but we expect it to really pick up in the early afternoon. that's when we expect to see wind gusts here about 80 miles an hour or so in the afternoon. as you've been hearing and as we've been reporting, major concern here in the jacksonville area will be this potentially historic storm surge. double digit storm surge. that's why the mayor ordered the evacuation of 450,000 people. water and sewer services a bit of the evacuation zone. that was shut off late last night here in the jacksonville area. this is an area part of florida that hasn't seen a hurricane like this impact them since 1898. so behind me you can see the power still on in jacksonville. things doing okay so far. throughout the day, this is one

of those areas that's really expecting a hard hit from hurricane matthew even if it does stay offshore, even if it tracks further to the east, the storm surge could be devastating in this area. back to you. >> one thing we want to keep a close eye on with hurricane matthew is the storm surge for these coastal cities. msnbc's calip perry is running that story. >> emergency management officials in both florida, south carolina and georgia are telling people if you still have power, charge your cell phones. do it now. you may lose power later in the day and the storm surge information is going to come through cell phone push notifications. if you have power, if you're watching this program, make sure everything is charged up. here's model for storm surge. what we're looking at is this area where we heard that live report from right here in jacksonville. this is what it looks like after a category 1, after category 2, three and this what we were talking about. storm surge of ten feet or higher. this is why the governor of south carolina, nikki haley, wanted everyone back from the

shoreline 100 miles. storm surge kills more people in hurricanes than anything else. this is why we're asking people to monitor those live websites, monitor the emergency management. keep an eye on your cell phone. that's where you will receive that first warning that water is rising. >> thank you very much. we continue to follow hurricane matthew as it rolls up the florida coast. chuck todd knows the area well and joins us next with the storm's potential impact on the presidential race. we'll be right back right here on msnbc. ♪

amazing sleep stays with you all day and all night. with sleep number, you choose the exact firmnessnd comfort you want and so does your partner - for the best sleep ever. don't miss the columbus day sale going on now! save $400 the queenc4 mat, with 24 montnancing d free home delivery. learn more at sleepnumber.com

>> we just got word the outer eye wall of hurricane matthew is starting to approach the india a river situated right next to titusville where we are right now. you are seeing sheeting here. the squalls just pushing in all of this rain. this rain is falling at a very alarming rate. a dangerous rate in fact. we're told that it could be falling 5 to possibly 8 inches. this is a radar right here.

you see that's the eye wall right there. this is where we are. we're that blue dot. we're actually making our way south right now. so as we drive a little bit further south, it starts to pick up. we get these pockets like this one that you're seeing right there where it almost becomes white out conditions and then it will lessen up. in the next maybe 20, 30, 40 minutes, we're going to start seeing consistent wind gusts sustained hurricane strength wind gusts as well as rain that is just falling at these incredible rates and possibly some flooding. so we're going to head further south and we'll check in in just a little bit. >> that was nbc's gadi schwartz reporting overnight from titusville, florida. let's bring in bill karins with the latest on the track right now. >> the path is further off the coast overnight. avoided destruction that was possible and catastrophe from areas in the space coast southward. that's great news. we still are going to have a very close call here to the

landfalling hurricane for georgia coastline and south carolina coastline winds will be dying with the storm a little bit. i say dying. 120 to 115. near areas of the georgia coast, 105. closer to the coast that would do significant damage. whipped portion of this forecast i lowered from yesterday. we're talking historic. i lowered it down to major now more into moderate wind damage category and maybe even tempted to bring it down to minor. that's been the big headline. great news is water is piled up heading toward the coast. this is the storm surge simulation map. you notice this orange coloring in here. this has happened. where the water is piling up currently where the storm surge is the greatest concern from now until about noon today is going to be as we go through this area from titusville northward, daytona beach up to palm coast is where water is piling up currently and where it will be the biggest concern out there. the other concern is going to be rainfall.

it's going to build up and continue to get worse as we go throughout the morning and go throughout the day today. as far as the current conditions go, it's at 120 miles per hour. it will weaken slightly. the eye disappeared there. that's great news. it shows us on satellite that it's not getting anymore organized at the last second. that's good. and movement to the northwest at 14. key today is this. the north-northwest up there in jacksonville area, also around the georgia area, you need that westward motion to stop. you want it to go more to the north and then possibly to the northeast later on today. there's some good but we still have a chance of this being a catastrophic event. >> all right. thanks very much. you heard bill mention daytona beach in the middle of the storm surge there. let's go down there to nbc's jay gray. jay, how's it looking? >> reporter: conditions intense now and building. i'll step out of the way and give you a realtime look. the wind gusting extreme at times and the rain coming down sideways. looks like a bit of a break now

but hard to tell because of this wind. and then that surge that we talked about, the surge here has been building. you can see off in the distance here. this is low tide. we're seeing it up over the beachfront here. it's climbing up into areas it's not supposed to be. it's only going to get worse as we move through the day here. the eye wall still to the southeast and this is a slow mover. so we're going to see these conditions continue to intensify over the next three, maybe four hours. it's going to be a rough morning here and a very tough go for the next several days for many dealing with what the storm leaves behind. the power is out here and for hundreds of thousands across the state right now. we know there is standing water in low lying areas. that's only going to continue to increase and so what we're seeing right now is the effects of matthew and we're going to get the full force here over the next couple of hours. >> all right. jay, thanks very much. let's head 80 miles south to

cocoa beach, florida. miguel almaguer is standing by there. how does it look? >> reporter: good morning. the winds have been incredibly violent here today. we're actually in a bit of a lull right now. the wind speed has been easily upwards of 70 miles an hour here. we've seen power outages here throughout the day. we just lost electricity at the service station we're at. we've seen bolts of lightning and transmission lines explode overnight. we're driving up i-95 overnight and saw literally nobody else on the road, just our news team traveling down the area. the wind speeds have been really, really strong along the freeway. we got to several gas stations where people were hunkering down. many people trying to stay out of the path of this storm and while we haven't seen an incredible amount of damage, what we have certainly felt is that wind speed. we've seen debris flying through the area. we've seen snapped power lines. clearly this storm is having some impact although we haven't

seen catastrophic yet, willie. >> all right. nbc's miguel almaguer in cocoa beach just south of cape canaveral there. thanks. >> the impact of hurricane matthew remains to be seen, the politics of the disaster are already playing out on the campaign trail. as of now, sunday's debate will go on as scheduled. yesterday republicans were quick to pounce on hillary clinton after the democratic nominee bought $63,000 worth of ads on the weather channel in florida markets. the clinton camp later said the ads would be delayed until the storm passed. the storm may also impact voter registration in florida. tuesday is the last day for new voters in florida to sign up ahead of the election. governor rick so the said last night he will not extend it past the deadline. scott serves as national chairman of a pro trump super pac. robby mook told andrea mitchell he hoped it would be extended. south carolina officials

extended their voter registration deadline from this saturday to next tuesday. let's bring in nbc news political director, moderator of "meet the press," chuck todd. we have sam stein here as well. chuck, rick scott's move there not to delay political or just at this point not sure? >> look, it's not clear that he has full legal authority to have done it if he wanted to do it on his own. that's one thing that's worth a note. one election expert i was reading about this morning indicated you could easily perhaps some outside group if he decided to do it unilaterally, they could have sued because if it's not done by the legislature it may not be able to be legally done. if the governor had wanted to do it, he would have said it. i get the idea that there's always going to be an assumption of politics being played there but for what it's worth, there's

