good evening. 1:00 a.m. on the east coast. msnbc world headquarters in new york, we are live, the fate of hurricane irma here. the eye of the hurricane irma is ready to cross the florida keys. we are bearing down on the arrival of this hurricane. it is going to turn north and expected to hit the florida keys before it hits other parts of florida. while it's a we' we are now reporting flooding has already begun in miami.

it could ultimately tick packbap to a massive category 4. florida has already ordered the v evacuation of 7 million of its residence. that makes this the largest evacuation in american history. residents still braces for whatever may come. we begin in fort myerseachn the west coast. what are you seeing? >> reporter: hey there, ari. right now it's pretty calm where we are, but we're seeing those outer bands come through. as the storm approaches, you kind of get the squalls through, the wind picks up, the rain picks up and then you do have these lulls where you don't have the w wind and rain and as the storm get closer, those get closer and

closer together until you're in the sustained wind and sustained rain. we're going to be looking at what forecasters are calling a catastrophic storm surge potentially in thissa area, between 10 and 15 feet in parts of southwest florida. that could be absolutely devastating. a lot of people here talking about that, worried about that. that was a big motivator for a lot of people i talked to that were evacuating. it's also such a flat area that that storm surge has nothing that's going to stop it so it could come up and go for potentially miles inland, if the storm hits at the right tide. so people are very aware that that could be dangerous. when we were out tonight, though, we still did see some people out on the road and we talked to a lot of people

earlier today who decided not to evacte, decided to ride it out. they thought they had been through other storms and they could do it. they said why go from my home to some or type of building, some other type of shelter. they thought that they would be just as safe as home. those are the people i'm most concerned about tonight, ari, those people who are in one-story homes in areas that flood even in the rain with this storm surge that could potentially come ashore. it's concerning. >> what's their backup plan if they're that low to the ground? >> reporter: that's a good question. i actually was shocked by the backup plans. one woman said she had blow-up mattresses that she could float

on. one man had a homemade boat, he said he was going to start loading his clothes into it tonight and then load that up and go and so hopefully that's sufficient. >> hmm, wow. kristen dahlgren, thank you again for your reporting and stay safe. we go back to meteorologist steve sausna. >> just know it will be squally here tonight. i do want to zoom you in to some of the heavier bands. we have some going on around north of miami. this caused the wind at the airport to gust over 50 miles per hour. again, it's these gusts that knock out the power.

50, 60, 70 mile-per-hour gusts will knock out your power in some neighborhoods. this is where the real intense parts of the storm are happening right now. we had a double eye wall instruct why are here and now i'm starting to see that inner eye wall decay and this outer eye wall is taking over. if that is truly the story here, this storm will then intensify. it means it's reorganized, it's gotten itself established again so that does concern me here now that we're looking at just one eye, that this can intensify because it has some very warm water between now and the florida keys. that's the new development is that new eye wall structure. take a look at this. hurricane warnings the entire state of florida.

as this storm parallels along the coast, that right front quadrant will be impacting much of the state and we have tropical storm warnings all the way up to the atlanta area. >> steve, i'm no meteorologist but let's play a little best case/worst case. >> all right. this thing is developing, reorganizing. we may have a category 4 storm. the hurricane center at 11 p.m. said it was looking a little disorganized, it wasn't getting its act together. in the matter of a couple of hours, it reorganized itself. it's the wobbles. does this wobble into one of these areas and hit one of the areas at a category 4.

>> how much of this is actual real world changes or how much of it is the difficulty in the model? >> this is typical with storm systems like this. the model can't totally handle the die naynamics going on at p here. that's why we're launching air balloons every six hours. we're trying to put as much data and new information, that's why we're sending the aircraft out there to sample this because this is a monster storm. a lot of times they tend to pilot themselves more than what the computer models allow in their outcomes. steve, thanks always for the expertise d context. >> we go back down to jack

soboro soboroff. what are you seeing? >> we did see a couple of big gusts of wind. i've been watching the forecast just like you guys have and to say that we could see 95, 98 mile-an-hour wind gusting here in naples tomorrow around 2 p.m. is an extraordinary thing to think about. but those two words that have been repeated over and over again this ewill probably affect in area and all of florida more than anything else is storm surge. it makes you think a lot about the planning that goes into communities like this. in cape coral where i was earlier today, i've continued to recount the story of going around with the firefighters there and thinking about the idea that that community was built in a time where people weren't thinking of climate change and weren't thinking of once in a hundred-year storms happening. almost every home of the 179,000 people out there has a canal

