night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. at that point irma will hopefully moved up past south florida. it will be part of our special weekend coverage. i will see you then. rachel maddow continues tonight. good evening. >> good evening, chris. i'm happy that you're down there and i'm happy that you're getting to a smarter place soon. >> we're going inland. >> well done. thanks for joining us this hour. one of the largest hurricanes ever recorded in the atlantic ocean is about to make landfall in the mainland of the united states. that story obviously clearly takes center stage for us tonight. we're going to have intensive coverage in terms of what's expected overnight for irma tonight and into tomorrow morning. we've also got a remarkable story about what it left behind in the caribbean with some footage that you have not seen anywhere else from some of the islands that took it hardest. i'm tell you we've got a few other stories on our radar. interesting developments today from the special council's

office into his investigation into the trump russia scandal. the special council is apparently ready to start interviews with a half dozen to a dozen white house personnel, including reince priebus, former white house spokesman sean spicer and the current communications director, hope hicks. we're going to have more on that news ahead, including what we now know to be the special council's interest in some behavior by the trump white house early on in the administration which we didn't know before now that the special counsel was investigating. some of those dots have been connected in terms of that special council investigation. that story is ahead tonight. if you are a ford truck person -- i'm a ford truck person -- you may be familiar with the term king ranch. all full size american pickups come in lots of different trim levels now. some of them are very luxurious given that these are trucks, but

for a long time, even before the current luxury truck trend took hold across all the different truck makers, for a long time now one of the top of the line luxury models you could get in a ford pick-up was called the king ranch edition. it has unusually colored seats, big kink rang ranch logos. it's not just a butch sounding name for a leather seats package in a truck. king ranch is a real thing. it's the biggest ranch in texas. king ranch in texas is gigantic, about 1300 square miles. the king ranch holds a special place in the history of america hurricanes. this is a chart that was published today by 538.com using data from the national hurricane center and other sources. although it just looks like a bunch of zeros there, this is, if you know how to look at this, this is basically the history of hurricanes in the united states.

the x axis there, that's just a timeline. it starts at 1850 on the left-hand side and it proceeds decade by decade all the way until now. the y axis, the numbers that go up and down on the left side of the chart, that is sustained wind speed in these various storms. clearly what's scary right now about looking at this chart today is that way up there at the top of the chart, our current hurricane is also very close to the top of the chart in terms of wind speed. irma is the storm that's been cutting through the caribbean, bearing down now on florida, but you can see there we have almost never had a hurricane with sustained wind speeds this high in the whole history of hurricanes in the united states. that said, there is one. there is one hurricane on this list which is above irma in terms of its wind speed. you can see it right there on the graph. it's labeled allen, 1980.

hurricane allen. no hurricane that has hit the united states has ever had a higher sustained wind speed than hurricane allen did in 1980. allen had 190 mile per hour winds. as it carved its way through the caribbean, hurricane allen did a ton of damage to haiti and killed several hundred people in haiti as that storm made its way across the caribbean toward the united states. but it then took its turn up through the gulf of mexico and forecasters believed at the time that allen was going to make a direct hit on corpus christi texas. it's a pretty good size city, about 330,000 people. in 1980 it had about 230,000 people. still a very good sized city. they saw this hurricane with 190 mile an hour winds making a bead for corpus christi in 1980 and it felt like it might be the end of the world, right? nobody had ever seen winds that

massive on a densely populated area. now, what happened with hurricane allen in 1980 is that it did ultimately cause damage in corpus christi and flooding in floor. they got hit with a nine-foot storm surge from hurricane allen which is a lot, particularly for a town that's less than seven feet above sea level. but hurricane allen, despite those 190 mile an hour winds, unprecedented winds, winds that have still never been matched by any other american storm, hurricane allen did not end up being one of the all-time deadliest hurricanes in u.s. history. and that is simply and only because hurricane allen moved. it had been due to directly hit corpus christi, again with the highest sustained winds of any storm in the u.s. ever, but then it unexpectedly took a slight left turn. so what ended up taking the direct brunt from that gigantic storm was not corpus christi, it

