hello, i'm ali velshi. our coverage of hurricane dorian continues. dorian is now a category 4 storm. it's got winds of up to 140 miles an hour. despite the downgrade from a category 5, don't let that confuse you. this storm is deadly and expected to being deadly as it creeps toward the southeastern u.s. coast. right now the storm is stalling over the bahamas, literally, hardly moving, ripping apart the region with catastrophic

flooding, unprecedented damage, at least five confirmed dead. the damage is so widespread, we don't have a full picture of what things looking in the bahamas. meanwhile, millions of residents under a mandatory evacuation order. bridges in florida are set to close at midnight in anticipation of the storm. fema urging residents in those areas, stay vigilant, prepare for the worst. nbc news meteorologist bill karen is with me now. this is unusual in its behavior. it's moving a mile an hour. we're normally used to seeing a pattern. >> we're waiting for them and now we're waiting for it to move. >> so unusual. >> yeah. having a category 5 forestall in one area. >> if you happen to be in that area, that's really serious. >> we've had them stall, but stall over land? we hear these stories, it's going to be -- they're going to need so much help.

i hope there's a ton of resources positioned and ready to go in. >> tell me what's going on. >> obviously stationary, as we would say. that hasn't changed. the winds have ticked down, 140 is a whole lot better than 185, which it peaked at. we would like to get that lower. the reason it's weakening, that's the warmest water you can get in the bahamas. it can be up in the mid-80s. but when the storm is over the same spot long enough, there's the 185-mile-per-hour winds we had, it churns the ocean. the hottest water is on the top. if you go swimming in a lake, the warmest water is at the top. the same thing in the ocean. when it sits over the same spot long enough, it churns the water and the bath waters gets cooler and cooler, and the ocean water is the fuel for these storms. it doesn't look at impressive as six hours ago. when it pulls away, it will go back over warm water and the gulf stream, it can maintain

itself a little bit better. we would like to see it as weak as possible when it goes off the coast. the hurricane center has it going 140 now. a couple hours from now, about 130. then you notice the weakening kind of stops and goes into a steady state because it's over the warm water once again. you know, what has been horrendous, horrific for the bahamas, could possibly bring a weaker system up to areas, especially in the carolinas. i believe we are far enough off the florida coast and we have enough confidence at this point we're not going to see a lot of wind damage in florida or heavy rain in florida. we will be watching the storm surge. further up the coast, that's where we have a chance of wind damage from norfolk to wilmington, all the way to myrtle beach, grand strand area down to charleston. that's why we have a chance of strong winds up there. if we can get to the right side of that track, you could be as

fortunate as the people in florida. i've been showing this graph. people want to get an idea of just how bad it will be. for the bahamas, this would be historic, historic, historic. we're talking florida, compared to all other hurricanes, when we're all said and done, i think most people away from the water will say that was a pretty minor event. >> this is a tough one because usually when you know it's barreling towards you, you make decisions, stay or go. but this is a weird one because every one of these new reports that comes out from the hurricane center, you're waiting for a change. >> there hasn't been much. they have done an excellent job. they predicted the stall in the bahamas, and then they had the forecast -- i think it was like three days ago it was into south florida, west palm beach. once that changed off the coast, it has never gone back. >> right. >> but the emergency managers still have to prepare for it just in case. you have to err on the side of caution no matter what. >> i went down there on saturday. i was in orlando and i drove up

to there were those trucks that come zblodown. >> the convoys. >> everybody is ready for whatever happens. we would love it if nobody is needed. >> if it's a minor impact through the u.s. and we can focus our attention on helping the bahamas, that would be fantastic. >> kind of amazing that on the map you showed, cape cod, nantucket aren't even in there after a few days. >> people have been asking, interest in those areas. by the time it got up there, it would be a nor'easter-type storm. it could bring gusty winds and heavy rain. we'll watch that. but that would be friday, saturday. we have plenty of time. >> bill, thank you. lets go to savannah. catie beck is standing by. when i left savannah yesterday, there was some sense that they had been preparing for it. there were people from florida who had gone to savannah to ride it out. they weren't sure what was going on. bill shows us that savannah is still within the cone of uncertainty.