legal question whether in florida the governor could have legally done it. >> chuck is absolutely right of course. rick scott did make the case that it shouldn't be extetenext. he may have had his hands tied. chuck, a question for you. it's not just the registration deadline that people are nervous about. it's the mailing out of absentee ballots. can you talk about how that process might be affected by the storm? >> that's the concern there. the ballots were mailed out. first of all, you just -- will they get to where they belong? and if they get it, is there going to be delayed mail service? that's where i think there's some legitimate concerns and that's a sense where plenty of government entities need to figure out a plan b on that. you wouldn't want to say you could easily see a voter if they requested a mail ballot and never got it and they decide to go do it in person or decide to vote but records say you have a mail ballot and don't get a shot

at voting because one record says you have a ballot and fear of double voting. that's where you could run into some concerns on that front because of the folks that requested to have ballots mailed to them. >> we have never seen an election in florida result in a flurry of lawsuits before. >> that's never happened. >> florida really everything goes smoothly in their election system. never any problems. >> chuck, we have a big storm map beneath you. we're looking at live pictures of daytona beach and we'll keep an eye on those. at the same time, a huge moment coming up on sunday in decision of who will be next president of the united states. what are the campaigns feeling right now? what do they feel like will change the dynamic of the race especially if your donald trump? >> any normalized debate is going to at least stop clinton's momentum a little bit. i think -- listen to subtle

signals from congressional republicans yesterday. if donald trump doesn't have a good night on sunday and it's similar to the first debate, then you may start seeing the down ballot exodus in some form. is it just candidates pro actively running away, whatever it is. you now have the sense that trump -- we've been here before with him -- but one of these do or die moments with the republican party, with the mcconnell where if it's a debate performance like the first night, it may be unrecoverable and you may see the party publicly split. >> wow. all right. we'll be watching for that. chuck todd, thank you very much. coming up, nearly 2,000 flights canceled. more than 2,700 delayed. tom costello joins us with the storm's impact on air travel. plus, bill karins with the latest on the storm's next move. we're back in just a moment.

gary, gary, gary. i am proud of you, my man. making simple, smart cash back choices... with quicklver from i am proudcapital one.man. you're earning unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. like on that new laptop. quicksilver keeps things simple, gary. and smart, like you! and i like that. i guess i amretty smart. don't let that go to your head, gary. what's in your wallet?

[baby talk] [child giggling] child: look, ma. no hands. children: "i", "j", "k"... [bicycle bell rings] [indistinct chater] [telephone rings]

man: hello? [boing] [laughter] man: you may kiss the bride. [applause] woman: ahh. [indistinct conversation] announcer: a full life measured seats starts with the right ones early on. car crashes are a leading killer of children 1 to 13. learn how to prevent deaths and injuries by using the right car seat for your child's age and size.

welcome back. 31 past the hour. hurricane matthew is impacting flights across this country big-time. joining us from hartsfield, tom costello. we're talking thousands of flights affected, right?

>> atlanta hartsfield is the busiest airport and busiest in the united states. the major hub here in the southeast. we're seeing systemwide now about 1,800 flights cancellations. most of those into or out of florida. interestingly when you look at the live flight tracker map to show flight activity over the united states, there is nothing happening over florida right now. while some airports are closed in florida, those include jacksonville as well boca raton, melbourne, ft. lauderdale. not jacksonville. orlando. melbourne and ft. lauderdale. those are closed. others technically may be open but the truth is there's very little happening there because nobody has their flights, their planes sitting on the ramp in florida right now. at least not on the eastern shore of florida because of this hurricane. the western side, that's a birch sto

-- different story. into or out of florida could be a difficult challenge to get in there. a hundred delays. that's not many. if your flight is canceled, it's not delayed. 1,800 cancellations. almost everything in and out of florida. 100 delays. what's the residual effect on the rest of the country? atlanta experiencing really not any delays whatsoever unless you are trying to fly into florida. those flights canceled. otherwise no delays here. as you of up the coast, the effect we see is on major airports that have airports into florida where you see some effect today with flights canceled. isolated to florida. because the airlines managed to get most of the planes out of the storm's path, they're in a position to resume normal operations in the rest of the country. so today if you're flying, denver to chicago, you should be fine. it's possible your plane might have originated or was supposed to originate in miami but because it's out of the storm's path it should be okay today. this is at the moment isolated to florida. back to you. >> we should make a note that ft. lauderdale airport is expected to reopen at 11:00 a.m.

thank you tom costcostello. >> a small shift with huge implications. parts of south florida may have been spared the worst but danger looms further north. the latest path of hurricane matthew as our coverage of the major storm continues right here on snbs.

i just saved thousands on my loan at lendingtree.com. in less than a minute, i found out how much home i can afford. i like how you shop for loans the same way you shop for flights online. i didn't realize that lendingtree you can save money

on almost any sort of loan. i consolidated my credit card debt wh a personal loan. i found a new credit card with 0% interest for 15 months. you just shop, compare, and save, and it's all free. go to lendingtree right now and start saving. [dance music playing] [music stops] woman: looks like it's done. [whistle] [dance music playing] [record scratch] announcer: don't let salmonella get funky with yo chicken. on average, one in 6 americans will get a foodborne illness this year. you can't see these microbes, but they might be there. so, learn the right temperature to cook each type of meat. keep your family safe at foodsafety.gov.

. we are following the breaking news of hurricane matthew all morning long as the category 3 storm moves toward low lying areas in jacksonville, florida. governor rick scott says there's time to evacuate but do not wait. sustained 120-mile-per-hour winds offshore and gusts reaching 170 miles per hour recorded in northeastern brevard county. president obama has signed emergency declarations in florida, georgia and south carolina. the president also spoke with

governor pat mccrory in north carolina who declared a state of emergency in all counties in his state. most of the action so far has taken place in florida. the first wind gusts to reach hurricane strength were recorded around 3:00 a.m. this morning. florida governor rick scott urged the 1.5 million residents in the storm's path to evacuate, evacuate, evacuate and many heeded the call. the latest count of power outages stand at 431,000 right now affecting customers almost entirely in florida. just moments ago governor scott pleaded with residents to get out of the storm's path while they still have time. >> we're going to have up to 12 feet of storm surge and we'll have waves on top of that. jacksonville area has a low lying area. if you have a chance to evacuate, you need to get out now. if your house is prone to flooding, if you're in an evacuation zone, you have to get

out. save your life. >> we have -- that reportable, alex? >> we're looking at live video right here of a transformer blowing up in cocoa beach, florida. incredible. let's go back to bill karins now. how's it look? >> we've seen the shift yesterday. now concerns are really from the space coast northward. this is such a close call from 100-mile-per-hour damaging winds over the top of the daytona beach or maybe it's going to be a couple miles offshore. let's get into tracking portion of this. this is story today. this is the eye of storm. it's offshore. mostly remain offshore. the eye doesn't matter. if you go through the eye wall that matters here. this is on cape canaveral. we had 102-mile-per-hour wind gusts. that missed melbourne southward. we had power outages and downed trees but this area of greatest concern. we're getting in close enough to track this and get closer in. this is our live radar. you can see this is the eye

right here and this is the daytona beach area. these bands are now moving in. this is where ron mott is located. ron, do we have you? >> reporter: we do. good morning. we are getting hit by this rebound effect from this wind. pretty strong wind as you know coming from the northeast -- north and northeast. hitting the building. the hotel where we're staying and broadcasting and coming right back at us. it's a phenomenon. you have palm trees here that are heading out to sea and then you have palm trees back there heading away from the sea. what we've been talking about critical hour we think for the daytona beach area will be from noon to 1:00 eastern time because that's the hour for the next high tide. 12:45 to be more specific. and the storm surge prediction of anywhere from 7 to 11 feet could be catastrophic. for folks familiar with daytona beach, it's a flat beach and little in the way of dunes that are built up to keep water from property here.