behind it so you can hop in a boat and have the convenience of that leisurely life. when you get that storm surge, it's going to come right to those home, maybe even over the first stories of those homes. it makes you terrified for the people i saw when i was driving down the street with the fire department who refused to leave. no doubt there aren't people who didn't have the resources to leave. but we met somebody who said they were going to drop anchor and sit anchored in their front yard in their boat. it is going to be terrifying in less than 24 hours from here. >> jacob soboroff, thank you and stay safe.

>> thanks, ari. >> coming up, we'll tell you about a group of people who wouldn't evacuate.

we're back to our live coverage, tracking this massive storm, florida in the crosshairs. now we go to maya rodriguez, who is in miami. what can you tell us? >> i can tell you just within

the last hours since we last spoke, conditions have calmed down considerably. it is still breezy out here but none of those gusts we've seen earlier. that was a bit differenthan what we saw earlier today. there was a lot of rain, a lot of wind. you've been hearing about some of the flooding. our nbc affiliate in miami mentioned there was about a foot of award on biscayne boulevard, on one of the main east/west roads. whether that is part of the storm surge, that's absolutely possible. we have not been down there to see that for ourselves. but that is something our affiliate here in miami was reporting. earlier we're out near key biscayne, we were talking to people who were miami residents who went out there to see the storm coming in, they wanted to take selfies and bring their families out there to take a

look at all this. this were bringing a sigh of relief because of that westward path irma seemed to be taking. they said we feel bad that the west coast seems to be getting more of an impact than we're going to see on the east coast but their feeling was our time will come eventually. they think maybe we don't get hit as badly as we thought we would with this particular storm but we know there will be another storm coming around the corner and that could be marked for us. >>milli >> millions evacuated for the storm. but for some --

>> reporter: for florida's most vulnerable, a new study shows evacuation could be more dangerous than hunkering down. for those who evacuate, doctors found double the rate of death and increased rates of being in the hospital. >> reporter: it especially risky for alzheimer's residents. more than half a million live in flchlt. >> if we can kind of keep the semblance of routine and order going, that's going to help. >> reporter: here at the miami jewish health complex, everybody, including staff, stays put through the storm. >> so it looks like you're

hunkered down here already. >> we are prepared for the long haul. >> reporter: they are stocked. they are hunk -- they sometimes their family. >> disaster expert lars anderson now joins us by phone -- excuse me, by video. it was going to be one or the other, mr. anderson. hi. you know how these things work and you understand the nuances, easy to judge from afar, we had folks talk about who is staying. we saw for some vulnerable communities it doesn't make sense to leave. walk us through your view on

this. >> for those of us who are not in the path of danger, it's hard of us to say or criticize the decision to evacuate. if legal officials tell you to evacuate, you should definitely evacuate. you've seen all night the size of the storm. >> in florida -- >> i think people are paying

attention to what their local officials say. i think over the years fema has taken lessons learned and applied those. there's more coverage now of these stms and the aftermath and people are taking these things seriously. and it seems in florida a lot of people have taken this seriously and sought shelter. >> i was speaking to one of our meteorologists about the modelling that goes into it and the unpredictable nature. whatever you want to call it, the media component or wide are cultural discussion can be pefr received as an overexpectation of what's to come. >> look what happened in the caribbean. hurricanes by their nature are

very unpredictable. with them comes tornadoes. you never know. the cone of uncertainty is called that for a reason, you really never know. decisions have to be made when it's clear skies outside. and based upon the modelling that they have, they have to make a decision. >> and that's a risk assess mme that's going to weigh the inconvenience with having deaths and worse. >> southwest florida bracing for hurricane irma's landfall. it is now estimated to come --

we can say this morning. it's 1:20 in the morning. this is a live picture in fort myers, florida. can you see some of the shaking, some of the wind there. up next we're going to talk to a man who cannot evacuate because of a newborn with special health challenges.

