to get into where victims are located. you know, it could be another week, maybe two, you will be finding live victims who are in void spaces who are in spaces that are survivable. so it's absolutely critical that that rescue operation continue. the 40-hour mark is really just the beginning of this whole rescue operation. >> i misspoke, we're actually approaching closer to 46, 47 hours. mark, stick around. we'd like to talk to you later. that's going to do it for this hour. 2:00 p.m. here in the east, 1:00 p.m. in mexico city. if you've been watching you know that we are following breaking news. it is a race against the clock to save three children trapped under the rubble of their elementary school during this week's earthquake. search teams have located the children, among them a young girl who took refuge under a

table. their focus right now is just trying to get to them. and keeping them as safe as they can as they do. every few minutes or so crew members' arms go up. you can see their fists in the air. that's an immediate call for silence as they listen for the kids. >> reporter: they are call the school the miracle in the rubble. >> reporter: what they're trying to do is pull the debris off. but they have to do it so carefully, so delicately. >> reporter: the scene here got very intense, we've seen doctors go inside. asking for -- right now, there's oxygen tanks being rolled inside. >> when those fists go up, that means they're listen for something. >> reporter: there are three children underneath a table that have been communicating to first responders. >> is this a positive sign. this is the first time in the last hour we're seeing active drilling like that. >> as these fists go up, the

entire country, the world really, is looking at these images. >> let's go to msnbc's mariana atenc atencio. you spoke to a student who was trapped earlier in that school. talk to me about the progress being made. >> reporter: katy, the first thing i'll tell you is that those fists have gone up in the air a couple seconds ago, meaning that they need people here to be as quiet as possible because they're trying to communicate with those people trapped inside underneath the rubble, you see all of these first responders, firefighters, doctors with their hands up in the air. so, i can still talk to you, but i'll keep it to a whisper, i'm far away from the perimeter that we can do that. what we have seen in the past couple of hours is just this rescue effort grow more and more complex. instead of people bringing debris, beams out of the scene

which is what i saw earlier in the morning when i arrived here, what we're seeing now is all of these supplies being brought inside. it's almost as if they're building a structure to be able to create a wedge that is large enough to bring these three individuals to safety. we've seen them bring in beams. we've seen representatives from bimix, the mexican oil come company on the ground. we've seen them chop wood like in very specific shapes which leads to us believe they know kind of what they need in order to create this space to bring these three people out. so, that is the development i have for you on the ground here. these fists in the air we're experiencing now, they have come up at least two dozen times since 6:00 in the morning when i arrived here. we do know that the body of a teacher was pulled out in the early hours of the morning. there have been no rescues for the entire morning here. but they have been able to establish communication with at least three individuals,

believed to be children, who are trapped inside. and as you mentioned, katy, before i was able to speak to a mother and her young son who is a survivor. i was able to speak to teachers. so many people who are just starting to come to the ground here. to see if the family members and their friends will be among those rescued. >> they obviously know where the kids are, they're trapped. i want to know how are they able to get them oxygen tanks? how are they able to get them water ivs, phones, chocolate, if they can't actually physically get to the kids? >> reporter: we have seen all of those supplies make their way inside, the oxygen tanks. we have been told they've been given cell phones and chocolate by first responders. what we're able to see above when we got atop a third story building earlier this morning on

msnbc, is that they actually build this hole along one of the roofs. i mean, one of the buildings that was left pretty much flat. right over where that crane is hovering, that's where we believe this hole is located. and that's where we believe they've been able to hand them these supplies. but according to local media reports, also the way in which they gave one of these children water was through a hose, through one of these very small crevices. again, the hands still up, katy, meaning they're communicating. trying to communicate with the people underneath the rubble right now. >> and to let interviewers know, you're seeing on the left hand side of the screen, the images of the school. and on the other side of the screen, you're seeing rescues going on across mexico city. dozens the buildings were pancaked, and there have been more people trapped but we're

intensely focusing on the three kids trapped in that elementary school. and as you know, if you turned on the tv today, you've seen mariana speaking in spanish, getting as much information as she can. mariana, the mood there, is it getting more hopeful, less hopeful. obviously, as the hours go by there's more distress, more certain, but is there a sense that these crew workers, these rescue workers, are getting closer to the kids? >> reporter: i would say, yes, just because of the complexity of the rescue efforts that we've seen on the ground. again from very little activity when we got here of 6:00 in the morning to them actually building a structure to be able to reach these children. this huge crane that you see behind me, that was brought in in the morning as well. we've seen an increase of supplies, beams of people.