path of least resistance. it will go around these buildings and these seawalls and head into these access roads that lead back up to atlantic avenue which is the main north-south drive along the coast here in daytona beach and run as far as it will go. the real worry of all of the water inlets leading into the intercoastal waterway. that water is going to head toward the intercoastal waterway and will come up very, very quickly depending on how close that eye is to do daytona beach and how strong the winds are blowing at that hour. that's one hour we're really concerned about here in this area. looking at some of the radar loops here over the last hour or two, i'm a little concerned that this eye is coming closer to daytona beach than we were led to believe with that -- >> ron, i can confirm that. i can confirm that. i want to leave your shot up and briefly take radar here. you're here in daytona beach. you are only 28 miles to 29 miles away from the actual eye

that could produce 100-mile-per-hour winds. now, you're also getting closer to this outer band. this will arrive in the next hour. only 12 miles away is the first hurricane force gust that you will see. 70 to 80 miles per hour. this will be strongest winds we've seen in populated areas in the united states since the storm started for us. you're very close to that. you're close to getting storm surge as winds begin to pile up here. very strong out of the east and out of the northeast. are you noticing the water levels coming up at all yet? >> in fact, we are. it's come up a good 15 feet just in the last five minutes. it's swirling. so you can see out in the distance there lots of white caps out there and the water is coming close to the seawall here right behind the swimming pool and then swirling back toward the south so we do expect to see more of this water start to rise here over the next four or five hours again with that high tide

it's going to be pretty scary here i would think in the daytona beach area. we can tell you something about the construction. obviously there was a lot of rebuild after hurricane andrew in miami in 1992. so there have been some improvements in the construction of homes and buildings here but there a lot of older, '50s, '60s, '70s style ranch homes that are wood frame houses and i'm concerned how they'll fare over the next four or five hours specifically their roof systems. once the gusts hit us, potential 100-mile-an-hour sustained winds and gusts even higher perhaps, we might start seeing some real severe property damage when that happens. let's send it back up to you guys. >> thank you so much. you can notice when we went to him initially, he was in this band in here. that yellow. that cleared out. he's going through green. when this band comes through where ron is, this band will be very severe.

this area of yellow right in here. again, the eye of the storm, guys, this is now only -- this is such a close call. we could have been talking about catastrophic damage occurring in titusville this morning and up here toward areas like oak hill. still a close call for these areas. oak hill only 15 miles away from that outer eye wall with 100-mile-per-hour winds. the people from the space coast southward breathing a sigh of relief. houses were not destroyed. still questions on how close this eye is going to be. outer eye wall to the oak hill area daytona beach, this area will see more damage than what we saw last night. >> all right, bill. thanks. keep tabs on that. we'll get to you in just a second. let's check in with gabe gutierrez in jacksonville, florida. the mayor of jacksonville said a few moments ago "it's time for people to hunker down. it's coming." >> reporter: yeah. that's right. the local officials are saying don't travel at this point. wherever you are, just stay put. make sure you charge your

electronic devices and brace for these power outages that they expect in just a short time. local officials, emergency management officials are set to hold a briefing within the next hour or so. what i can tell you, the current conditions, we've seen intermittent rain over the last few hours as we get outer rain bands of hurricane matthew. right now in between one of them. we'll see the wind pick up every few minutes or so. i think i'm feeling a bit of a wind pickup right now. behind me is the st. john's river. the key thing here, bill karins has been saying it over and over again, potential for really deadly storm surge. it could get into double digits. they expect potentially 11 feet of storm surge here. the mayor has ordered the evacuation of 450,000 people and this area hasn't seen a storm like this since 1898. a lot of concern here. we have spoken with some families that have refused to leave and refused to heed the warning. at this point authorities are

saying if you have not traveled, if you just hunker down where you are, you should not be out on the roadways at this point. again, the concern for jacksonville is later on today. you saw ron mott about to get hit near the eye of the storm. we expect the worst of it here in the afternoon as we expect the wind to pick up. the concern not so much here the wind, it's that potentially historic storm surge that the jacksonville area is expecting. >> thank you so much. stay with us. our coverage of hurricane matthew continues after a short break. is digital and industrial. like peanut butter and jelly. yeah. ham and cheese. cops and robbers. yeah. nachos and karate. ahh. not that one so much. the rest were really good. socks and shoes. ok, ricky...

just checking my free credit score at credit karma. what the?? you're welcome. i just helped you dodge a bullet. but i was just checking my... shhh... don't you know that checking your credit score lowers it! just be cool. actually, checking your credit score with credit karma doesn't affect it at all. are you sure? positive. so i guess i can just check my credit score then? oooh "check out credit karma today. credit karma. give yourself some credit." sorry about that.

announcer: they'll test you. trto break your will. but however loud the loudness gets. however many cheese puffs may fly. you're the driver. the one in control. stand firm. just wait. [click] and move only when you hear the click that says they're buckled in for the drive. never give up till they buckle up.

the official death toll from hurricane matthew has reached at least 128 thismorning. 122 of those are in haiti. but by some koupts, it's much higher. and the country's embassy expects that number to rise because some areas are inaccessible right now. aerial video shows the storm left a broad path of devastation. homes and buildings torn apart in many areas still flooded. the damage was also extensive in other your yeah of the caribbean. in the bahamas, flooding, towns treed and damaged rooftops. according to the national hurricane center in miami, nassau was hit with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour yesterday. it was enough to rip the roof off this home. at this appointment, authorities in the bahamas have not reported any immediate deaths. alex. >> we have this extraordinary video. this morning, an up close look

at the inner workings of the storm, all thanks to the brave men and women who fly into the middle of these meteorological monsters. the national oceanic and atmospheric administration has released this, right through the eyewall and into the storm. the wind speed, temperature, and air pressure and other varials are all important to figuring out what's going to happen in a storm like this. >> up next, we go back to florida, and bill karins continues to track the dangerous storm. we're back with more in just a moment right here on msnbc. afoot and ght-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world beforee, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine.

all seems beautil to me. see me. see me. don't stare at me. see me see me. see me to know that psoriasis is just something that i have. i'm not contagious. see me to know that... ...i won't stop until i find what works. discover cosentyx, a different kind of medicine for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. proven to help the majority of people find clear or almost clear skin. 8 out of 10 people saw 75% skin clearance at 3 months. while the majority saw 90% clearance. do not use if you are allergic to cosentyx. before starting, you should be tested for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur... ...tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms... ...such as fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. or if you have received a vaccine or plan to. if you have inflammatory bowel disease, tell your doctor if symptoms develop or worsen.

serious allergic reactions may occur. see me. see me. see me. on my way. find clear skin... ana clearer path forward. for a different ki of medicine, ask yourermatologi about cosentyx. when you think of saving money, what comes to mind? your next getaway? connecting with family and friends? a big night out? or may your everyday shopping. whatever it is, aarp member advantages can help save you time and money along the way. so when you get there, you can enjoy it all the more. for less. surround yourself with savings at aarpadvantages.com you're at the top of your game.. at work or at play, you're unstoppable. nothing can throw you off track. oh hey, she's cute. nice going man. things are going great for you. you've earned a night out. good drinks, good friends.

yeah, we can go ahead and call this a good night. wait, is that your car? uh oh. not smart. yeah, i saw that coming. say goodbye toer. ouch! that will hurt your bank account. you' looking at around ten grand in fines, legal fees, and increased insurance rates. i hope you like eating frozen dinners. alone. let's try this again. smart move. because buzzed driving is drunk driving.