hurricane force winds now sweeping across the florida keys. experts say the storm beginning to turn north, would strike the keys and move on to hit others parts of florida crewing fort myers, naples, tampa and sayer so -- sarasota. the storm surge is expected to get as high as 15 feet. it is currently a category 3 hurricane, 120 mile-an-hour sustained winds. it could also particular back up to a category 4. that would be once it reaches the warm water of the florida keys. more than 170,000 people are already without power, a number that is expected to grow. some forecasts say it could pass a million households. this is now the largest evacuation in american history. under 7 million people under those orders from authorities to

evacuate the state of authority. mandatory evacuations now under way in parts of georgia as well. we have that story from savannah, georgia. >> got one more coming. >> reporter: thousands pack in buses headed inland. more than a half million people on the georgia coast under evacuation orders. >> mother nature got us. i'm out of here. >> reporter: locals understand the threat. many still rebuilding after a direct threat from hurricane matthew last year. >> it just destroyed the hardwood floors. it went all the way in like it was a swimming pool. >> colby and samson moved into their beach house last week. >> where you going? >> we don't know. we got to leave.

>> emergency declarations as far west as alabama, bracing for an increasingly unpredictable irma. >> ready for a vacation? >> i hope when we come back from vacation, i hope we still got a house. >> jacob rascon, nbc news, savannah georgia. >> thanks to jacob for that support. i want to bring in james lascano. he and his wife have a newborn baby with health issues that has affected how they're dealing with preparations for the storm. first of all, james, thank you for staying up late to join us. tell me about how your familiar lip's de family's dealing with this. >> thank you for having me on. last thursday my daughter was

born, a beautiful baby girl and she was born with jaundice. and if you're not familiar with that, that's something when the bilirubin count is too high in the blood. we had to make a lot of follow-up appointments with the doctor to make sure the counsel was going down. by the time we were done with th apintments, it was late thursday and friday, the roads were jammed and there was no gas to be found. at that point i had to make a decision do i take my newborn out on the road and take the risk of being caught on the road with her and my other two children and my wife or do i find shelter and, you know, kind of ride it out? >> james, first of all, congratulations and mazel tov, as we say, on the newborn. what's her name?

how much did she weigh? >> she's sara grace. she weighed 8 pounds. >> that's good, right? >> that's a good size, yeah. >> so then you have the situation, did you consult with the doctors about this? we've got all our weather experts, you've got the government authorities. what was the medical view on sort of the situation that you had to decide? >> so they essentially said that her count was a little high, it want dangerously high but it was a little high and the fact that her older brother also was born jaundiced put her in a high-risk category. that suggested that we needed to follow up daily on her bilirubin count. given what was happening, i could have ignored and taken a chance and gone out and maybe found a doctor days later. but that's a permanent decision if it goes wron so i made an executive decision

and figured i didn't want to not on risk her health but when these kind of things happen, the on thing more dangerous than mother nature is man. being out on the road at kid and maybe having to stay at a restaurant overnight, it didn't seem like something i wanted to do. >> i don't want to put you on the spot here, only answer what you want -- >> absolutely. >> how are you feeling now about the decision? >> i don't want to -- i mean, i don't want to diminish what's going to happen to our brothers and sisters over in southwest. i have to say i'm a little relieved that the storm is now banking westward. where we're located, we're kind of now out of that cone of uncertainty. so fortunately for me kind of worked out that decision.

i'm still praying for all those people in south florida and i hope it all works out. >> james loscano, thank you for sharing your story with us. >> thank you. >> want to bring in report are jul julia. how is it going there. >> good morning to you. winds really whipping things around. let me give you a look at this small community, just south of miami. this is basically the gate way to the keys, absolutely battered 25 years ago b hurricane andrew. we jt left or hotel, which is acting as a shelter and they're adding cables to the doors to hold them tight. there's a gas station here with a top that usually these pieces are among the first things to

go. you can often see them go flying. we've already got some water building up here, some standing water because this is a low-lying area and this is just the beginning of irma. it gives you an idea of just how susceptible this area is to flooding. receipt now it's a story of wind shaking thing up, getting to fierce levels just in the last hour that we've been out here. for a while some people were outside of our hotel, which is also our shelter that were taking a look at things but now they're getting ready to go inside because they know things are getting bad. just now, wow, it kind of picks receipt up and you feel the force of this. keep in mind, we're not expecting a direct hit from irma, but we are expecting damage. we've had tornado warnings, a funnel cloud started off the coast of miami and further north. i'm not sure if you can tell but it's certainly pushing against