how does it feel down there? >> reporter: when you were here, there was probably still some amount of, you know, should we stay or should we go? i would say that uncertainty has left the building after the mandatory evacuations today. savannah is sort of a ghost town right now. i'm in the historic district right along the river front. i'm sure you're familiar with this area. this is equivalent to bourbon street in new orleans. this is the party area where people would be if they're going out at night. we're seeing sandbags and hotels completely closed along the river front. asking their guest to evacuate. we were evacuated from one hotel and had to find roomz in another. it's almost eerie because this is normally a place that is so lively at night. lots of people, lots of activity, hotels, restaurants, bars. right now all closed, all dark, have been all evening long. and sandbags at the door. all these bars and restaurants along here preparing for what

they could see, what could be coming, which for this area is mostly a flooding concern. this is low-lying land here, and typically when hurricanes come to this area, that is what they face the most, is that storm surge that could leave residual flooding and put these businesses under water. they are peeped fogr that. we have the civic center open for people who didn't have anywhere to go. tomorrow night at 9:30, the governor said there's going to be a curfew here in savannah. they are taking matters seriously. the hotels and businesses are shouting down, perhaps when you were here, when i was here yesterday during labor day, there were people at the pool make the most of their holiday, trying to get the last of the sunshine. >> that's right. >> those folks are gone. >> it was less crowded than you expected on labor day but it still felt celebratory. looks very different now than it did then. we'll stay in touch.

catie beck for us in savannah, georgia. on the phone with me is mayor "of palm beach gardens, 90 miles west of where the storm is right now. mayor, for the moment, things look a little better than they did a few hours ago for how palm beach is going to do and palm beach gardens is going to do in the next few days. >> we are fortunate that the storm is taking a northern turn. obviously we feel very sad for what's happening in the bahamas. here in the city, we've been just watching and monitoring. there's been little activity on the roads. people heeded advice just to stay home. there wasn't a lot of traffic on the roads, very few businesses were open. we're just watching and feeling very fortunate. >> what do you do in an instance like this where the storm moves so close, so slowly, that you're not clear of it yet, it does not look like it's headed towards you. how does it affect your planning? what kind of calls are you getting from people?

should they stay, go, come back? >> we told people to stay put while they were here. we felt we were not going to get the brunt of the storm. although when you look how close it is to us, you would think for sure it's going to continue on its western path, although the reports continue to show moving northward. in the city, we've just been prepared with the emergency staff that have been well-positioned throughout the city. we have a number of stations throughout the city that have police, fire, and public works waiting to respond in case we have something happen. fortunately, we haven't, and the emergency operation centers continue to staff at normal because we haven't felt it need to do so yet. >> when do you think you'll be in the clear to ramp it down a little bit? each one of these hurricane center reports we're hoping to see something definitive. are you feeling like you're out of harm's way or you want to wait for a few more reports? >> the storm has been moving so slowly that we really can't say

for sure we're going to be out of the woods, although we feel fortunate. seems like it's going to go the other way. the schools did close for wednesday as well as tomorrow, so students will not be going back to school until thursday of this week just to make sure that people are not going to be put in harm's way. >> mayor, thank you for joining me. please stay safe. mayor mark marquee llano of palm beach gardens. jamie, what's the situation where you are? >> reporter: hey, ali. right now we're in a tropical storm watch. we've already started to receive some of those first outer bands from dorian, wind gusts behind me at 35 miles per hour. the surf has even kicked up. earlier today we actually saw people coming out to the beach to do a bit of sightseeing. they brought out their surf boards. we caught somebody kayaking in the ocean, taking advantage of the weather before the impacts of dorian are expected to hit