a bit of new said to report as our continuing coverage goes on here of hurricane matthew. county officials in port canaveral say they're getting calls from residents who initially refused to evacuate yesterday, calling now to be rescued. county officials saying they cannot help at this point and it's too late. >> this is what's happened all during the night. i was speaking with the mayor of cocoa beach, florida. they were all hunkered in. all of the first responders had been pulled inside and we said, we can't let them out. police in ft. pierce, same thing. this is not unique to that area. >> that's why the warnings were so strong yesterday, all the way from the governor scott all the way to county officials saying you have to get out today because tomorrow we may not be able to help you. it appears that's the case now. >> let's go back to bill karins following the storm for us. >> right now, all concerns are on the vulucia county line. brevard county line.

that's the space center northwards from the majority of the daytona beach area. the eye is tracking close to the coastline. it's paralleling the coast, and we're watching the outer eyewall. if we're going to get destruction, this remains offshore last night, fantastic, avoided destruction from the winds, but it's right along the coast now and we're kierious to see how close it gets to the daytona beach area. if we keep it offshore, the damage won't be that bad. if it comes onshourd, we get in the moderate to major. that's 100-mile-per-hour winds in the core there. we want to go to satellite beach, florida, where kerry sanders is located. your location, you avoided the eyewall as of now. knl you should be on the back side of the storm. is that what you're seeing it. >> that's exactly what's happening. right now, it's not even howling. there are some strong breezes. you can see the sea grapes and the wind in the street trees h. i think what i really was

surprised about was the storm surge. understand, first, what you're looking at, these are not the sort of waves you get on the beach here. second of all, this is low tide, and low tide is usually much further out. the storm surge didn't happen. i got off the phone with the national hurricane center. a couple things worked in the favor for this area and to the south. as the hurricane moved north, it stays offshore. then you had the offshore winds rart than the winds coming in this way. the offshore winds actually pushed some of the water back as it was coming in. part of the storm surge equation includes the wind blowing it on. so the storm surge didn't happen, which is great news. but that is not something that folks north of here should say, we're going to be okay. first of all, as the national hurricane center points out, there's the crook, the change, the hook in the way that the geography is in the state of florida, so the storm's moving,

and even if it were to just stay north, that little turn in the labd is going to probably lead to a build-up of the storm surge. second of all, the storm looks like, you know better than me, bill, the direction could actually still bring it a little closer to shore, and that would be the problem. in this area, surprisingly, the authorities are out already. they're checking on things. the electricity is still on in most cases. no serious property damage and i think the biggest concern that the authorities are going to have is after a storm like this, we had 1.5 million people along the coast who ignored mandatory evacuations and it's going to look like at least if the storm continues the way it's going that those people are going to have survived without a problem, and it sets a really bad signal to folks that they can ride out a hurricane like this. we evacuated well inland to make sure that we were in a safe zone, and only came out this morning after talking to the authorities. the police were out here patrolling. >> that's kerry sanders. i made the x on the map to show

exact rewhere you're located. you're in a low right now. only 17 miles away is the southern eyewall of 100-mile-per-hour winds. that the shift it made. the forecast yesterday would have had him in this band of 100-mile-per-hour winds. instead, gusts of 30 to 50 miles per hour. that's good news for areas south of melbourne overnight. >> thanks very much. also want to report from governor rick scott. he tweeted out now, i-10 is clear. i-10 is the interstate that moved from jacksonville where we're about to see serious weather west toward tallahassee, toward pensacola, and into alabama. governor scott saying i-10 is clear. there is still time to get out if you live in the jacksonville area or surrounding towns, get on i-10 and move west. >> there are some political implications here. sam stein, voter registration issues in florida. we're looking ahead to the big debate on sunday night. >> we'll see if this bleeds into the debate and if the candidates

are asked about the recovery efforts. as for the voter registration. governor scott said he's not going to extend the deadline, which is on tuesday. we can expect some lawsuits if they're disrupted by the hurricane. like i said in the earlier hours, in 2012, there were 86,000 people registered in the last eight days of that election. obama ended up winning the state by 75,000. >> we'll watch that as well. that does it for our coverage of hurricane matthew. craig and stephanie pick up the coverage of hurricane matthew right here on msnbc right now. >> i'm craig melvin live here in melbourne, florida, where we're still feeling the effects of hurricane matthew, a cat-3 storm. you can see the rain continues, the wind continues here as well. so do the power outages. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle in new york city. it is a category 3, but the forecasts are still dire. the storm surge set to be as bad, maybe worse, than

superstorm sandy. and we've got a brand-new update on its path just out. we're going to get to that in a moment, but back to craig in the heart of the storm. >> this is one of the major concerns right now. debris like this, tree limbs, tree branches we have seen. we have seen lots of them littered over the streets of melbourne. i don't know if we can shoot this, this creek back here. we walked down a short time ago. the flooding has not started there yet. however, one of the great concerns right now is that the flooding will soon start. we'll see the storm surge. power outages. businesses up and down this thoroughfare without power. our headquarters also without power. we're using a generator here. 100,000 people in brevard county, 100,000 households, i should say, without power right now. that's a number that continues to climb. the winds, by the way, the winds are far more subdued right now.

two, two and a half hours ago, we saw wind gusts easily north of 100 miles per hour. we are expecting that the wind will pick up again at some point. keep in mind, the brunt of the storm, the brunt of matthew actually skirted the florida coast. so we were not hit directly. the eye of the storm never made landfall here in melbourne. all eyes now, though, moving into the carcarolinas, savannah georgia, you can see the wind again starting to whip up a bit. the rains as well. at one point last night at the hotel, it was coming down in sheets, sideways. some of the most intense rain i have actually probably ever seen. here in melbourne, though, again, the concern, the flooding. the storm surge and the power outages, stephanie. >> thanks. we just got an update on the storm, the forecast. it's still considered a category

3 hurricane with the maximum sustained winds nearly 120 miles an hour. it's just about 45 miles east-southeast of daytona beach. i want to take you to jacksonville, gloflorida. gabe gutierrez is there. the storm is headed your way. give us an update. >> hi, there. good morning. this is the next major population center where matthew is expected to hit. as you have been reporting, it's not so much the wind speed now, now that it shifted a little to the east, offshore, but the potential for historic storm surge. this is the st. john's river behind me. downtown jacksonville right there. we still have power. everything is fine here this morning, but the mayor here has ordered the evacuation of 450,000 people. warning people to get out. you mentioned i-10 was clear, so people can leave at this point, but local authorities have been saying if you haven't left by now, may be best to hunker down and charge your mobile devices. get all the preparations you can

but stay where you can because this is coming in the next few hours. we expect the worst to hit in the afternoon. so far, we have seen winds of about 20 miles per hour so far. it's been intermittent throughout the morning as we're getting the outer rain bands from hurricane matthew to be torrential rains for a new minutes and then it will stop. we have a steady rain now, but we expect this to pick up throughout the afternoon. by the evening hours, it's really going to be whipping here. winds of at least 80 miles per hour here in jacksonville, but then again, the concern for the potentially catastrophic storm surge that they're expecting in this area. people have been sandbagging here, but sandbagging only goes so far when you're talking about the storm surge. we have been repeated over and over again, the biggest loss of life comes from that storm surge up to 11 feet or so are epected here. we're expecting a briefing from local officials in the next half hour or so. we'll monitor that. back to you. >> thanks, gabe. let's take you to melbourne,

florida, where kerry sanders is standing by. what's it like there. >> well, on satellite beach, at the pelican beach, an area that locals here like to come to. trees are blowing, but note the trees have not come down. so that's good news. now, this is sort of the sand dune area here that protects in normal circumstances the community. we're going to go on a walk along this little walkway out over the sand dunes. we're going to take you over to the water here. we take a look at the water. let me explain to you, i spoke to the national hurricane center. they gave me an explanation as to why we didn't see the storm surge. first of all, there water is