so, just judging from the activity, it looks like they are making progress. but as you can imagine, the mood here, it shifts very dramatically between hope and despair. especially when you speak to some of the survivors and teachers, students who might be those trapped inside. >> mariana, how old are the kids again? >> reporter: we were told by first responders that the kids range in age between 5 and 9 years old. two of the survivors we have spoken to today are 11 and 13 years old. so, the younger kids from what we know now are the ones that are believed to be trapped inside. >> mariana atencio, we're going to be checking back in with you throughout the hour. stick by there for us, mariana. joining me by known is marvin bethea, a paramedic from queenses that responded on 9/11. he was there when both towers

kol lan collapsed. i talked about when the towers collapsed and the health effects but i want to talk about when the towers came down. and what it was like to find survivors, obviously a very delicate situation. tell us what the process can be? >> well, the thing is, it's very delicate because the last thing you want to do is move something heavy and it just -- we had a bucket brigade, where we removed piece by piece by hand, you know, and this way, we were able to gently remove the debris and concrete that was there. and certain areas, you had to bring in construction equipment to do it. but you want to be very delicate, the last thing you don't want something to shift and kill the person, you know. when that collapsed, we were all

like, this is unbelievable. and we have to move -- i know we had one fireman who we treated because his eyes were burning. and his eyes kept on burning. so, we flushed his eyes out and gave him special eye drops that we carry. you know, going to take him to the hospital, no i got to find my brother firemen. so the fire equipment -- because the firemen when they get in trouble, they had these alarms that were going off. and they constantly kept going off. and they just made it sound -- you knew they were still there. one thing that surprises me about mexico, i don't see that many dogs. i don't see one dog. i was watching all morning and this early afternoon. >> and the dogs can really help to sniff out where the human life might be, right? >> right, exactly. and i think they need more dogs.

because of the three kids that are trapped, you know, we know that they are alive. they got reserves, they have to be very careful about how you remove things. you don't want nothing to collapse on them, you know. >> of course, of course. marvin bethea, thank you for joining us. marvin good to hear your voice. >> good to hear you too, katy. >> and now is medical correspondent dr. john torres. dr. john, thank you for joining us. i want to talk about the real concerns about the health of the kids down there. they've been trapped now for almost 48 hours. this earthquake happened during this show two days ago. they're presumably in a pretty tight space. what are first responders, what are paramedics concerned about right now? >> paramedics, definitely, katy, are racing against the clock. one of the things you have to

worry about is being dehydrated. people can live a few days without getting food. that's why they're putting tubes down there. dehydration affects the whole body but more fortunately in this case, because they're lying still, they might be trapped under the rubble where the rubble is crushing against them. the muscles start breaking down, and when they start breaking down that can be a deadly condition that can actually kill them and you counter that by giving fluids. if they don't give fluids, as time goes on it gets more desperate. that's why you see them doing this race against the clock. >> and why chocolate, doctor? >> same thing, you want to make sure, one, hydration is important. two, trying to keep that blood sugar level up. they can last for days without food. the moral you can give him, the better off it is. and kids like chocolate, too. i think trying to give them a little piece of something that will give them hope.