this area. right now, just a little bit north of us, some of those counties are in a hurricane warning, which means as early as tomorrow they could very easily start to see some of those hurricane-force winds. ali? >> reporter: jamie, what's the activity look like around you? i know you're close to the beach, so very few people would be there. there are a number of people who left that area. what's it looking like now? are people at home, staying in, and whoever is there is just staying for this? >> reporter: listen, it is a holiday, and some of us have forgotten it's a holiday weekend. the florida beaches have been empty. florida's tourism economy has taken an impact because of this because this past weekend was pretty much a ghost town. we saw more activity today of people coming out to sight see, and those are probably people who have taken shelter more inland. yeah, definitely a huge hit to tourism and businesses from what we can tell. this area has not been ordered

to evacuate. there are still a lot of people we saw at walmart, possibly grabbing last-minute items. it is a ghost town as far as tourism is concerned. >> jamie guirola for us. i'm going to talk to a storm chaser in florida about what it's like inside a hurricane. more city officials on how they're preparing residents for a possible landfall. another big story we're watching the latest on the deadly boat fire in california. multiple people reported dead, dozens more unaccounted for. i'm ali velshi. you're watching breaking news coverage on msnbc. nce papers. >> tech vo: this teacher always puts her students first. >> student: i did mine on volcanoes. >> teacher: you did?! oh, i can't wait to read it. >> tech vo: so when she had auto glass damage... she chose safelite. with safelite, she could see exactly when we'd be there.

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welcome back. we are covering the latest developments in hurricane dorian. it's a category 4 storm. it's starting to shift north moving up the florida coast. joining me on the phone is a former fema director for the southeast under president clinton: thank you for joining us. this is a tough one because the urgency with which people treat a storm that they're not sure is coming on shore or not does tend to affect whether they leave and how well they prepare. >> it does and it also can lead to storm fatigue. if you have a storm that is

moving in an erratic fashion, if it looks like it's going here and then it decides it's not going to go there, instead it's going to move in a different direction or in the case of dorian, just completely stalls out. >> right. >> people are trying to figure out what's going to happen, and after a while when you're trying to convince people along the coast you need to evacuate, you need to do this, you need to do that, they just start to get fatigue. >> yeah. they're fatigued by it. there are some people for whom it's a hardship to go find someplace to live for a few days or deal with whatever the situation is with food. however, does it hamper -- i mean, the fact is this could be a serious storm, even if it doesn't make landfall. those kinds of winds can cause some of the same problems that end up causing the long-term problems, the flooding, the access to people's houses. it's not necessarily the windstorm that's the most

serious. >> it's typically not the wind that's the most serious. it's ordinarily the water. in this case, that storm surge, wave action, all things associated with a storm that stays offshore, it can not only cause tremendous erosion of dunes and all the protective mechanisms along the coast, it can actually at high tide come flooding in and flood areas and just cross over some areas and put water in other areas that it doesn't leave quickly. so there are just so many different impacts that a storm can have even when it's that far offshore. >> we've seen this in the last few years with storms where flooding occurred where people didn't even realize the storm was all that serious. do you think we are well-prepared for these kinds of things? >> yes and no. yes, i think that we've seen

storms like this before in the past. i think that there are a number of experienced personnel that work with emergency management, local, state, and federal, that have witnessed these kinds of events, but there's always a changing of the people who live along the coast. there's turnover in the population and some of the people that live along the coast or that live near the coast have not seen this kind of thing before. and they want to listen to the people that are trying to -- local authorities telling them when to evacuate or recommend evacuation. but at the same time, a lot of them have tremendous investmentinvestments in the homes they have, the neighborhoods they have, and they are reluctant to leave if they haven't seen what this kind of thing can do.