was the king ranch which is a lot of things, right? it's historic, it's huge, it's interesting. it's the name of a fancy ford truck line to this day. but the king ranch is not built up and populated. it is open ranch land. so, yeah, hurricane allen was mega, even bigger than the monster storm irma that we've got on our hands right now. but its human impact did not match its strength as a weather phenomenon, not even close. and that is simply and blessedly because of the specifics of where it went, where it came ashore. with that history in mind, i have questions. how certain are we about where hurricane irma and its 185 mile an hour winds, how certain are we about where it's going? we all remember in some previous big storms, even very recent storms, there have been interesting differences between like european models and american models for predicting

the storm track. some forecasts ended up being more certain than others, more accurate. is that inter play between the different forecasts at play at all for this giant storm? that's a pressing question for me tonight. how good are the models predicting the track of hurricane irma and how much consensus is there among those models. that's my first question. second question, is my first question stupid because of the size of the storm? the last category 5 storm was hurricane andrew 25 years ago. you've probably seen these mockups that people have been doing. people have been physically comparing the size of hurricane andrew versus hurricane irma showing how much bigger than irma is. is irma so big that it's dumb for me to ask about the track. is it so big that the subtleties

about it tracking a few miles this way or a few dozen miles that way, are those not going to make a material difference for this giant a storm. question one, how good are the predictions of where it's going. question two, is the sheer size of this storm so overwhelming that the subtle differences in the tracks don't matter. two more questions. third, i know there are people who don't understand this part but i do not. i don't get the relationship between sea level and wave height and storm surge and tide and what the national hurricane center is now describing as water height above ground in its latest forecast discussions. i know they're all about water and they're all potential flooding and all about coastal risk. maybe the distinction ought to be seen of something that's of interest to meteorologist but i sort of feel like we're all reading meteorological material now and we sort of need to figure it out in terms of what

the human impact is going to be here. let me give you an example of what i'm talking about. we're all able to see the forecast from the national hurricane center. some of the numbers that they're giving us i find a little bit hard to fathom. let me quote to you from the national hurricane center from their forecast discussion from earlier this evening about irma. this is just part of it. quote, the combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving in from the shoreline. the water is expected to reach the following heights above ground if the peak surge occurs at the time of the high tide. one of the places that they list an amount for heights above groundwater, they give an example of southwest florida from cap tee va to cape sable. here's that part of south florida on the map. according to the national

hurricane center tonight, they are warning that the water height above ground in that region of florida will be 8 to 12 feet of water. i want to understand exactly what that means. when they say that will be the water height above ground in that area, if the storm surge and the high tide combine in the worse case scenario, what exactly does that mean in terms of how much flooding there's going to be, how deep and persistent is that flooding going to be? if the tide and the storm surge don't align for that worst case scenario, should we still be scared by those numbers? 12 feet of water above ground? how much range are we talking about, how important are these temporal things like the tide and the exact time of the storm surge, how important are those in terms of giving us a range of how much to be worried about in terms of flooding, just in terms of that very practical question for how far inland and how high up people are going to need to

go to escape these flood waters. so again, i've got four questions in total. first one is how certain are we about where it's going. the second one is, is the storm that big that it shouldn't matter where it's going. what should nonmeteorologist people look at? here's my last question and this goes back to that scary chart where hurricane allen in 1980 is the only storm we've seen in this country with higher sust n sustained wind speeds. i have to say i find it personally unnerving to look at that chart. i look at those little dots on that chart representing storms and i think of all the other hurricanes that we have been through as a country and all of the damage that has been done by these incredibly powerful storms. if you just picture what we've been through and then to see that this one is right at the top in terms of its sustained wind speed, just as a mathematical matter i find that scary. but as a practical matter, i want to understand how much

additional risk extreme wind speeds like that pose. in 2017 in the particular part of the country that's about to get the brunt of the storm, what do we know about how vulnerable they are to winds that fast. what is likely to be knocked down by winds that fast. what can stay standing in wind speed like that. we have seen what these 180-plus mile an hour wind speeds have done in the caribbean already and what they are continuing to do. we can see in these caribbean islands what was left standing and what was not in places that have been hit so extremely hard in places like st. maarten and barbuda which we're going to talk about later in the show. in the united states and the mainland of the u.s. in florida we have different topography and different infrastructure over all. have our building codes here in the u.s. mainland anticipated wind speeds this fast? they know they're in hurricane territory but 185 mile per hour

territory? do we know scientifically what's going to be left standing? so i've been watching all the footage, reading the briefings about this hurricane just as everybody in the country has been. these are the questions that i find myself unable to figure out on my own. this is the stuff that's been keeping me up as we've been getting closer to landfall. the good news is that all of these questions, i believe, are answerable. i think we're going to be able to get answers to basically all of them tonight starting with nbc news meteorologist bill karins. thank you very much for joining us. >> i don't know what you have planned the rest of the show but we may be here for a while. >> good. can i ask you to start on giving us the latest. >> there are important developments. things are changing just in the last 15 minutes. this is the tight eye of irma. this is the coastline of cuba. these are known as the cuban keys here.