us right now. in the next few minutes we're going to need to tack shelter again. difficult to see when pieces of debris may even be flying. that's what we are keeping our eyes out for now. absolutely no ones here on the street. we're being very careful. from time to time i'm seeing flashes usually of power going out. i saw that just a few minutes ago and i see another green flash over here. i'm going to send it back to you. we'll take shelter for a couple of minutes and see you again. >> we can see some of that intensifying. you're watching our special coverage of hurricane irma here live on msnbc.

it's about 1:36 a.m. on the east coast and our special live

coverage of hurricane irma continues. i want to bring in steven hobbs, a reporter from the "sun sent sentin sentinel" joining me by phone. what are you seeing now? >> we're seeing some trees and palm trees by the office. i think the biggest thing was a couple of tornadoes or one tornado at least that was spotted touched down a couple times in broward county where we were located. that was obviously disconcerting for a lot of the people here who were really waiting for the storm to hit, the continued rain and wind to hit that we're expecting to start tomorrow morning. >> we've talked to a lot of folks about the different preparations and people coming and going. what is your view to the general

response to the authorities' calls and evacuation zones? >> i think authorities took it very seriously and they asked for curfews very early to get people off the roads and make sure people weren't on the beach and looking at the storm as they were approaching. seems like they were taking it very seriously to clear people off in all areas of the county. i think people seem to be for the most part heeding those v evacuation calls and calls to stay inside. for the most part. >> what is your game plan for tomorrow? >> well, tomorrow we're expecting kind of the worst of the weather. obviously it looks like our southeast florida area is more fortunate as the forecast continues to push the storm west, but we're going to be

following things likes power outages and any types of issues of flooding. so we expect it to be a nasty storm with gusts potentially in the region 90, 100 miles an hour. some areas of flooding could get 20 inches. so we're expecting it to be kind of a nasty day we're going to have to keep tabs on throughout and really focus to see how people are able to withstand what still could be a very strong part of the storm. not necessarily the worst part but still a strong part of it. >> stephen hobbs, thank you for joining us and staying up late. we talked to a lot of local officials. now we talk to a federal official. representative demmings joins me now. thank you for staying up late. >> thank you, ari, for staying on top of this. >> what can you tell us?

>> i tell you what, i believe we have prepared as much as we can, possibly prepare at this pond. we're in a wait-and-see game right now. our emergency management personnel and first responders have been absolutely wonderful. i'm here in orlando and while we are confident the storm will not cut directly through the middle of the state as orj nayle will predicted, i am still saying anywhere from 10 to 14 inches of rain. i think that just gives you many of course for those cities the west coast the situation is much more dire. tampa, saint pete, foremeyers, which will probably take a direct hit. i know they've had to make some adjustments because the storm was not originally predebd to

hit that area but i know they're ready. >> how do you think governor scott and president trump and the other officials have done thus far? >> reporter: well, i tell you, having spent 27 years in law enforcement and really have worked when we -- it came through central flchlt, i have the opportunity ton friday to vote for the hurricane relief fund, which passed unanimously. pretty overwhelmingly in the house. and i believe that the in making sure that we have the resources we need, not just nor march have i but i believe we're going to be okay. >> finally, what is your outlook

for tomorrow? what do you think everyone sh expect tomorrow? >> tom is really tomorrow afternoon around 2:00, here in central florida, it probably the same prediction on the west coast as well and we already had and shelters are open. just think people who made the decision to stay home, were not in those mandatory first responders will be on the roadway making sure -- we do have an evacuation period that begins sunday evening at 6:00 through monday evening at 7:00.