>> john, thank you for joining me. he is a former fema director for the southeast region. i want to bring in via skype, aaron jay jack, a storm chaser in orlando, florida. aaron, it's always fascinating, but this one is unusual in that it's powerful and it has stopped. it hasn't stopped being a storm, it just stopped moving in any meaningful way. >> yeah. you know, i spent the day today sitting on the coast just to the southeast of orlando just looking out over the ocean at the storm. yeah, it is a unique situation when it stops like that. journal as a storm chaser, i get into position to where the storm is going to come ashore. and there's a playbook of things, if the surge starts to come in, the eye wall comes in and the winds get nasty and there's lots of damage, you get the high, and then you get the backside of the eye and the eye wall on the backside, and then

the hurricane is usually done. that takes sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours for the storms to pass through. that's not happening this time. >> people are going to be interested. if you're a guy who does this, you specialize in figuring out where this is going. where do you think it's going? >> right now it's going anywhere. i'm hanging out in orlando waiting for it to start moving. so there are the steering mechanisms aloft to the north of the storm that should start having an influence on this hurricane and start lifting it up along the coast. that's my plan tomorrow, to move back towards the cocoa beach area and follow the storm north towards the carolinas, eventually leaving the united states. >> there's a rich history of these storms in america. people who either meteorologists or newscasters or people like you tend to have stories about this one reminds me of that one. what does this remind you of? >> looks like another matthew. it's coming in with a different angle, but it's kind of doing

the same thing where it's just going to sit right off the coast there and just kind of batter the coast for several days. there's already beach erosion. that's the main thing happening in the united states. obviously a much different situational in the bahamas, terrible damage there. but here in the united states, it's been mostly beach erosion i've been seeing. >> when you're down in southern florida and you see the sort of work they're trying to do on beaches, the type of foliage they're planting to try to prevent erosion, what does beach erosion mean? does that mean beach is going to disappear or houses on the beach are going to be on stilts? >> there are dunes that have grass that are meant to protect the islands from the waves. as the waves batter those dunes, they start washing away the grasses and the roots that hold those dunes together. but actually, one of the things that's heartbreaking right now

that we are having casualties here in the united states, and it's the sea turtles out there up and down the coast here, satellite beach area. some of those nests are being destroyed by that beach erosion. some of them are still surviving and hopefully they will survive because that is important to our ec ecosystem. >> i know there's constantly planting going on and the things that are happening down on the beaches in southern florida. but what should we be thinking beach erosion? >> we need to -- those barrier islands, they've developed for a purpose. they were naturally evolved. as humans come in, we want to build on those things, and that's the worst thing we can do, to build on those and wipe out the barrier islands or the marshes around the coast that help absorb the storms. we pave the ground and it causes

water to flow and collect up and flooding and all that. so that's just -- that's what happens as humans develop. >> aaron, how do you stay safe when you chase hurricanes because most people gao away frm them? >> the most important part of the hurricane is the flooding, the surge. winds are obviously dangerous, but it's not the strong wind itself that hurts you, it's the debris in that wind. as a storm chaser, we look for somewhere safe like a parking garage or a concrete condominium we can get up into to protect ourselves from that strong wind. but then again, it's that flooding. so you want to ensure you're in an elevated location, you can get to a parking garage or a high building that gets you above the flooding. generally that's all it really takes to stay safe in these situations. obviously if you're not a storm chaser, you don't want to do that because no matter what there is an innate risk. i'm going to do what i can to

stay safe, but no matter what there is going to be risk there. >> aaron, do stay safe. thank you for joining us. coming up, we'll turn to the day's other breaking news. i'll talk to jim cavanaugh about the shooting in texas. also, we have the latest from that devastating fire. officials on the massive inferno that engulfed a boat off the california coast where dozens are still missing. we'll go live to the national hurricane center for the most up-to-date forecast of this powerful storm. always a catch. like somehow you wind up getting less. but now that i book at hilton.com, and i get all these great perks. i got to select my room from the floor plan... very nice... i know, i'm good at picking stuff. free wi-fi... laptop by the pool is a bold choice... and the price match guarantee. how do you know all of this? are you like some magical hilton fairy? it's just here on the hilton app. just available to the public, so... book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. if you find a lower rate, we match it and give you