i'm getting food, water, the rescuers are almost here. it's important that children or anybody trapped keep that hope going. as you imagine, they're in a very bad situation. they need to do what they can to try and survivor. >> what about the shock? is shock a real concern as time passes? 48 hours is a long time, long time to be trapped in a small space? >> it's a very little time. and there's two different kinds of shock that we need to talk about, one is the psychological shock of it happening. obviously, that's a bad thing but more importantly is the body shock itself. and that shock is when the body starts slowing down and the body flow stops going to the organs and they start dying. once they start dying, the person is in danger of dying, too. it's important that they keep them hydrated and fed. but more importantly, that they get them as soon as they can. we've all seen the survival situations where people survive

a week, ten days later. but each day, each hour, each minute, the risk goes up much, much more. >> how much more time do you think they have to get to these kids? >> it depends on their situation, if they're in an environment where they're trapped but they can move around a little bit, there's nothing pressing against them. they're not having any pressure against their body. they can last for days. if on the other hand, like in oakland when they had the bridges collapse because of the earthquake, that is a situation where people end up dying a lot quicker, again, because of the breakdown of the muscles in your body. and a lot of times what rescue workers will do, they'll shore it up enough to crawl in there start hydration with iv and stay that way until they can unload the material. again, the hydration is extremely, extremely important. >> i said it yesterday, i'm going to say it again today it is remarkable that a building that houses children that has a

school was not reinforced. at least reinforced successfully enough to withstand an earthquake, especially in this part of the world where earthquakes are common. dr. john torres, thank you very much. we're going to keep an eye on this story, obviously throughout the hour. we're going to check back in with mariana in another few minutes. another disaster we're watching, puerto rico in the aftermath of hurricane maria. the hour is out virtually on the whole island. millions do not have food or water. and now it's headed to tuesday and caicocaicos. taimi lightner rode out the storm. there's cleerarly a little bit flooding? >> absolutely, katy, we're in the via palmaries neighborhood. there's one, two, three -- cars,

we've seen people coming out of their homes all afternoon and having had to wade through knee-deep water. they don't have food. they had food delivered. this family here was telling me that they completely lost the top story of their home because it blew off. and pretty much every single house in this neighborhood has some type of damage, whether it's trees down. a roof that's been risked away. and this is the scary part, katy, every single neighborhood out here in puerto rico has some type of damage. this neighborhood is not an anomaly, this is the norm here. so, the scary part is how many people are still out there needing medical care. how many people are in remote areas that we haven't gotten to yet. >> what is the biggest challenge. option the entire island is without power. do they have enough rescue

workers. do they have enough people to try and fix at the very least the infrastructure problems? what is the expectation for how long they're going to be in the dark? >> reporter: two big challenges. first one is communication. we're hearing from rescue workers they're not even getting alerted as to where people are trapped because the communication is down. as you know, power is out 100% across puerto rico. the only people that have power are people that have generators and that's usually hotels. so, that's the biggest problem. the second problem is, the flooding here. most of the roads are washed away in some of the remote areas. so rescue workers are unable to drive there. that's why the national guard has brought in rescue workers. that's why the military has brought in helicopters today. they're going to use that to get to the remote areas. hopefully, we'll hear about people getting saved from area. >> nbc's tammy litener in puerto rico.

coming up later, the science behind earthquakes. that disaster we're following is the united states ready for a major quake like the one we saw in mexico? bill nye joins me in a few minute. >> but first, breaking news on north korea. the president just announced new sanctions. stay with us. what is scary? pneumococcal pneumonia. it's a serious disease. my doctor said the risk is greater now that i'm over 50! yeah...ya-ha... just one dose of the prevnar 13® vaccine can help protect you from pneumococcal pneumonia- an illness that can cause coughing, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and may even put you in the hospital. prevnar 13® is approved for adults 18 and older to help prevent infections from 13 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. you should not receive prevnar 13® if you have had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients. if you have a weakened immune system, you may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects were pain, redness,

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president trump is racheting up the pressure on north korea during a meeting with leaders in japan and south korea, the president announced he signed a

new executive order that targets banks, companies and individuals, that finance and facilitate trade with north korea. in another significant move, the president said china told its central bank to stop doing business with the north. >> -- provides us with powerful new tools, but i want to be clear, the order targets only one country, and that country is north korea. the regime can no longer count on others to facilitate its trade and banking activities. >> that move comes two days after the president threatened it provoked to totally north korea. today, the country's foreign minister slapped back, he said the president's words were just the sound of a dog barking. joining us now nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker at trump tower. and from washington, jordan