watch how close this is now coming to a landfall in cuba. the forecast is supposed to go parallel over these to the north. we are still going west. the further west this goes has huge implications for florida for two reasons. one, cuba could weaken the storm more than anticipated. the second thing would be if it continues to go further west, that means our forecast track would go further west. because of the angle of orientation, that could mean huge implications for miami, ft. lauderdale, west palm beach and marco island and for tt. myers. we are within 36 hours of this landfall. they're usually pretty accurate. the models were pretty much pointing at marathon, florida. now look what happened. now they're pointing towards key west. another 10 to 20 mile shift to the west has huge implications. now instead of bringing it up through the everglades, they're clustered pretty well here

keeping it offshore with the eye coming possibly over the top of marco island and the naples area and maybe straight into ft. myers. and also for areas like tampa, sarasota, the storm could be a little stronger if cuba doesn't weaken it, over water longer. that could mean more storm surge and stronger winds for areas like central florida. that's one of the huge developments that we are literally now just getting in and dealing with. the hurricane center's update will be at 11:00 p.m. and we'll see if they shift it further to the west. again, the further west it goes, the weaker the winds it could be for the east coast, including the big cities in south florida. we showed you cap tee va where the worst storm surge would be. that's the 12-feet range where we could see houses get destroyed. if that track goes further west, we could take these totals all the way up here.

tampa three days ago, miami was worse and now it's inching closer and closer to the tampa area. let me go to a couple other maps. this is going to show us when wind damage is. the two things that are going to cause the most damage is the water surge. by the time we get to saturday afternoon, this is when we start getting the power outages and damage in the keys. watch what happens in marco island. look at the keys, 127, 127. even miami is starting to get up there. key largo, 108. sunday afternoon, this is the peak of the storm, this is when all of southern florida will lose power and we'll see the highest storm surge on the east coast. miami, 102 miles per hour wind. there's that landfall, possibly

a second landfall near ft. myers, marco island. winds could be in excess of 100 miles per hour throughout this region. even our friends in tampa and orlando, yes, it should weaken if it's over land but 90 mile per hour winds is going to knock down trees and power throughout the region. the biggest things i've noticed in the last 15 minutes, a little more shift to the west, still huge implications for storm surge for ft. myers, tampa, sarasota. it's not set in stone how bad it's going to be there yet. they could go right through the eye. three days ago we were saying up the east coast of florida. now it could be right up the west coast. >> is there anything you can tell about -- we've been tracking the storm through the caribbean for days now. it's been so big and so strong for all of these days. is there anything about the way it's behaved over the last few days that tells you which of the models are better at predicting where it's going? >> we compared the american model to the european model. the european model comes out twice a day. the american model comes out

four times a day. they have spent more money on their model and get more computing time because they only do it twice a day. it is more accurate than ours. with this storm it has been significantly more accurate with their track. the european model has been further west all along and that's the trend that everything else has gone towards. >> when you were saying -- you were showing that map of the various models and saying there's one of them that shows it heading towards the everglades which would be better in terms of human impact here, is there any -- what is your view right now in terms of the consensus level of the models? is that an outlier? >> when we get within 24 to 36 hours of the storms, the average forecast is 24 miles. typically it's not that big of a deal but because florida is only 140 miles wide, it's kind of a big deal and has significant impacts. we're going to have a lot of damage throughout the entire peninsula. we're trying to figure out who's going to have the worst storm surge. people want to know am i going

to have water in my home. i just called my mom and told her they have a storm surge in ft. myers where they live at six feet. things like that that shift and change that is hard for people. one of the questions you had is should nonmeteorologists be looking at this stuff because it can drive you crazy. it's almost like an event for a meteorologist, a game that's being played out. you don't know the ending and we follow the trends and what's happening and continuously giving you updates, but for people making life decisions, it can be frustrating. >> and the physical size of the storm, just the circumference of it, the physical -- the way that it dwarves andrew, is that important in terms of how much attention we need to pay to those tracks? when you look at it, it looks like all of florida is going to be engulfed no matter which way it tracks. >> if you want to know is my house going to be destroyed, will i be able to come back to