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tonight as hurricane dorian looms, we learned more details about the shooting in odessa, texas. seven people dead, 20 others injured after a gunman opened fire. police saying the gunman made calls to the police and to the fbi after he was fired from his job that morning. the violence coming barely a month after 22 people were killed in el paso, texas. witnesses were fearing for their lives, and some of it was captured on video. watch out, this is hard to watch. >> it's okay. it's okay. it's okay. it's okay.

we're going to be okay. >> he's shooting. >> it's okay. it's okay. it's okay. are you okay? i got you. i got you. >> meanwhile president trump yesterday saying his administration is working with congress on a package of measures to address gun violence, brushing off renewed calls for expanding background checks. >> this really hasn't changed anything. we're doing a package, and we'll see what it all -- how it comes about, it's coming about right now. and a lot of people are talking about it, and that's irrespective of what happened yesterday in texas. i will say that for the most part, sadly, if you look at the last four or five going back even five or six or seven years, for the most part, as strong as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it. >> with me is former atf special agent, jim cavanaugh.

is that true none of these would have been stopped by a background check? >> no, it's just double talk and babble from the gun lobby. look, the way it works in gun laws, they prevent the next killing, but you need a series of good laws, good safety laws where you can interrupt the killers. every law won't interrupt every killer. >> right. >> but when you have different laws, there are hurdles killers have to get over. if they can't pass the background check, they go on the black market to buy the gun. they might buy a gun from someone who harms them a criminal. you might be dealing with an undercover atf agent. there's all these hurgdles that come in. they might get arrested, which he may have been going to do, the shooter in odessa. he may have been going to the theater to kill people. we do not know when the troopers pulled him over. it's a series of laws. sometimes they'll pick medicine off, sometimes they won't, but

when you have that framework of law, then you reduce the killings. so that's just double talk. just briefly, ali, just a history of this is that congress has acted when these struck. 134, the national firearms act when machine gun registration came in was because of the gangsters. then in '68, the assassins of president kennedy, robert kennedy, and dr. king. the country was up in arms, forced congress to act. we got the '68 gun control act. when president reagan was shot, the country was upset, we got the brady bill for background checks and the assault weapons ban in the '90s because the public was upset after someone massacred children in stockton, california. congress acted. this is unprecedented, really. the public is extremely upset.

>> correct. >> and the congress is failing to act. it's historically upside down. every time the public has been upset, we don't want nymph this, the congress has acted. so we're in a different historical posture on the way gun laws have been formed. >> so all these -- there are a bunch of things that have gone on in the country that name form that sort of patch work of laws that might prevent someone from doing something. we started a number of states enact red flag laws. in some cases people have had histories of being abusive to domestic partners. still a majority of this country thinks we need to do something about assault weapons. that's the one commonality in almost all of the mass shootings that we've seen. they have been committed with these assault-style weapons. the nra will have you think it's no different than a normal shotgun or rifle to do this, but

you say they are different? >> they're very different. this is exactly the same question our great grandfathers faced in 1934 when they were in the congress. gangster-type weapons, that's what the law says, the weapons killers and using, mostly they were killing other gangsters like the st. have h valentine's day massacre, but they weren't killing police officers like the kansas city station. we used to have these old search warrants and arrest warrants from back in the '30s when they were doing these shootings, and those were machine guns coming in after the first world war. congress said, hey, these are military guns, they shouldn't be in public hands. so we're going to make laws that restrict them. those laws that restricted them really controlled those weapons for 50, 60 years, and he rarely ever saw a registered submachine gun used in a crime.