chang, a daily beast communist and author. kristen, nice to see you, what more do we know about these sanctions? >> katy, good to see you. these are some of the toughest sanctions that have been enacted under the trump administration yet. the president announced that businesses and individuals who do business with north korea will be sanctioned. and then as you pointed out, and you can't underscore this enough, the importance of the fact that he said china's bank had also said it was going to stop doing business with north korea. why is china important? why is this such an important part of the equation? the president has been preferring the leader to crack down on north korea. they have done so in fits and starts but is this a significant move. and one that analysts believe could actually have an impact. china is north korea's largest trading partner so this sends a very strong message. katy, the optics of today, the president showing a united

front. he made that announcement flanked by the leaders of china and japan, that is their closest allies. really showing a sign there's pressure on north korea do decrease and stop its nuclear provocations. now, this comes after another round of sanctions by the united nations. you'll recall that president trump said that last round of sanctions really didn't go far enough. this is a president that is taking action rather than saber rattling as you pointed out earlier in the week. we have tough talk and analysts saying that tough talk is not creating results. they believe the sanctions could actually make some movement convincing north korea to stop what has been an escalation of its nuclear program. >> make them feel the pain, not just shot them down. gordon, i want to talk about

this, kristen just talking about china saying not to do any trade or business with north korea. there's a sense that china does make moves toward things that would impact north korea heavily. but they don't always stick to them for long. is this different? >> i think that this actually could be different. if the united states will continue the pressure on china. about a year ago, we saw chinese banks drop their north korean accounts. but they went back to doing business with the north koreans because the u.s. really didn't pay that much attention. what we have right now, i think it's something different. because we have president xi jinping saying that he's ordered the people's bank of china, the central bank, to order the banks to get out of the business. and i think that the united states, as long as it continues the pressure on china, will make sure that the chinese don't back slide. this is important because the chinese banks have been north korea's conduit to the world. that's how they get their money.

and that's how they pay for materials for their ballistic missiles and nuke programs. >> what struck me about that sucti sanction was the word "individuals"? >> well, individuals are important but they're going after the enterprises and the financial institutions. because we have the largest of the chinaese banks, especially the bank of china named in the 2016 report and perhaps the larger chinese banks also cleaning up the cash flow. this has got to stop and i'm sure that secretary/treasurer ma nu mnuchin is going to do early he possibly can. >> look, it's take-away from the entire day, katy, is that the president still wants to give diplomacy a chance. that is still, based on the calculation of those within the administration, the best chance to get north korea to back down.

and the reality, of course, is what we've been talking about for weeks and months, the military options are few. and there are really no really good military options. now, we're going to get a briefing, i'm here in the press briefing room. you can probably see the podium behind me by the treasury secretary as well as u.n. ambassador nikki haley. we'll have a chance to ask them about all of this, including what next steps might look like and why diplomacy continues to be the best chance of pressuring north korea, katy. >> nbc's kristen welker and daily beast author gordon chang, thank you for being here. back to mexico where three children are trapped in the rubble of their school. and we have bill nye to understand the science of earthquakes and whether we're ready for the next big one here at home. for your heart...

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back to that 7.1 earthquake in mexico. crews are trying to reach three kids buried in rubble.

they've been buried for 48 hours. rescuers gave them phones, water and chocolate. they're trying to keep them alive and as comfortable as they possibly can while they try to reach them. the earthquake pancaked dozens of other buildings in mexico, officials say at least 230 people have died. let's go back to nbc's mariana atencio. she's been at that school all day long. mariana, you're talking to a rescue worker? >> reporter: yes, katy, because i wanted to show you the scene right now, it's been completely changed within the past hour or so. as i mentioned to you before, instead of bringing debris and bringing wood and debris out of the scene, there actually have been dozens of people bringing wooden beams inside. bringing all sorts of supplies because they are now, we know, building some sort of structure for the building or to be able to rescue some of the survivors. and as soon as they start coming