really high right now. it's low tide. >> we're having a tough time hearing kerry sanders. we're going to move to cocoa beach, florida, where miguel is standing by. tell us what it's like where you are. >> well, the wind speeds here have been picking up all day long. you might be able to see behind me some of the palm trees swaying here. during ourtrive here from west palm beach overnight, the wind speeds reached 100 miles per hour. the businesses have been hunkered down and are ready. they have been boarded up for quite some time. no major damage that we have seen here, at least to local businesses or homes, but we have seen transformers exploding. out here in the elements, i can show you that the street lights are out at this hour. the only lights that are on are the ones run by our vehicles. they have lost power here overnight. we saw multiple explosions over the last 20 to 30 minutes. tranls formers going up into smoke, sending out sparks, and green glow, so the area here is

still very much in a precarious situation. we expect this weather to continue to whip this region for quite some time, and of course, the big concern on coastal communities is going to be that storm surge. it seems as though here they have absorbed the brunt of the damage without too much destruction. the question will be now, can the coastal surges, how high will they get? back to you. >> thanks. i want to get you the latest on the storm's track from nbc's meteorologist working around the clock, bill karins. >> we just got the 8:00 update, and it's still maintaining its intensity. this is still a strong category 3 with 120-mile-per-hour winds. it's now 35 miles north-northeast of cape canaveral. past the halfway point on the florida coast. here's the forecast path, if you're waking up with us. it has moved offshore. that was the big change that happened late yesterday through the overnight hours. it avoided catastrophe down to west palm breach. great news for you, but still a

close call, especially georgia and south carolina. maybe a category 2, but that could still be devastating. as far as the scale, the biggest chance of this being a historic event is storm surge. we're protecting through jacksonville, the brunswick area, all the beautiful beaches of georgia and southern portions of south carolina, still the possibility here. this chart is 7 to 12 feet. a couple of back bays have the 12-foot totals possible. a lot is in the 7 to 10-foot range. this would make this possibly historic. the other thing that could be a huge problem right into and maybe through the weekend is now we're going to start adding up the rainfall totals. predictions, this pink area. that's 10 inches of rain all coastal areas of georgia, south carolina, and even southern north carolina. isolated areas could get up to a foot to a foot and a half of rain. that alone would cause major problems. i want to get to the point where we can track the eye. this is going to be such a close call today. this is one of the big questions

we have, is this eyewall along the northeast coast? if it's offshore like last night, we avoid all of the major damage. it did brush cape cunauveral. that's why we have a 100-mile-per-hour wind gust. no one lives out there. that's the military territory and it's evacuated. we're not worried about damage out there, but if thad eye could move onshore in areas of luvusha county, that's where we could get issues. here's a closer view of the tracking radar. the bright red is what you want to avoid. when we do the distance tracker to see how close of a call that is, the titusville area is now only about 11 miles from the eye. daytona beach, you're only about 25 miles from the eye itself. so this is a very close call to getting destructive winds onshore. this band in here is where we're losing power. that's tropical storm force sustained winds with probably gusts in the 60 to 70-mile-per-hour range. but the really sig competent damage is in this eye right here and that's what we're trying to avoid as we go throughout the morning. that's the close call. we know we're going to get

historic storm surge starting now through saturday. and we know for a fact that we'll have really major problems with flash flooding and flooding. the question is how much wind damage will we get? it's not looking historic anymore. it's dropped down a category into possibly maybe not even major, maybe minor, if it stays offshore. that's what i'll be watching and tracking all day. >> i want to bring in lester holt, live in melbourne, florida. lester, you have been there on the ground reporting since last night. what has this all been like? >> well, i can tell you, first of all, i want to pick up on what bill just talked about. storm surge. there's a river here about 200 yards beyond us here. that is now beginning to overtop. we hadn't seen signs of a storm surge here a bit earlier, but now we are. that river, which leads out to the ocean, beginning to overtop. who knows how high it will get. there are homes farther back. we don't know if they're flooded. we have been very careful staying in this immediate area. a lot of power lines that have

been popping. we have seen showers of sparks. and transformers exploding. we can't get too far. the winds, as you can see, still very, very strong gusts from time to time, even though we're on the back side of this now. other times, it will be calm. we had light rain bands for the most part here. we have not observed any major damage in melbourne as of right now. at least in the immediate area that we can see. there was a report of a window blown out at a nearby hotel. there have been branches like this broken off and tumbling through the streets. larger trees blocking streets. things you would expect. it doesn't appear to be the hard hit many anticipated. the eye was a bit farther to the east than was anticipated. certainly no one here complaining. we have seen, as you saw a moment ago, some people coming out to look at the damage. for the most part, this area is under evacuation. those who stayed are still in their homes. not quite for the most part

ready to venture out. we still have a few more hours of pretty intense winds before it's really safe to survey the situation. that's it from melbourne right now. we'll send it back to you. >> lester, as you said, some people are out surveying the area. does it seem like most people in melbourne have evacuated? >> you know, it's hard to know. when you ride into town, of course, everything is quiet. there were more people than i expected. we rolled into town about 4:00 yesterday afternoon. there were more people. i anchored nightly news from by the river last night. a few people stopped by. my colleagues and i spent the night in a local business here. the owner stayed there. it's a very solid brick building. we felt safe throughout the night, and no signs of any structural damage. we were fine. some people had decided to ride it out. now, it's a bit different story if you go about a mile or so over to beyond the river there into the actual beachfront area.

we believe most people got out of there. some of my colleagues took a drive over there a little while ago, said there doesn't appear to be damage over there, thankfully, but again, that storm surge is the other shoe that drops here. this show ain't over, as it says. >> lester holt joining us. thanks, from melbourne, florida. we're going to stay in melbourne where my co-anchor for the hour, craig melvin, is standing by. give us an update. >> stephanie, good to see you. let's talk about one of the big stories right 240u. i'm going to step out of the way so you can see the debris that is now starting to fill the streets of melbourne, florida. tree limbs coming down as a result of the winds that are continuing. i mean, the winds right now, i don't -- i'm not a meteorologist so i'm not going to guess where we are, but if i had to, i would say around 40. two hours ago, two and a half hours ago, wind gusts north of 100 miles per hour. so no surprise that one of the major stories here has been the power outages along with the

debris. those power outages, about 100,000 households in brevard county alone, we're hearing from officials that state-wide, somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000 homes at last check. two hours north of where i stand right now, my friend and league ron mott is standing by in daytona beach, in daytona, at last check, ron was getting hit hard, is that still the case? >> still the case, craig. good morning. we don't know what the wind speeds are here, precisely, but we're getting pretty good gusts. certainly tropical storm force winds and maybe approaching hurricane force winds. 75-mile-per-hour gusts. now, as we go through the morning, we're expecting the winds to increase even more. the question, of course, is when that eye gets to daytona beach, how close that eyewall is to daytona beach. we're hearing 40 to 60 miles, and the further out it goes, that's better news for daytona

beach and surrounding communities because it will lessen the effect of the hurricane force winds, 110, 120-mile-per-hour winds. the real concern, obviously, with all these hurricanes is the what. the wind can do damage, obviously, but it's the water that really kills people. so we're anticipating this water will at some point breach the seawall protecting this pool from the beach. that won't be a real problem, obviously, they'll clean that up. the concern is when that water chases into these side streets, these access roads that come down to the beach, and more importantly, the access to water, to the intercoastal water way. those are going to flood with water very, very rapidly, and folks who did not leave and who are hunkering down in their homes along the intercoastal waterway, just be careful because that water will come up very, very quickly. now, high tide, technically, 12:45 p.m. eastern time today. so that's when we might see the biggest threat for any flooding in this area.