my house, will my house exist, that depends where the eye comes on shore. am i going to have roof damage and power out for two weeks but i can go back to my house, that's the entire rest of the state of florida. >> in terms of the am i going to have water in my house question -- >> storm surge. >> storm surge. sea level i'm aware of but we hear sea levels have been rising over time and the high tide and damaging waves and the storm surge and water above ground, there's all these terms that i realize -- i can tell because i'm an idiot about these things that each of these things is designed to help somebody dumb like me understand them but because there's so many competing terms i don't know what to look at. >> the worst thing is most people don't even know what elevation they live at. if you don't know your elevation, it doesn't mean anything. this map back here that was behind me, this was the storm

surge map. this map tells you how high the water is going to get compared to if the storm was not there. this does not take into account high tide or low tide. this just means that in southwest florida 8 to 12 feet of water is going to be there at the time when the storm is at its closest. when we talk about the storm tide, that's when we take this number, the 8 to 12 feet, let's say the high tide in naples is three figeet higher than low ti, we would add the three feet to this. >> what should people look at in terms of deciding whether or not they're at high enough ground to be safe? >> let's say your elevation is at ten feet and you know you have a potential for 8 to 12 feet of water coming to you. if you're at 10 feet and you're 8 to 12, you better not be in that building. now, if you were at, say, 15 feet and it's a forecast for 8 to 12, now you got a tougher

decision. you're kind of mag a gaplaying . you need to know when the high tide is, how much more it is. the emergency managers in all these counties have all these maps. they have evacuation zones. they're doing this math for you. pay attention to your emergency manager. if they tell you zone a evacuate, and you're in zone a, get out. >> you're going to be up for a very long time. thank you for helping us understand this. if and when we are getting it wrong or making a mountain out of a mole hill, please run out onto the set and correct us. anything that i say, check with him first. much more to come tonight. stay with us. eling choose philips sonicare diamondclean. hear the difference versus oral b. in a recently published clinical study, philips sonicare diamondclean outperforms oral-b 7000, removing up to 82% more plaque

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st. maarten is half dutch half french. the island is 34 square miles, so small you could fit 35 st. maartens inside rhode island. they have a super famous airport, the princess juliana international airport. it is famous because it sits so close to the beach that when planes fly in and out the wheels on the planes come down so low they practically scrape the sand. it's supposed to be wild to watch. they had to post a sign on the beach warning people not to get too close. jet blast can cause severe physical harm. this is what that famous airport used to look like in st.

maarten. today it looks like this. st. maarten's landmarks including their world famous airport have taken a devastating blow. this is what it looks like inside the airport. check-in desks flooded, debris all over the place. local officials say huge swaths of the island have been leveled. about 80,000 people live on st. maarten. most have seen their homes damaged or destroyed. this is what the docks used to look like. now the docks look like this. this is one of the hotels in st. maarten in brighter times. it has replicas of famous paintings on the outer walls. this is that same hotel now. you can still see some of the paintings. nothing else really looks the same. st. maarten is famous for its beautiful, pristine beaches. the beaches of st. maarten now look like this. hurricane irma is expected to make landfall in the main lands u.s. this weekend but it has

whipped through the caribbean, killed at least 17 people so far, at least 5 from st. maarten and people in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands and in barbuda. barbuda is next door to st. maarten, a little larger geographically but fewer people. fewer than 2,000 people live there overall. this is before hurricane irma hit. this is barbuda today. the prime minister says barbuda is barely habitable. the only airport and hospital were destroyed. there's no running water and no phone service because the communications tower that you see right there just snapped in half by irma. this was the headline in barbuda's main newspaper today, destruction unreal, hundreds desperate to get out. those hundreds of people still left on the island are desperate to get out not only because of what has just happened but also because of what may happen next. hard as it is to believe, another hurricane is heading