this way with the supplies. i'll make sure to point it to you. i want to introduce you to christian, christian is a rescue worker. you're actually from los angeles. you volunteered to come here. you have been inside and we haven't. what is the scene like inside and what's going on? >> well, it's really bad, though. it's really bad. there are a lot of iron workers. a lot of carpenters, a lot of plumbers. >> reporter: so very specialized individuals here. >> yes, electricians. and they all work together with the mexican marine corps to bring these people out of there. >> reporter: why do they need some specialized people -- it looks like -- look at the image behind you, they're builds something sort of structure, what's happening? >> okay, they're building such a scene because they are feeling that the building might collapse because it's in a really bad situation. they are working together as hard, as fast as they can, because this is the third day that the kids are inside there. and they want to bring them out

alive. >> reporter: so, katy, specialized individuals to build some sort of structure to prevent this building from collapsing. you see people bringing supplies behind me. for first aid workers. chr christian, i want to go back to what you said, this building is very unstable condition, evidently. but there are children inside. what are people saying about the lives of those people inside, can you give us more clarity on that? >> yeah, they haven't provided more details but one of the little kids have a cell phone with her. she's been texting with exterior. she's been saying besides her there are four more kids that they still alive. >> reporter: so, from what you were able to hear inside, there's the one child that has a cell phone and she's saying there are four additional children in there, is that correct? >> correct. >> reporter: so, we're talking possibly, according to christian there, what he heard, five

people inside the building right now. are there any more that you know of? >> as far as i know, there are only five kids in there. >> reporter: and i know that they built some sort of hole in the ground to be able to reach them, you can tell us about that? >> yes, because so far, it's a three-story building and the third floor, it collapsed all the way to the ground. so basically, they're digging deep and sending in the tiniest people to try to bring those kids out of there as soon as possible. >> reporter: katy, what we're learning from christian here, there are possibly, possibly five children trapped inside the building, now that they have been able to communicate with them. you're seeing all of these supplies being brought in here. to build some sort of structure, to prevent this building from collapsing, and as far as condition knows, nobody else, according to him is inside but these five children. >> mariana that is enough to give this country and the entire world -- let's believe it was three kids.

they think they found two others? >> reporter: so, according to christian, and christian, this is what you heard inside, is that one child was texting, and she said, what, can you just clarify that for us? >> she confirmed that four more kids were still alive with her. >> wow. >> reporter: katy, this is the first we're hearing it. we will make sure that nbc confirms this information, but hearing from christian here who was just inside, it looks like, looks like there could be more than three. >> can we hear the children? i know they're getting text messages from them, but can they actually get close enough to hear the children? >> reporter: so, i are have to whisper now because the fists are raised up in the air to be able to communicate with them. christian i should ask them. >> mariana, don't worry about it, stay quiet as well. we'll come back to you as well.

we'd like to hear the children very obviously. mariana, thank you. going to mark ghilarducci, he joins us, from services of emergency services in california. he's in sacramento. thank you for joining us, director. you helped us after the oklahoma city bombing, after that building was especially pancaked, what goes through your mind -- blown apart, really, when you see images of this school and you hear what is happening there? >> well, clearly, is this a catastrophic event and the size and impact and scale of this event makes it challenging for the rescuers. it's not surprising to me that we're hearing about the children that are still alive in the building. we're really early on in the rescue operation of something of this kind of magnitude. and there's a lot of survivable

spaces when you've got building collapses like this, as a result of an earthquake. the fact that there are kids that are live, if they're texting or calling or making noise is a great sign. now, the challenge is to be able to get into where they're located. and to do that is to having to basically rebuild the structure and integrity of that building. as they move forward, as they're removing debris, cutting through rebar, cutting through concrete and building the stability into that building. what they don't want to do is get a secondary collapse of the building. you have to remember, there are aftershocks taking place and that building could rock. in its current condition, if it's not stabilized appropriately could collapse fully on to the rescuers or kill the victims that are there. so, it's very -- it's like a surgical separation, very carefully moving step-by-step, it could take hours to be able to get to all of these folks