the projections right now, a surge of 7 to 11 feet. 11 feet would be quite honestly catastrophic. we're hoping it will stay closer to 5, 6, 7 feet, and that will do some damage, but minimal damage compared to an 11-foot surge. we did see a lot of businesses along atlantic avenue, which is the main north-south drag along the oceanfront here, didn't bother to board up. at some point, this morning, we'll check to see how they're faring in terms of the glass in those businesses. but right now, this is pretty strong winds and it's going to get even stronger here in the next hour or two. stephanie. >> ron mott there for us in daytona beach. and ron, the weather that you're seeing now is what we saw here an hour or two ago here in melbourne. you mentioned -- ron mentioned the intercoastal waterway, maybe a quarter mile from where i am right now. last night, that was one of the

chief concerns. folks who live along the waterway, have businesses along the waterway, when those waters begin to rise, in daytona, the same concern existing here in melbourne as well. this is an area, stephanie, this is an area that has dealt with weather like this before. but it has been some time since they have seen a storm potentially as catastrophic as this one. it was 2004 when they saw not one, not two, but three hurricanes in the same season, 2004 into the 2005, hurricane ivan being one of the most devastating of those storms. that storm affected people in such a deep, guttural way. last night, we would have conversations and that was the first thing that folks wanted to talk about. 2004, 2005, was this going to be as bad as that one was. we should have a good idea over the next few hours. >> we're going to take a quick break. when we return, i'll be speaking to a pilot who just flew through the hurricane. he's safe.

we'll get an update. you're watching msnbc live. we're covering hurricane matthew. is that ice-t? nope, it's lemonade. is that ice-t? lemonade. ice-t? what's with these people, man? lemonade, read the sign. lemonade. read it. ok. delicious. ice-t at a lemonade stand? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money marin saved by switching to geico. yo, ice-t! it's lemonade, man! fifteen minutes could save you fifteen rcent or more. at bp, we empower anyone to stop a job if something doesn't seem right, so everyone comes home safely. because safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better.

because safety is never being satisfied. audi pilotless vehicles have conquered highways, mountains, and racetracks. and now much of that same advanced technology is found in the audi a4. with one notable difference... ♪

the highly advanced audi a4, with available traffic jam assist. ♪

i'm craig melvin here in melbourne, florida. one of the things overnight that we saw and heard a fair amount, transformers popping. which of course, was the sign that we're about to lose power. much of melbourne without power right now. gadi schwartz is on duty for us in titusville, between where i'm standing and daytona beach, which is two and a half hours north of here.

gadi? >> right now, we're in titusville. this is one of the marinas here. we have actually seen some people go out on these docks right now in these conditions, checking on their boats. you see these boats are rocking back and forth. many of them hitting each other, and we have seen the storm surge come up a little bit. it started to subside. it appears as though the tide has gone down just a little, but this is intercoastal waterway. on the other side is cape cunaveeral. right now, the eye is passing by the tip of cape canaveral, which is just a few mile uz way. these winds gusts have been blowing like this for well over an hour. back to you guys. >> all right, there's gadi schwartz for us in titusville. stephanie, we'll send it back to you for a bit. >> thanks. craig. let's get you an update on hurricane matthew. the latest we have seen, it's putting the storm just about 45

miles east-southeast of daytona beach. it has not weakened, but it hasn't gotten any stronger either. it is still a category-3 with sustained winds. this is major. near 120 miles an hour. more than half a million people are without power, according to our latest count. right now, the hurricane is hugging the florida coast, but it has still not yet made landfall. i want to take you back to titusville, florida. actually, i think we're going to do that in a minute. we're going to take you to ft. pierce. i have the mayor of ft. pierce on the phone with me. mayor hudson, i'm glad to hear you're safe. give us an update. what's the status of your community? >> ft. pierce is waking up this morning to a better situation than they expected. i think most of the damage is going to turn out to be trees down and some power lines down. there is some power outage, but some people still have power.

this is a very grateful community as we wake up this morning because for whatever reason, according to our officials, who have been out and about and checking the damage, it looks like there's very little damage. so we're very grateful. >> as you said, some people still have power. did many people stay in their homes? >> yes. yes, they did stay in their homes. because they were -- especially on the mainland, you only had to evacuate -- the mandatory evacuation was for people in low-lying areas. many people did stay in their homes. and actually, where i have gotten a lot of my information is checking facebook because -- and also i have been in touch with our police chief. so that's the information that i got this morning. >> where are you right now? have you made your way outside?

>> i can go outside, there are gusts, but it is not raining. it is overcast. it's blowing a little bit. but it certainly is safe to walk outside. i don't see many vehicles out. i do see police cars. >> what are you instructing your community to do now? if it is safe to go outside and it's just windy, when do you plan to tell your area to sort of get back to business as usual? >> well, i would tell my community not to go outside if there's standing water. i don't see it where i am, but there could be in low-lying places. also, not to drive on the streets. the traffic lights are out. and so we're going to try to get those back up. on the main intersections, our police force is directing traffic. so stay at home until they get power back or until they are assured by the news sources that

traffic lights are working. >> all right, mayor hudson, glad to hear your community is safe. that's mayor linda hudson in ft. pierce, florida. coming up, the hurricane hunter who had just returned from inside the storm. this is the pilot who just drove -- excuse me, flew through it all. we'll be speaking to him. you're watching msnbc live. we're covering hurricane matthew as it hits the florida coast. >> we have dealt with storms in the past, with charlie, francis, jean, wilma. this is like none of those. you work at ge? yeah, i do. you guys are working on some pretty big stuff over there, right? like a new language for crazy-big, world-changing machines. well, not me specifically. i work on the industrial side. so i build the world-changing machines. i get it. you can't talk because it's super high-level. no, i actually do build the machines. blink if what you're doing involves encrypted data transfer.

wait, what? wowwww... wow? what wow? there is no wow.

narrator: adventure start is in the forest.but o kuboi spy something beginning with..."s" beetle: snow. kubo: no. beetle: snow covered trees. monkey: nothing to do with snow. narrator: head outside to discover incredible animal and beautiful plants that come together to create an unforgettable adventure. kubo: wow! narrator: so grab your loved ones monkey: don't even. narrator: and explore a world of possibilities. kubo: come on, this way. narrator: visit discoverthorest.org to find the closest forest or park to you.

i'm craig melvin here in melbourne, florida. during that quick commercial break, we got word that our first casualty, our first reported death as a result of this, as a result of this hurricane has happened just south of us in stt lucy county, about an hour south of where i'm standing right now. we are in downtown melbourne, if you will. again, one of the major concerns, and we just heard from that guest a few minutes ago, one of the major concerns, falling trees, falling limbs, falling branches. we're starting to see lots of these as the sun comes up here. another major concern, that storm surge. we have heard bill talk about it. we heard a number of other folks make reference to it over the

next few hours. that being if not the chief concern, certainly one of the main concerns. jeff, if we can, i want to show folks the river. that's the indian river. i'd say maybe up until about three hour uz go, it was for the most part, it was fine. but within the last hour or so, we have now started to see the waters of that river creep into the roadway. we have also unfortunately started to see some folks driving around, surveying the damage. local officials still discouraging that, even though the rains have died down a fair amount, even though the winds have died down from roughly 100-mile-per-hour gusts about three hours ago. i want to show you this clock here if i can as well. that's when this particular area lost power. that was about 3:50 this morning that power has not returned since. roughly 100,000 households in brevard county without power.