i think the nra used to brag it was only one or two ever because it was military collectors and gun aficionados and hobbyists. if it was a machine gun in the street, we would send agents out right away, arrest the person and take the machine gun. that's what atf did. and the collectors, we helped them, rerespectwe respected the would pay the transfer tax. so the scheme worked to keep the guns out of the hands of the killers. and now the killers have appropriated the semiautomatic version of the military submachine gun for our troops. this is just a semiautomatic version. but it has the same killing power. so the country has to decide, you know, they already passed, their law was passed that outlawed them. the most significant thing was the reduction of the magazine capacity.

at the end of ten years when we started making seizures on those, we could see we were getting more and more seizures with ten-round magazines. in the early years, we would get the 30-round magazines, but we started getting the ten-round magazines. the guns, how bad and awful they looked didn't do much because the manufacturers just skirted around that by taking all that stuff off. so you really got to name the gun specifically if you want it to be registered and you got to deal with the magazine capacity. >> jim, i always learn a lot from you, jim cavani, former atf and msnbc terrorism analyst. also new tonight, eight people are dead, dozens still missing after a fire broke out on a do i have boat off the coast of california. the boat caught fire shortly after 3:00 a.m. this morning. five crew members successfully escaped the blaze. four bodies have been recovered. four more identified on the ocean floor. the rest are unaccounted for. late today, l.a. county coast guard saying the search for those missing will continue into the night, but that we should be

prepared at this point for the worst outcome. >> this isn't a day that we wanted to wake up to for labor day, and it's a very tragic event. we will search all the way through the night into the morning, but i think we all should be prepared to move into the worst outcome. >> we'll bring you more details as we get them. coming up next, the latest on hurricane dorian which is lashing the bahamas. florida residents are bracing themselves for the approaching powerful category 4 storm. you are watching special coverage on msnbc. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job

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. we're back with the latest on hurricane dorian. at least 21 people so far have been injured and five are dead in the bahamas. the storm is currently sitting, it's really just sitting there in the atlantic ocean about 100 miles east of west palm beach. it moved only 14 miles. just hanging around the bahamas. forecasters predict something of a push overnight, however. people from florida to south carolina are evacuating their homes. disney world closing early tomorrow. the florida governor urging his residents to take the recommended precautions. >> hurricane dorian has shown what it's capable of. it's absolutely battered the bahamas. if you are ordered to evacuate,

you need to do that. get out now while you have time, while there's fuel available. and you'll be safe on the roads. >> i want to go to nbc simone boyce in west palm beach. what's the situation where you are? >> reporter: ali, here in west palm beach tonight you can see behind me the streets are empty. this is exactly what officials want to see for an area that is still under a tropical storm warning, a hurricane watch, as well as a storm surge warning. they do not want to see people out and about on the streets right now. just down that way is palm beach island. that is a barrier island acting as a very thin natural barrier to help absorb some of the impact from this storm. but nobody is allowed to enter palm beach tonight unless they are a resident. ali, the main threat that officials are still warning about right now is water, is flooding. this is an area that has not one, but two bodies of water.

you got the intercoastal water way as well as the atlantic ocean. they will be monitor that go storm surge that could bring between four to seven extra feet of water into this area. now, those warnings and watches i mentioned will be in place overnight tonight as we watch for more effects from hurricane dorian. >> simone boyce for us in west palm beach, florida. with me on the phone now is mayor mac bernard of palm beach, florida. thank you for being with us. what's the situation as you see it. you're not out of the woods, but things look better than they did earlier. >> they do look better, but ali, we're really concerned about r our -- what's going on in the bahamas. this dangerous storm is basically stalling right there, and so we're just monitoring it and we're really concerned about it because we have so many of our friends, our neighbors who are bahamian in palm beach county and throughout the state of florida. what we hope is that we continue for our brothers and sisters in

the bahamas. we look to, you know, if we were able to pass this storm, we look to shift our resources to try to assist in the bahamas. for the residents in palm beach county, we issued evacuation orders, and most of the residents have adhered to some of those concerns. >> mayor, what is it that you are worried about right now in west palm beach? what's you're best-case scenario and what's your worst? >> my best case, what i'm really worried about right now is the storm surge, which is really, you know, as was mentioned, you know, the atlantic ocean and potentially seeing four to seven feet of water, you know, for this storm surge. we have high tides also, so we are really concerned about that. >> mayor, thank you for joining us. stay safe. merrima mayor mack bernard.