that are trapped in these buildings. >> mariana was talking to a rescue worker, people, he was saying the people in there are highly specialized. there's plumbers, electricians, obviously builders in there. talk to me why you need such a variety of folks with that sort of expertise? >> well, look, these are the folks that actually build buildings, i mean, they know it's inside and outs of the kinds of structures. and so, they provide, to the rescue teams, a level of expertise that will ensure that the rescuers have the best pathway moving forward. engineers are going to be critical. being able to determine the stability. remember that when these buildings come down, there are electrical lines. there are plumbing lines. water is maybe pouring through. all of these technical trade specialists are very critical. these labor teams, to come in and help to find the best solution to be able to get to

where the victims are located. so, it's really a one-team, one-fight effort, with all of these different specialties coming together. ultimately working with the rescue teams to get to where the victims are located. >> mark ghilarducci, thank you very much for joining us, sir. >> happy to be here. >> joining us from los angeles is bill nye, a man who needs no introduction, usually. bill, thank you for joining us. we want to talk about storms as well that's the other natural disaster that we're dealing with and following out of puerto rico. first with the earthquake, we've seen pretty strong earthquakes in the last few weeks. over 8 on the richter scale a few weeks ago, and now this one 7.1 in mexico city. is it unusual to see such strong earthquakes in such short a period of time in a relatively small vicinity? >> i would say no, shooting from

the hip. there are about a thousand earthquakes around the world, if you're a psychic, i hope you can predict an earthquake. there are several a day. what's unusual about these. i'm an old seattleite, i'm in los angeles right now. we live on the so-called ring of fire. this is around the pacific ocean. it's a system of tectonic plates that interacts with each other and cause a lot of earthquakes. but these two seem to be the settling or the cracking or foughting of a single plate, or maybe whatever the so-called micro plate next to a regular large-size plate. that are causing these very deep earthquakes. and what's unusual about them, there's many things, but what's unusual about them, there's hardly any aftershocks. and so, that's a good thing. but where for me -- as an engineer, where this, these earthquakes and all of the rescue efforts that are being

put into this, that would be fantastic to get these if there are five girls out of there, fantastic. >> no doubt about that. >> -- but where they're connected are the buildings. when you have buildings that are not earthquake reresistant, whe you have buildings that can't withstand winds, it's catastrophic. but it's also costing somebody billions of pesos, what you have to think, these are times to take care of these people. it's not the time we have to rescue these children, if not now, when? >> yeah. >> to me, these things are connected to a point of view, the idea that government should be shrunk as small as possible and taxes should be cut as much as they possibly can be cut, i'm sympathetic to that view. but this requires infrastructure

that's in the public interest. these are public works. schools, electricity. sewer systems. water systems. these are for the public good. and so if we're not going to talk about these things right now, when are we going to talk about them, because they're causing hardship and costing money. >> bill, mexico city is built on a lake bed, sand, especially, that sand liquefies when an earthquake hits. i'm from los angeles. i saw what happened to santa monica after the north ridge quake. it looked a lot like some portions of mexico city. some buildings were mandatorily reinforced after that. you mentioned that but there are also buildings in the interior. country. do you think that here in the united states, we're prepared for the next big one? >> the answer is a clear -- maybe. this is to say, for example, in states that are producing oil

right now, oklahoma, kansas, in the midwest, in wyoming, people are fracking. when my uncle was a geologist, they would drop explosives straight down and fracture or frac the rocks, directly below the wellhead. where you drill into the earth. but now, people are able to drill sideways with technology that's been developed to go at very high angles, north, south, east and west. and people are doing fracking with such aggression and so successfully, that they're actually earthquakes now in oklahoma. so, you could say, well, oklahoma's buildings are not designed for earthquakes, and that's true. but oklahoma has all sorts of other preparedness with respect to tornadoes. so, maybe people will deal with a large earthquake in that area, in the same way they deal with tornadoes. but for me, as an engineer, wouldn't that be good if we

anticipated all of that. and wouldn't it be good if we produced electricity renewably without having to cause earthquakes and otherwise geologically stable middle of the continent? >> yeah, that would be nice. bill, it's not just earthquakes. there's fires. there's tornados as you mentioned. and there's also hurricanes. and we're seeing an uptick in the frequency of hurricanes, this hurricane season at least. certainly, the power of these storms they're going from a c s category 1 to a category 3 or 4 in a short period of time. to strengthen that much. to your point, what is contributing to this and how do we prepare? >> i know what you want me to say and i'll say it, it's climate change, there. >> the dirty two words that nobody wants to talk about, climate change, obviously. >> once in a while your own al roker will slip it in. as the ocean gets warmer,