>> let's get the latest on the storm's track from bill karins. i want, bill, i want you to bring us up to speed, but also speak to what it means to be a category 3. you know, we're saying, well, it doesn't look like a 4, it's a 3. a 3 is still significantly worse than many of us have ever seen. >> category 3s can still cause millions of dollars of damage if they track in the wrong spots and hit the wrong population centers. this is a major hurricane. it's only 20 miles off our coast. it doesn't happen that often, and the storm surge can be just as high with a 3 than a category 4. a lot depends on how large the wind field is. this is moving a lot of water, and right now, it's moving a lot of water towards the coast. the water levels are going up. we're going to get the high tide cycle this morning, and we're most concerned if this is going to cause the catastrophe it has the potential to do, it's because of the storm surge. 7 feet, that's happening now, from the titleville area up to

daytona beach. then throughout the morning we'll cratrack it in daytona ine next hour, jacksonville toward the noon hour and early afternoon, and then up the coast later tonight. this entire area from hilton head all the way down to daytona beach is the area most at concern for storm surge areas. that would be enough area to cause significant damage at the coast and go over the dunes that preth the beautiful communities. further to the north, projection are a little less, but a 5 to 7-foot storm surge even in northern portions of south carolina, is not something we have done very aunch. now, the only question still remaining, we know we're also going to get a ton of heavy rain in the carolinas. one of the questions is how much wind damage will we get? and it's really related to if you get into the eyewall or not. we have seen the tropical storm damage, the reporters out there. you get the downed tree branches which can be deadly, and that also can cause power outages

which are getting widespread. if we get into the eye itself is the question. this is our tracking radar. we're closer to the eye. this is the larger eye. we still have this little inner eye that's deteriorating. that's kind of the reason why it weakened. it had almost two eyes to it and they were fighting with each other overnight and that causes it to go from 140 down to 120. that waw good news. the other thing we're tracking here is how close to the coast we get. if we watch this line, this is the outer edge of the hurricane force winds. we move these onshore, stephanie, that's when the damage will begin to occur. a very close call for new smyrna beach, oak hill, those are the communities most at risk at the next two hours. >> the eyewall considered one of the most dangerous areas. miguel almaguer is in cocoa beach. it's too difficult to get a live shot of him on camera. he joins me by phone. what's it like there now?

>> the winds are whipping around and the rain is coming back. it's driving sideways and coming from multiple directions. the storm here seems to be intensifying at the moment. that has been happening in rapid bursts of succession for us. we had some quiet periods in between the storm, but again, the winds are just certainly picking back up today. we can see some downed palm trees and other debris in this area. for the most part, it looks like this city has dodged a major catastrophe. no major damage to report here, at least what we have seen. we have also seen transformers explode in the air, sending sparks in green, a green glow into the air. we know this area is without power. our assumption is when the winds die down, power crews that are staged nearby will come to this yare yea, but for right now, the winds are kicking back up and the situation is getting very precarious once again. >> hopefully, most residents have evacuated. approximately how many? >> we don't know how many people here have heeded that evacuation call. we know that in florida, nearly

a million and a half or 2 million people were asked to evacuat evacuate. it's unclear in each city how many people headed inland. we do know that people are hunkered down. we saw one man walking through this area earlier today. i asked why he didn't evacuate. he sort of brushed us off and said everything is going to be okay. so that is a situation here. >> all right, miguel almaguer joining us by phone in cocoa beach, florida. we're going to take a quick break. we'll be speaking with a pilot, a hurricane hunter, who just made it through the storm.

♪ ♪ he has a sharp wit. a winning smile. and no chance of getting an athletischolarship. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. td ameritrade. i spent many years as a nuclear missile launch officer. if the president gave the order we had to launch the missiles, that would be it. i prayed that call would never come. [ radio chatter ] self control may be all that keeps

these missiles from firing. [ sirens baring ] i would bomb the [ beep] t of them. i want to be unpredictable. i love war. the thought of donald trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death. it should scare everyone. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. [ clearing throat ]w turthe new golf alltrack.k. with 4motion all-wheel drive.

soon to ...everywhere. don't put off checking out your options until sixty-five. now is a good time to get the ball rolling. consider an aarp medicare supplent insurance plan insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like any of these types of plans, it could help you with out-of-pocket medical costs. call now and request your free decision guide and explore the range of aarp medicare supplement plans. start gathering the information you need... to roll into sixty-five with confidence. you are watching msnbc. that is a live shot of daytona beach, florida. that video taken just a few minutes ago, as hurricane matthew makes its way up the coast. daytona, one of the harder hit areas, closer to the storm, as we're tracking this storm, currently downgraded to a category 3.

unfortunately, there's one death to report thus far. a woman last night suffered a cardiac arrest. a woman in her late 50s, in st. lucie, florida. i want to bring in a man from noaa. the organization really behind these hurricane hunters. these trackers. richard henning is the director of the flight program there. richard, thank you for joining me. help us understand the gulf stream 4 jet. these planes, what kind of missions they carry out during a hurricane like this, flying through the eye of the storm. >> well, hi, stephanie. can you hear me okay? >> i hear you. yes. >> it's a -- okay, it's a little difficult to hear you. i'm talking to you over a satellite phone. from our noaa gulf stream 4 aircraft. right now, we're flying at

45,000 feet over the gulf of mexico. what we have done is we've been flying an eight-hour mission that covers approximately 4,000 miles. we took off the air force base in tampa back at about 1:30 in the morning. flew across the top of the storm, and then flew out over the atlantic, several hundred miles northeast and east of the storm. now we're in the gulf of mexico. what we're doing is we're dropping instruments from the aircraft that fall by parachute. it's similar to a weather balloon, except instead of a weather balloon going up, these instruments fall down by parachute from the aircraft. they take about 15 minutes to fall from 45,000 feet down to the water. and what they're doing is they're gathering meteorological data the whole time. they're gathering very important

data on wind pressure, temperature, everything else the computer models need to help forecast the track and intensity of the storm. the data is then transmitted via satellite to computers that the national hurricane center uses for their forecasts. so it's a different mission than we fly with our turbo prop aircraft. we have two different aircraft at noaa that do the hurricane hunter mission. the g-4 that i'm flying in now, high altitude, and a p-3 that flies down at low altitude. that's the four-engine turbo prop plane that punches through the eyewall of the storm between 5,000 to 10,000 feet above the water. so each aircraft -- yes, ma'am. >> you were on this plane now, and you have been on this mission for the last eight hours? how dangerous is this?

>> well, again, i'm having a little trouble understanding you, but one thing that we have been able to gather is that the storm is definitely reorganizing. it's definitely still a tremendous threat to the coast. all the data we're gathering up here at 45,000 feet indicates that. and everybody needs to pay very close attention to the track of the storm and to the emergency management officials heeding the warnings and the evacuations. the folks in the melbourne area were actually very lucky. we were tracking the storm on our radar system, and saw that it reorganized and made a little bit of a slight turn to the right that spared some of the

cape canaveral area. the folks up the road in georgia and south carolina may not be so lucky. so the winds in this storm are well in excess of 100 miles per hour. we had a very rough ride up at 45,000 feet, from all the air that's being ejected out the top of the storm. so this is a storm that still has an awful lot of energy to work with. >> all right, richard, thank you for joining us. thank you for your work on this mission. richard henning, the noaa flight director. >> i want to take you back to melbourne, florida, where my co-anchor craig melvin is. i don't know if you heard richard. he said melbourne was lucky. thinks it could have been much worse. >> stephanie, that's exactly the case. hang on one second. this is live television, sir, so make sure the language is appropriate. what's your name? >> gaven. >> you live in melbourne? >> yes. >> you're surveying the damage? >> we're checking on her house.