toward barbuda right now. hurricane jose is a category 4 and appears to be heading right for barbuda. the red cross sent us this video from the ground in barbuda today. the prime minister is telling people to get out now, to evacuate to antigua, barbuda's sister island. together they form a single country but they're about 40 miles apart. they believe right now that antigua is safely out of jose's past even in barbuda is not. volunteers and relief workers have been on the ground today before jose hits, ferrying people off the island with helicopters and boats and trying to get as many people away and over to antigua as they can. jose is supposed to hit barbuda tomorrow. they're really seriously running out of time in what is already dire circumstances. joining us now from anteing ba is michael joseph. he was in barbuda yesterday with the team from the red cross. mr. joseph, i appreciate your time. i know this is an incredibly

difficult time for you. thank you for being with us. >> always a pleasure. >> can you tell us what you saw when you were on barbuda and can you tell us if antigua is dealing with significant damage. >> i must say that we are very fortunate that the hurricane shift shifted. our fortunate turned into being unfortunate for the people because it placed them directly in the path which turned out to be even more damaging. from our assessment when we went in, if you know about barbuda and what you saw, it's completely destroyed. to be honest with you, i would say 100% of barbuda. even the buildings that are left, there's so many other factors. in the words of the prime minister, barbuda, i wouldn't say barely habitable. i would say completely inhabitable. >> what is the status of the

evacuation? has everybody been taken off the island. there's concerns about what's going to happen if jose comes in tomorrow. >> yes, after the mandatory evacuation all persons would have left barbuda. again, because there were serious concerns even as the red cross, we share humanitarian concerns where we felt that the people of barbuda, if they remain, a number of fatalities would have increased significantly more than what we had before. all persons were evacuated from barbuda ahead of hurricane jose. >> in terms of your responsibilities as the president of the red cross in barbuda and antigua, what do you anticipate doing next? describing that island as not habitable, as being 100% destroyed, how do you approach the relief effort there? obviously you need to get people out of harm's way but what are your next steps, what do you plan to do next as on organization? >> well, there are a few

different things that we need to do. so we have now the people that are now in antigua so we have an entirely displaced community now. we're going to have to work in terms of dealing with their needs locally as they arrive and working with the minister of health and the national office of disaster services identifying what those needs are and then applying the right resources where necessary. but then when we go back to barbuda because of course dealing with the displaced community is only a short term goal. we're looking more long term. we're going to have to look at working with bar bu dans to build proper infrastructure, proper houses, work with the minister of health in identifying health issues and bringing health programs. zika is still very much a concern for the minister of health and for the red cross. these are just some of the things, we're going to have to rebuild houses, get fishermen back into the sea so we can get

the economy turning again. this is really how we're going to get barbuda back to the gem that she is. >> michael joseph, president of the red cross in barbuda and antigua, just an incredible task ahead. it's amazing there wasn't more a loss of life. thank you for being with us. good luck to you, sir, please stay in touch. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight including big news from the special council's office, robert mueller's office, plus more of what is ahead for hurricane irma. stay with us. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and.

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there's a little nonstorm news. in the midst of everything going on in the news right now and what is feared about this giant storm, a woman named sally yates roared back into the news today. this afternoon "the washington post" and politico.com reported that the spoesecial counsel rob mueller notified the white house that he and his team of prosecutors intend to interview multiple white house officials in the coming weeks. interviews haven't happened and we don't have dates as to when exactly the interviews are going to happen but according to "the washington post" that's because investigators first intend to review all the documents they requested and they expect to receive from the white house. now, the reason that's an important and potentially juicy part of this news is because you can triangulate this a little bit. based on what documents they've asked for and based on what people they're asking to interview, you can start to figure out what behavior by the president and his administration

has found itself into robert mueller's cross hairs. and that's why fired former acting attorney general sally yates is back in the news. you'll remember that on january 26 which was not even a week after trump's inauguration, sally yates, the acting attorney general left the justice department and personally went up to the white house to give the white house a warning, an urgent warning on a national security matter. >> we were concerned that the american people had been misled about the underlying conduct and what general flynn had done, and additionally that we weren't the only ones that knew all of this, that the russians also knew about what general flynn had done. not only did we believe that the russians knew this but that they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromised situation. a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. we told them that we were giving