especially the gulf of mexico. now, the north atlantic, north of the equator, as it gets warmer, the storms are more powerful. it's interesting to note that katrina which was a diaster when it came ashore was only, only, category 3. keep in mind, the categories are pretty much arbitrary. it's a combination of civil engineering and meteorology. you know, there's a civil engineer, safir, who gave thought to buildings and realized there was information there. when you go to a hurricane zone and realize the buildings that are destroyed or not destroyed or damaged to learn where the winds are and are largely built on the strength of the wind. keep in mind it goes as the square of the speed of the air, the speed of the wind. so when you increase the wind speed 10%, you're increasing the energy in the wind 21%. or what you have.

so, as -- as the ocean gets warmer, it's doing two things. it's fuelling -- fuelling is a term of art. it's enabling the hurricanes to be stronger. and it's also making the ocean get bigger and this gets into this expression "sea level ri . rise." when it hits houston, it's already higher. and then when there's a storm surge caused by the thinning of the atmosphere and lower pressure in the ocean, the ocean pulls up and the wind blow ashore. the fetch, blows ashore. and it drops rain for days. so the water's coming this way and this way. >> yeah. >> so, we could run in circles screaming but that has not proven very effective. instead, i hope we all acknowledge that we have to redesign our cities, think in the big picture. put our power lines in a secure

fashion. usually underground. establish subsidence zones for sewers and water supplies and of course have evacuation procedures. and the big thing in houston is the so-called hard scape, where the city expanded and a lot of places got paved over and the water didn't have anywhere to go. er oh, as an engineer, it's frustrating. >> and realizing every dollar you spend in preparation for storms like this in making cities more able to withstand storms like this, you save $4 in the rebuilding process after the storm comes. that's an important stat that i don't think we can say enough. bill nye, i want to have you on every single day to talk about it. i just do not think we talk about it enough. please answer our calls when we call you. >> thank you, katy, yes. >> good to see you. next up -- the other big news that's coming outside of the world and the country today, lots of new details in the russia probe.

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over the past 24 hours we've gotten a lot of new information on robert mueller's special counsel investigation. here's what we've learned-did she say first the "new york times" reveals mueller requested documents from the white house and wants details behind the firings of michael flynn and james comey. it is the first indication that mueller's probe could now zero in on the president and his actions in office. next, the "washington post" has details on e-mails from former trump campaign manager paul manafort. why was he offering "private briefings on the campaign" to a russian billionaire linked to the kremlin. and this, axiest calls it a potentially honey pot, taking copious notes, his penchant. a deep dive into all of this. national security reporter ken delanian and white house reporter for the "washington

post" ashley parker. ken, bob mueller asked for 13 documents. four relating to michael flynn. three relating to comey's firing. what about those other six? >> these are sets of documents, katy. one refers to that june 2016 trump tower meeting between a russian lawyer and the president's son and mueller is asking for all sorts of documents relating to the white house response to journalists inquiries about that meeting, because as you recall, president trump himself deck taictated why believe it a misleading statement on his son's behalf, the initial contents of that meeting. in general seems that mueller is zeroing in on the president's state of mind. looking for documents and evidence that show what was trump thinking when certain things were said, and whether he was trying to mislead investigators or the american people. the reason that is significant, obstruction of justice is a crime of intent. in order to prove that crime, prosecutors have to show the

defendant meant to obstruct, not just that his actions obstructed. that seems to be what mueller is zeroing in on here, katy. >> how's the white house reacting, ashley? >> not well. at least i they would prefer this isn't happening for a number of quite obvious reasons, but one is even lower-level, midlevel staffers, it occupies a lot of their attention and anxiety and this is a week obviously they should be focusing on health care, for instance, and coming up, tax reform. a portion of them all preparing for even if they did not rog and have nothing to hide, and if that's true in the case for many of them, that they're preparing to be called in by mueller and his investigators. they're wondering do they need a lawyer on a government salary? a real issue for them. and for the president himself you know, russia san issue he sort of is obsessed with. even on the best of days. when you have these spate of stories and the investigation is moving forward, there's always the risk that as much as general