>> this is mayor. >> we happed upon the mayor here, chwho is out surveying th damage. the mayor of melbourne. we'll get an official update here, if you will. thank you so much, mayor, for your time. i know you have a lot to do here. >> yes. >> it would seem as if -- this is good. it would seem as if things are better than expected? >> better, fantastic. better than i thought it would be. so we're real pleased. have a house on the river, so i'm going to check on the house. >> what's the major concern right now here in melbourne. >> i have people that are losing electricity, so we're hoping to reach out to them and get their electric up and get the streets clean. >> without power here for a while as well, as you can see. we have started to see a lot of this, a lot of, it would seem to be, just regular passers-by out surveying. >> i assume they're business

owners in downtown. that's what i assume. checking on their business. >> we heard there were some house fires as well. can you speak to that? >> no, i didn't know about that. >> there was -- in the last ten minutes or so, we got word of a death in st. lucie county, just south. no casualties here in melbourne to speak of? >> not that i heard. i stayed with my daughter in melbourne, and we lost electricity, so i didn't see any news or anything like that. i'm sorry to hear about that. >> are city officials saying the the worst is behind us? >> yes. yes. it's behind us. i mean, it's slowly going north. but we dodged a big bullet. so i'm real pleased. >> storm surge. that's been a major concern. we heard a number of our meteorologists, some other folks talking about the next few hours, a major concern, not just here, but areas north as well. how concerned are you about this river and about the intercoastal waterway. >> i'm not sure, i haven't been

down there, but usually it will overflow, so i don't see that happening here. so i'm still assessing the damage. >> it would seem power outages and downed tree limbs and branches. that would be the crux of it so far. >> so far. >> you actually are smiling right now. >> i know, because i expected the worst. i really did. >> a lot of folks did, mayor. we're talking about here in melbourne, but our neighbors to the north and georgia and south carolina, this thing still headed their way. i'll let you get back to it. thank you for talking to me. we will have lots more from here in melbourne, florida, where you heard from the mayor say they dodged a bullet. we'll be right back after this. it's msnbc. >> go anywhere tonight, and in this, just getting worse very quickly. we're probably at 30, 40-mile-per-hour winds here. who's with me? 'm in. i'm in. i'm in.

i'm in. ♪ ♪ i'm in. one, two, - wait, wait. wait - where's tina? doing the hand thing? yep! we are all in for our customers. ally. do it right. [baby talk] [child giggles]

children: "i," "j," "k"... [telephone rings] man: hello man: you may kiss the bride [applause] announcer: a full life measur in seats starts withhe right onene early on. car crashes are a leading killer of children 1 to 13. learn how to prevt deaths and injuries by using the right car seat for your child's age a size. upgrade your phone system and learn how you could save at vonage.com/business afoot and light-hearted i takeo the open road. healthy, free, the world before me,

the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me.

you're watching msnbc, and we're following the latest on hurricane matthew. coming up at the top of the hour, we're expecting a briefing from florida governor rick scott. north carolina governor pat mccrory is also expected to be speaking at 9:00 a.m. >> states of emergency have been declared in all of those aforementioned states, florida,

georgia, and south carolina as well. where we're expecting to hear from governor haley in a couple hours, we're told. i can also tell you, stephanie, the rain here has let up a fair amount over the last hour. the winds have died down somewhat as well. our friend gabe gutierrez is north of where i'm standing in jacksonville, florida. gabe, is that the case there? >> hey, there, craig. you know, it was quite incredible to hear in the last few minutes you were speaking and stephanie was speaking with the noaa -- the person in the noaa aircraft saying the storm is still a huge concern in the northeast part of florida, even though it is off the coast, and yes, indeed, we're seeing that here in jacksonville. the last couple hours, we have seen intermittent rain bands, gotten hit every few minutes. right now, a steady rain. the winds picking up a little bit, and we expect it to pick up in to the early afternoon. that's when we expect 80-mile-per-hour sustains winds.

the mayor of vaccineville has ordered the evacuation of 450,000 -- what's that? craig? oh, sorry, craig. i thought you were speaking to me for a second. we're here at the st. john's river. we expect the storm surge to pick up here in the early afternoon, and as i was saying, this is an area that isn't used to this type of strong storm. the last major storm like this they had to deal with was back in 1898. 450,000 people ordered to evacuate. we have no way of knowing how many heeded that warning. there's a media briefing going on, and what they have been saying is if you have not left at this point, it's time to hunker down, even though i-10 is clear, it's possible to leave jacksonville at this point, but local officials say, listen, if you decided to stay, at this point, it may not be safe to leave. water and sewer service, even for some places east of the intercoastal waterway has been shut down. so as not to overload the sewer

system there. they expect a lot, a lot of rain. and this storm surge. potentially up to 11 feet in this area. as i have been speaking, we can feel the rain picking up here. this is one of those rain bands we're expected to see more of. we're getting hit by the outer bands of hurricane matthew as it makes its way up the coast. even though it was good news for southern florida, for ft. lauderdale, and for miami and west palm beach, didn't see the wind damage, didn't see as much damage there as possibly was expected, there's still a huge concern for northeast florida and for the jacksonville area. then as it moves forth into savannah. i'm going to send it back to you in melbourne. >> gabe gutierrez there in jacksonville, talking about something that's also happened here in melbourne. local officials deciding to shut off the water. that happened here roughly 6:00 last night. they do that to try to maintain the integrity of the system. they didn't do it for all of melbourne. they did do it for the beach

community here. our friend jay gray is standing by for us north in daytona. what's the scene there in daytona beach? >> hey, craig, very different than what you and gabe are experiencing right now. things intensifying here. i want to give you a realtime look at the conditions. the wind is just surging at this point. the rain completely sideways. it's been intensifying for the last several hours and that's going to continue. look past that and you can see the surf here. it's been growing. believe it or not, this is low tide, and already the water getting into areas it's not supposed to be. this surge could be six to 11 feet. a wall of water. that's really unprecedented. unbelievable, but it is continuing to grow here. the eye of this storm still about 50 miles to the southeast, as we get another strong gust here. it's a slow-moving system, so we're going to continue to see

things go downhill for the next several hours. craig. >> jay gray for us there in daytona beach. again, we are expected to hear from florida governor rick scott in just a few moments from now. for now, we'll take a quick break. this is msnbc. buit's a manufacturing job. yeah, well ge is doing a lot of cool things digitally to help machines communicate, might want to at least mention that. i'm building world-changing machines. with my two hands. does that threaten you? no! don't be sly. i'm just, uh, going to go to ch some wood. with that? ye we don't have an ax. or a feplace. good to be prepared. could you cut the bread?

but the best place to start is in the forest. kubo: i spy something beginning with..."s" beetle: snow. kubo: no. beetle: snow covered trees. monkey: nothing to do with snow. narrator: head outside to discover incredible animals and beautiful plants that come together to create an unforgettable adventure. kubo: wow! narrator: so grab your lovednes monkey: don't ev. narrator: and explore a world of possibilities. kubo: come on, this way. narrator: visit discovertheforest.org to find the closes forest or park to you. i'm stephanie ruhle. you're watching msnbc. we're covering hurricane

matthew. staying on the breaking news. my partner, craig melvin, down in melbourne, florida. craig. >> stephanie, the mayor of melbourne told me just a few moments ago, they feel like they dodged a bullet here. no loss of life. so far, the damage does not seem to be widespread. all eyes, though, on the bodies of water in and around this city. keeping a very close eye on what could be some major flooding over the next few hours. i'll see you back here at 10:00 a.m. i'll send it back to you for now. >> thank you, my partner, craig melvin. >> i'm going to keep you here because we're focused on this breaking news. hurricane matthew has been pounding the east coast of florida. you can see images happening now. the storm now a category-3, packing winds of 120 miles per hour. >> right now, these conditions, as you can see, are getting much more hairy. >> and the storm surge could be