them all of this information so that they could take action. >> they didn't take action. the attorney general comes to the white house warning that the sitting national security adviser has been compromised by a hostile foreign government, that he could be being blackmailed. such dramatic testimony from sally yates when we heard from her in may. it must have been an incredibly dramatic moment in the white house when she came to them with that totally unprecedented terrifying warning and it remains a mystery as to why the white house did nothing in response to that warning. they kept national security adviser michael flynn on for almost three further weeks, they had no reaction this morning at all until it ended up in "the washington post" 18 days later. if the post hadn't broken the story maybe flynn would still be there, compromise, potential blackmail and all. we still don't know the full story of the undisclosed contacts that trump national security adviser michael flynn

had with the russians during the campaign, during the transition, or once he was national security adviser in the white house. but today, "the washington post" reports that that inaction by the white house after they got that extraordinary warning from sally yates about michael flynn, that inaction by the white house is apparently part of what special counsel bob mueller is looking into. these are the names "the washington post" reported today in terms of who's been told to expect a white house interview. we don't know if this is the exhaustive list of people. politico said it may be a dozen people but at least we've got these names. don mcgahn, he's the white house counsel, and james berneum, that's the deputy, reportedly the people who sally yates met with at the white house on january 26 when she went up to the white house to give them the mike flynn warning to which they didn't respond. so, maybe that's what mueller wants to interview them about. in terms of the other names on the list, we know that sean

spicer sold the white house line that mike flynn didn't at all talk to the russians about sanctions. remember sean spicer said that mike flynn contacted the russian ambassador to offer his holiday greetings. of course it wasn't sanctions. so if the special counsel is starting to look at white house personnel who concocted misleading public statements intended to cover up real contacts with russians, then sean spicer may indeed be in the hot seat. and because we now know misleading comments were concocted by the white house to disguise the true nature of the trump tower russia meeting during the campaign, that may also explain why hope hicks and josh raffle are on the list of people the special counsel intends to interview. hope hicks and josh raffle, they were both reportedly on board air force one and they were both reportedly involved in the creation of the false statement that was released by the white house in the name of donald

trump jr. which tried to disguise the nature of that campaign meeting with all those russians. so, the white house has reportedly been told to hand over documents on the drafting of that false statement of the meeting at the trump tower and about the firing of james comey which was also apparently falsely explained by the white house and they've been reportedly asked to hand over documents about mike flynn which means maybe we will finally find out why the white house didn't care, didn't react, didn't even seem surprised by the news that the russians had compromised the most senior national security official in the new administration. incidentally, i should just mention that many of the false public statements about mike flynn and him leaving the white house, many of those false public statements were made by the vice-president, mike pence. so far we do not see mike pence's name on the list of people that robert mueller wants to interview at the white house.

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the west coast of the florida peninsula, a city of about 77,000 people. irma has been passing over cuba now and it tracked a little west of where it had previously been expected. apparently the implications of that for irma's florida track are such that, well, such that bill karins told us he just called his mom to let her know that on this new track or what appears to be this new track, her hometown of ft. myers may be looking at a storm surge there of six feet which is a very big deal. joining us now is the mayor of ft. myers, florida, randall henderson. mayor henderson, i know this is an incredibly difficult time. thanks for joining us. >> good evening, thank you. >> we're all watching these tracks of the storm both as it makes its way through the caribbean and the meteorologists' expectations about where it's going. what are you expecting in terms of the impact on your city? >> we are indeed bracing ourselves actually for a surge anywhere from 6 to 12 feet depending upon where irma

decides to veer more to the left or to the right. we're deeply concerned about it and we are going to experience in addition to that hurricane force winds. so we are definitely on a heightened sense of alert for sure and fully engaged in making sure our citizens are evacuated and if not from the city by going north at least into a nearby shelter. >> i know that ft. myers is about 75,000, 80,000 people. what would you say has been the success rate in terms of trying to get people to move out of harm's way and to get out of town? >> that's correct, i was just talking to a senior staff member a half-hour ago on that very question and we are estimating that about a third of that population has relocated, yes. >> two-thirds of the people in ft. myers still in town? >> that's correct. >> that storm surge that you're talking about, you say you're operating under the assumption that you could get 6 to 12 feet

of storm surge. obviously you don't like to tempt fate or focus on worst case scenarios but if you are going to get a 12-foot storm surge, can you tell us about what kind of damage that would mean in your city? >> i can and it's not rosie. we know storm surges take lives and even more so than wind. so it is serious business and it depends upon where we feel the storm come in. if we have a westerly exposure, for example, if the storm is pulling water from the west inwa inward, that's going to heighten our risk of storm surge. if it moves more from the east, then it's going to push the surf out. that's the continuous nature we find ourselves in. as we track this throughout tomorrow i'll be back in the