kelly is coming in and trying to help control the president, that it's going to upset the president in a way that manifests itself in a tweet or a rash statement or even potentially an action that could then become something else for mueller to investigate. >> we don't have a lot of times but i want to get through the questions quicklyashl. talk to me about shean spiean sd how concerned that he took such copious notes . >> reporter: i flashed back to a meeting with sean way notebook in front of him. not only taking notes but able to recall notes from different days because his notetaking from my outside persecutive was painstaking and quite copious. you know, that's just know piece, potentially of evidence for mueller to look at. >> in all of those very high-level meetings.

certainly involved on air force one when they were drafting that don junior statement. >> reporter: on air force one. my understanding, not part of those discussions but mueller is zeroing in on but on the plane and a heads up this was happening. >> reporter: ken, paul manafort. news about the e-mails that he sent to a kremlin-linked billionaire or about a kremlin-linked billion mayor to russi billionaire to russia. "washington post" broke the story. how significant is that? >> really significant, katy. because he's a russian billionaire with close ties to vladimir putin. saying he's one of the two or three oleguards putin talks with regularly. this goes back to 2007 and these e-mails reported on yesterday show that during the campaign two weeks before donald trump was named republican nominee,

manafort was offering to conduct a private briefing for dareposca to make money. no evidence the briefing took place but yet another example -- >> and in washington and washington white house reporter and msnbc political analyst ashley parker, and thank you both. back to breaking news. as we track hurricane maria's movement, at this hour, category 3 storm is off the coast of the dominican republic expected to hit caicos and turks and part of the bahamas tomorrow. meanwhile, officials in puerto rico are just beginning to assess the damage left behind when the storm made landfall there, damaging buildings, brought down trees and knocked out out power to the u.s. pert. florida macdill air force base sent its first plane this morning. at that base in tampa, what sort of help will they be providing,

hans? >> reporter: katy, preparing to stage. at macdill air force base. the planes behind me are refueling, they could be involved. the initial flight didn't quite make it. scheduled to leave any moment and they want to figure out how bad the damage is. you have navy assets, marine assets, taking a look. trying to assess what the military needs and what they can do. the pilot that's going to fly that plane leaving in a moment, colonel justin nieder. if you can join me now, colonel, about to take off on this c-130. >> we should have gotten out this morning, a maintenance issue. assessing the requirements required of st. croix, receive payments, get them prepared for air shipment back to the united states and continue on to st. thomas. my team and i, eight members, doing assessment making sure the area is good for large aircraft and getting aid into the people

in need on the island. >> reporter: worried about the air strip at all ? making sure it's safe to land. >> they're looking at that. we were there a week ago after irma. the runway then was in good condition. we're concerned about debris around the runway, environment that could come loose and get airborne with movement of aircraft on the field. concern for people on the ground, but that's why we're going in. >> reporter: best of luck to you. katy, back to you. we'll try to get on the plane and see what is happening and how bad that damage is down there on the islands as well, puerto rico. >> good luck, hance nichols, foll hans nichols. for the latest what's happening in mexico city, over to ali velshi. >> what a day and what a story playing out. >> i cannot get over the fact seems buildings in mexico, even

though on a fault line, know they are susceptible because they are built on sand, even though they had an anniversary of the 1985 quake, they were doing earthquake drills, despite that a school can collapse in that way. cannot believe it. >> 7.1 quake and thankful those kids knew to get under a -- >> should be able to withstand a 7.1 quake if reinforceds correctly. obviously california hasn't seen one since the north ridge quake but made a lot of are mandatory improvements. >> these are the times you find out whether it's true. more buildings have fallen than should have. we'll stay on that story and watching rescues. a very, very busy afternoon not just in mexico but for now, all eyes on mexico city, because there is hope that rescuers can save now what we know to be five young children reportedly trapped inside the rubble of