ed, talk to me about the situation. we are not familiar with storms that completely, almost fully stall over a place, particularly over land. what do we know about what's happening right now? >> it's been a terrible couple of days now for the northwestern bahamas. we talked about it before, but the center has stalled right over just to the north of grand bahama island. here's a picture radar from the national weather service. you're looking at the satellite from noa. here's the center of the eye. here's grand bahama island. here's freeport just outside or very close to the southwest eye wall. they have had hurricane-force winds for the better part of the 12 the hours, maybe 18 hours. they have another six or 12 hours of that before it starts to inch away towards northwest. >> when you say inch away towards the northwest, we've been talking to people along the florida coastline right now.

what do you think they need to be thinking about? people are saying, hey, we dodged the worst of this thing. what do you caution them to be aware of? >> let's take a look at the forecast for just a bit here. here's the east coast of florida and up through the carolinas. here's the forecast for the storm. at the moment we're forecasting, as we have for the last day, that the center will remain offshore, 50 miles offshore. that will bridge tropical storm force conditions into the eastern state of florida all the way through the carolinas. in the center should go farther to the west, that would drive hurricane-force winds aashore as well. the biggest concern is the storm surge. we're looking at that here. here's the forecast again. you heard before, four to seven feet. if the track of the hurricane is as forecast, then we're looking for a four-foot inundation along the coast. if the track is closer to the coast, stronger winds, stronger onshore winds, and the inundation could be as much as seven feet, which is why there's a storm surge warning in effect

for much of this area which extends to beyond charleston. >> that water is more dangerous than the wind. thanks for the work you're doing there. ed rapport. coming up, the science behind the historical storm. whether we can expect powerful hurricanes like dorian to be the new normal. >> tech: at safelite autoglass, we really pride ourselves on making it easy for you to get your windshield fixed. >> teacher: let's turn in your science papers. >> tech vo: this teacher always puts her students first. >> student: i did mine on volcanoes. >> teacher: you did?! oh, i can't wait to read it. >> tech vo: so when she had auto glass damage... she chose safelite. with safelite, she could see exactly when we'd be there. >> teacher: you must be pascal. >> tech: yes ma'am. >> tech vo: saving her time... [honk, honk] >> kids: bye! >> tech vo: ...so she can save the science project. >> kids: whoa! >> kids vo: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

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all right. joining me now is peter of the lamont dougherty earth observatory at columbia university. pete e thank you for joining us. >> thanks so much for having me. >> we have a lot of prognostications about hurricanes, a lot of planning but you bring the science behind this thing. what's going on here? >> so what's happening right now is we have had hurricanes forever. >> yep. >> certainly before people were around. hurricanes are a normal occurrence. what's changed is that the oceans have gradually been warming in our lifetimes because of carbon emissions. and as that warming has a c occurred, it's warming the ocean. that provides the fuel for the hurricane, provides the strengthening of the winds and strengthening of the rain belts that are surrounding the hurricane and it's really the

water damage, it is the flooding and the coastal surge, that are the real killers in a hurricane. >> so warming of water can create greater intensity to these storms, not that they invent storms. the storms existed. now you end up with greater intensity of storms going into places like florida where you have what they call sunny day flooding where you got rising water levels that are challenging a lot of where we live in the united states because people settle in coastal areas. that combination of things is really going have to -- is going to have an effect on the way we think and habitate. >> that's right. the change we're seeing on the coastline is the storms when they do make landfall, they're stronger, they're wetter and, of course, sea level has risen about a foot in just our lifetimes so that means the shoreline then moves into the coast. and so a standard inundation event would have happened 30 years ago now is catastrophic, not only is it reaching inland