command center in the morning and that will be one of our first things that we want to confirm is just where this path is going to take us so we can hone in more on what the storm surge is going to be. the stormo be. >> and when you and public safety officials in ft. myers are making these decisions and making your own plans in terms of how you are going to handle this this weekend, are you confident that your command center that you've set up, that the other facilities you're going to be operating out of in terms of public safety and decision-making as the mayor, that you're going to be somewhere safe, that you're going to be in facilities that are going to be able to withstand what's coming? >> i am very confident in that. the question is appreciated. i was just going over that with my city manager again a half hour ago, making sure we were going to rendezvous together. our facilities, our emergency management facilities are extraordinarily robust. they can withstand a lot, and they're designed just for that.

so i'm less concerned about myself. i'm more concerned for citizens and making sure that we have them in fortified facilities, arenas, schools, facilities that can withstand this, and we've made a lot of progress in getting them there. and we'll continue that tomorrow and sunday. >> randall henderson, the mayor of ft. myers, florida. god bless you, sir. good look. it's goi please keep us apprised and let you know if you need help. thank you, sir. we'll be right back. stay with us. because each day she chooses to take the stairs. at work, at home... even on the escalator. that can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. scholl's orthotics. clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain, by reducing the shock and stress that travel up her body with every step she takes. so keep on climbing, sarah. you're killing it. dr. scholl's. born to move.

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last night we spoke with the mayor of fort lauder day, florida, as this city of 180,000 people started its final preparations for the landfall of hurricane irma. tonight as that storm gets closer and its course starts to become more clear, let's check back in. mayor, thank you very much for your time tonight. i really appreciate you joining us. >> thank you, rachel. >> given what we've seen over the last 24 hours, are you continuing to worry the most about the storm surge, about water in the streets? is the intense wind of this storm also something that you think has to be on the radar for ft. lauderdale? >> well, i think, you know, bill karins nailed it earlier at the start of your show. i mean when he explained is exactly what we've been talking about at the emergency operations center for hours. i think he correctly nailed it

really, saying this storm is so big, you know, it's so immense, so intense, that we're all going to feel something. but from where we were last night when i was talking to you to where we are tonight, we're looking at a substantial reduction in the wind from the wind that they're going to get on the west coast of florida. but who knows what happens after, you know, tonight? but you also, you know, you look at that storm surge, and god bless mayor henderson listening to him talk about that because that's exactly the issue that scared us last night because we're looking at a full moon, a seasonal high tide. the push, all those factors, the storm surge, and now the west coast of florida is looking at that exact same thing. we're going to keep them in our thoughts and prayers and try to figure out where this storm is going to go because this thing has been hanging around for four or five times. and when i saw your little part on barbuda, my heart goes out to the people in barbuda. how do you destroy a whole island? >> yeah.

mayor, as you look ahead to this weekend, you think about the kind of challenges you're about to face, do you feel confident that public safety and government communication is set up in such a way that the systems are in place, that the lines of communication are open, that you're at least going to be able to make the kinds of decisions you want to be able to make, that you know things are set up as best as they can be? >> absolutely. we've had a very long time to be able to get this set up. we've had three or four days as we talked about last night, and we're in place. i've been at the emergency operations center every single night this week, been communicating with state, federal, local government officials. so we feel very well prepared. we're still going to see a hurricane here in ft. lauderdale, but the difference is i don't think we're going to have the extent of the storm surge that we talked about last night. but i think we are ready. we are as well prepared as we can be. and we're still going to have a

heck of af weeke weekend here i ft. lauderdale trying to make sure we can respond to the needs of our neighbors and try to minimize the impact of this storm that because of its size, every single corner of the state as bill karins said is going to feel some of this hurricane. >> the mayor of ft. lauderdale florida, good luck to you, sir. keep us apprised. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. us. us. i write them a poem instead! and one for each of you too! that one's actually yours. that one. regardless, we're stuck with the bill. to many, words are the most valuable currency. last i checked, stores don't take "words." some do. not everyone can be the poetic voice of a generation. i know, right? such a burden. the bank of america mobile banking app. the fast, secure and simple way to send money. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view,

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