so our first responders will be out there making sure that anybody who is on the road or people who part and just pray that more lives aren't lost and we can pin miz the property damage as a result of this storm. >> stunz. and all max sense as we pray for the ves

with all those mandatory evacuations in place, many are

still trying to find a safe place. gabe gutierrez has the story. >> the line wrapped around the buildings, the last scramble to seek shelter. >> are they going to let us inside? nobody is giving us information. they need to get the word out, hey, you guys are going to come in, we need to know. >> reporter: she can't help but think of her two grand kids. >> right now the des desperation sets in. >> reporter: if you can't get into the shelter, where are you going? >> i don't have anywhere to go. we don't have anywhere to go. >> reporter: evacuees from all walks of life. more than 6lion milvacuees in

the state. >> where we live is not safe at all and we got a mandatory evacuation to leave. >> this is probably our fifth stop. most of them were at capacity. >> some of our neighbors started leaving with their animals. they're just getting on the expressway heading north. i don't want to get stuck pause there's so many reportages no gas. >> reporter: but just hours later, the authorities close that shelter because the forecast got worse. other shelters are also overwhelmed. >> nobody is going get turned away but it is physically impossible to shelter the population. >> this is what is difficult, trying to get oxygen for her. >> reporter: did you ever expect the line would be this big? >> no, no, no. >> reporter: geno munoz said

she's fortunate in that she made it inside the arena with irma just hours away. >> now i want to turn the congresswoman who represents the u.s. virgin islands. thank you for joining us. what are you seeing and learning about the devastation there? >> thanks so much for having me. sorry, i'm losing my voice a little bit. i flew into st. thomas courtesy of the coast guard today. did a flyover of sant tt. thoma st. john. absolutely devastating t structures that are gone, hospitals that a compromised, government building roof is gone, police station, fire stations and also we have the real issue where the coast guard is trying to pull debris out of our ports so that the ships can come in so commercial boats, barges can come in, bringing

provisions from the other islands. there's quite a bit of desperation going on on st. john with people there. that island was hit extremely hard. wo we're trying to get search and rescue and others on to that island to support them. the good thing is that fema has been on the ground for some time before the storm working with our governor, working with our local emergency management agency and national guard and our police department are really trying to continue to get distributions together. but we've been hit pretty hard. as you're aware, irma passed almost directly on the north side of the island and while it was a category 5 so we had a tremendous amount of destruction here. >> and what are the top priorities for what your constituents need now? >> so right now it's getting

provisions to individuals, helping with temporary shelters, assessing the damage for moving debris. just to give you an idea, right now we have on the island of st. thomas 70% of our utilities infrastructure is gone. 100% on saint johns john's. we're looking at so while we have people in shelters, the shelters are operating on generators. if there are generators in those shelters, which means we have issues of getting fuel to them and fuel to keep things pump it makes it an ongoing challenge that our we underthat i had a

really tough time, i had to be very incest ent to even let a small plane with the coast guard put me done here on st. thomas. >> congresswoman, thank you and our thoughts and prayers are with you and your constituents. >> thank you. we just ask that we be remembered in this issue. we know that houston and areas of texas, louisiana have been hit. now a lot of focus will be on florida. we want people to remember that this is part of the united states. we were hit with category 5. our governor is doing a tremendous job working with fema and the president and cabinet be

been. >> don't forget the areas that are hit hard regardless, they may be if a away and and congressman now to an area that had your can. >> here we are obviously under that hurricane warning. the winds here we're seeing gusts come and going that prompted the sheriff's office not along go that because they have made the doo they are doing

that for their safety. they had been out there just trying to mack sure but the time has now come to flee, take safety for their own personal safety. yesterday, we saw that include as town difficult another guy found founding the free standing watch could be compromised.

now do you. >> we prchb prp we're actually coming to you from cape coral area. all night long we started to about frrn in fact, this tree mind he was swaying -- or the brchb es we'll have about 30 minutes of bad weather and then it starts to clear up. obviously all wm a a unique city.

it has lefrl hundred canals that run throughout the city. it's supposed to give boaters easy access to the gulf. so no matter where you live in the city, it allows you to get out there pretty quickly. the on problem is it going to contribute significantly to the storm surge threat. that's something people out here are watching very closely tonight. ari. >> all right, trent kelly, stay safe. that does it for my coverage but our live coverage continues after a quick break, continuing ahead with alex witt.

hey there, everyone. i'm alex here at msnbc headquarters. it is 2:00 a.m. in the east. 11:00 out west. you're watching special coverage of hurricane irma. irma is making her way towards the florida keys. winds up to 120 miles an hour and it very well could become stronger before making landfall on florida's west coast around sunday night but first we're tracking the storm's path. it is heading right towards the keys later on this