more, it's touching on the development you just talked about. >> it's insidious in the way that it does that because when you just thought about hurricanes as big windstorms, and we on tv could sit there and blow around and give the folks the impression this is the most wind you've ever seen, the flooding, sometimes the damage from these hurricanes sometimes comes the day after or days after as it continues to flood, as the water doesn't recede, as people don't get home as their power can't be replaced as quickly as it used to. do we have to start thinking about the storms and the way we live differently now as we continue to warm the earth? >> well, absolutely. the framing of this in the scientific and the economic communities has been something called managed retreat and that is, you know, how do we make sensible, wise, decisions, rational decisions, on something that seems to catastrophic and sort of emergency thinking so the human tendency is to use this very irrational kind of monkey brain when we really ought to be using our most rational, most thoughtful, thought processes.

>> the fact is, managed retreat or thinking about building with climate change in mind is much more cost effective than what we tend to do. >> right. >> which is emergency. >> that's right. and that, you know, one of the things to keep in mind is these weather disasters, you know, the leading natural disasters that we have in this country are, in fact, related to hurricanes. and they're huge hits. they're tens of billions. >> right. >> in some cases hundreds of billions of dollars. and it's important to keep in mind in 2017, the combined extreme weather-related losses were stiomething on the order o $300 billion. that is half the budget of the american hill temilitary. >> so this is interesting because the money for repair and fixing, some of it's private money but a lot of it is insurance or tax money so it doesn't cause us to necessarily change the way we think about things. at some point, there won't be the tax money or there won't be the -- or the insurance companies will stop insuring some of this stuff. what's the best way to think about this before we are faced with those kinds of realities? >> so i think the best way to

think about this is to think about the zwrodownstream effect. not to plan from hurricane to hurricane. >> right. >> just though that sea levels are rising so just the pure destructiveness of an average hurricane is going to be greater. on top of that, we're building more so our vulnerability is enhanced so it just makes sense, rational economic sense, to start planning like we care about this. >> does that mean we move people back from coasts? does that mean we -- >> well, it's happening -- >> -- build more? >> actually in miami, in new york, and new jersey, property values are actually declining in these fair weather flooding areas so these are places where you have adjacent properties, one right next to the other, each worth, let's say, a million dollars. the one that has the fair weather flooding sells at a discount of 10% relative to its neighbor. >> might sort the problem out with us. peter, thanks for being with us. msnbc is teaming up with climate change, on climate change with georgetown university and our daily planet, an independent

environmental news organization. september 19th and 20th. chris hayes and i will moderate a two-day climate forum with the 2020 presidential candidates that you see here on your screen. all right. don't go anywhere. we have the latest on this dangerous category 4 hurricane, where it's headed and what to expect, when we come back. >> this trailer actually still standing from 1946 has been through every single storm. i was going to strap my trailer down with big, huge ratchet straps but i talked to some engineers and stuff and it just can't handle the force of that wind. >> even if it does bypass us, we'll still be a lot safer if we move out. move out [dog barking] [dog barking] [dog barking] [dog barking] [dog growling] [horn blaring] [cat meows] (vo) the subaru crosstrek. with starlink remote horn & lights.

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i'm ali velshi back with our breaking news coverage of hurricane dorian. the category 4 storm is at a standstill as it continues to pummel the bahamas with sustained winds of up to 140 miles an hour. right now, rescue efforts are under way on abaco island in the bahamas. officials confirm that five people are dead, dozens injured, across the region. the storm's expected to pick up steam and head north sometime tonight leaving millions at risk from florida to the carolinas. in florida, shelters are being maxed out, bridges are set to close at midnight, airports in places are closed. as residents in the region evacuate the area, including those in hospitals and elderly homes. toi i want to go straight to nbc news meteorologist bill karins. before we get off to the baha

bahamas, 140 miles an hour, a