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are already without power. and as millions in georgia and south carolina brace for impact, millions more in florida are starting to take stock of the damage. the coast got the worst of it. this video showing how the wind tore roofs off of houses. downtown cedar key, city hall was swamped with 6 feet of water. officials say the storm surge got as high as 15 feet. that's on top of 100 miles an hour winds. strong enough to pull this gas station awning on to its side. more than a quarter million people are without power in florida. and moments ago, the head of fema talked about the people who chose to ride out the storm. >> and my biggest concern is those people who chose not to evacuate, and i know that our local first responders, the heroes that are out there in those local communities are doing amazing job already of going into the areas where people did not evacuate, and helping to get them to safety. >> let's go to crystal river,

florida, where msnbc's jose diaz-balart has been moving through surge waters all day long. i think that's the lowest amount of water i've seen you in so far, jose. but what are you seeing in and around where you're at? >> indeed, chris, it is the lowest we've seen in a while. i don't know if you can hear this, but we just heard, and i saw, just about a block from here, an airboat traveling over a street not the canals. a street. as it goes, you hear that? >> yeah, we can hear some of it for sure, jose. >> reporter: and that's what's going on on streets here. the good news is that the water has been receding, and it recedes so slowly. it grew so rapidly, but it's been receding so slowly. the hotel we have been at still has no power. there's about 272,000 households

that as of this moment do not have power in florida. that number is being very rapidly changed because more than 30,000 linesmen have been set up on standby before the storm arrived to do exactly this. once it's safe, they go out and they reestablish power, and we have been seeing that right here in this area, and we're about 9 miles north of homasasa, and 9 miles south of engels, it's called. there's a wonderful dock there and a pier and a yankee town is there. and, chris, a lot of the people in this area live in a zone a evacuation mandatory. most did evacuate. they're now returning to a very difficult situation because of the water that has caused so

much damage. >> talk to me as somebody who has lived in florida, not for years, but for decades, i won't say how many. >> reporter: yes. >> and has covered countless numbers of hurricanes, what you know about what happens next and, frankly, the ability in a place like florida that's become all too familiar with these kind of storms to handle them in a different way than when you were a cub reporter? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, i can think back to 1992, hurricane andrew that hit south florida, causing so much death and destruction, certainly the hurricane that we covered last year in fort myers beach, that caused so much death and destruction. i can tell you that florida is like a place where people know that they live in a hurricane area, and things really do work, and the planning does have its

effect. you know, 5,500 state of florida national guard. they have been deployed. 30,000 plus linesmen deployed. the coast guard put on standby to see if they needed to come in and help those 5,500 florida guardsmen. things, chris, are really organized, and we see it at the state level, and, you know, just listening to your conversations with mayors and executives of different cities, they're just -- they plan for things like this. they really take this seriously, and when things like this occur, they really do react. >> jose diaz-balart, your reporting has been amazing. i think i saw you at 4:00 or 5:00 this morning. take care out there my friend, and thank you for being here. i want to go to nbc news meteorologist angie lassman.

this threat has already crossed state lines. >> yeah. >> where is idalia now, what's in store for the next few hours? >> here's the deal with florida, they're going to see things wind down. especially as we get past the high tide time for folks in tampa bay, and towards the big bend area. we have a category 1 hurricane but it is barely hanging on to the status. 75 miles per hour winds at this hour. that's the latest update that came in at the top of the hour, and still cruising right along to the northeast at 20 miles per hour. notice the rain that's front loaded on this system. heavy rain across parts of the southeast. we have seen flash flood warnings, issues with water rescues across parts of southern georgia. we'll likely see the flooding concerns as well across south carolina. and we've even had a couple of tornado warnings so far. we have continued to see that heavy rain trying to lift out of places like douglas, valdosta, finally getting a break from the rain. notice, you move a little farther to the north, and we're talking i-16 dealing with heavy

rain in that area, toward augusta and charleston. you have the bands coming in. waves of rain for folks on that carolina coast right now. the flood watches are up for numerous states. parts of florida, of course the west coast, and georgia, south carolina, and north carolina. but this is the area that i mentioned where we saw really torrential downpours, leaving us with upwards of 7, 8 inches of rain in a short amount of time for some locations. the good news is for places like florida, they essentially needed the rain. once they get the cleanup going, we'll be out of a drought in those locations. we have heavy rain to deal with across places like south carolina and north carolina. if you're wondering about the track. we're still expecting it to maintain, but just barely that category 1 strength that i wouldn't be surprised if we see it weaken to a tropical storm by the time 8:00 rolls around and it's right over savannah. it will eventually move offshore. wilmington, cape hatteras, still is going to deal with the heavy rain and the storm surge. that's going to be one of the things that we will continue to see be an issue here as we get

into the later evening hours as that high tide time rolls around. plus, we've also got those tornado watches in effect for parts of georgia, including savannah. it hasn't expired yet. set to expire at 3:00 p.m. we'll see if they're going to extend that. this one includes charleston to wilmington, that will last until 10:00 p.m. we want you to be aware of tornadoes after the sun goes down. they are 50% more deadly. watch for that in this region. we're going to start to see it winding down for florida. this isn't going to be winding down until we get into the late evening hours tonight when it comes to the storm surge for the southeast coast. places like brunswick, savannah, charleston, 2 to 5 feet of storm surge. we've got on shore winds right now, and, chris, savannah and charleston have not reached their high tide, that happens around 7:00, 8:00, and that's when we're expecting the storm surge to be the worst for those areas. it's something to watch through the evening hours. >> thank you for that. let's go back to florida. a relatively rural area that's

about an hour south of where hurricane idalia came ashore. the coastal sections were inundated with rain and wind as well as the storm surge of well over 6 feet. particularly dangerous for places like cedar key, an island that is popular with tourists. more than half the people in that county are without power right now. i want to bring in sheriff bobby mccallum, sheriff, thank you so much for being with us. what's the situation where you are now? >> we have been very blessed. we were spared from the hurricane force winds that we were expecting. and that has been a blessing in itself. what we did face, and what we are currently facing is the storm surge, as you said, we had the highest that i understand was 6.8 feet of storm surge into

cedar key, which inundated cedar key, you know, the businesses, the homes, and so forth down there. however, we didn't have the winds to go with it. now, what we're experiencing as i speak is our 2:00 high tide. >> so tell me what county, local, state officials, federal help, what are they doing right now? what is your biggest need? >> we have a fire chief and police chief in cedar key that have been through this, and the citizens have been through this many times. that was our fear going into this that we did everything we could to get our citizens out of there, and encourage them to evacuate cedar key and yankee town. we weren't totally successful with that. but we, you know, we have been very concerned about that, so we are now, the weather has improved, we still have a few minor gusts of winds.

the rain has stopped here at the county seat, and the emergency operations center here in bronson, but we are now in a search and rescue situation, both in yankee town and cedar key, but again, the folks down there still got a lot of water in there, but they're making every effort to identify those that did stay and need to be rescued. yankee town, my deputies and detectives have been down there, and airboats in skiffs and we have rescued several down there that's decided to stay. we've heard them actually folks have told me they've heard, you know, people hollering for them, and we have been able to find them, in their homes and be able to rescue them and bring them out to safety, so, again, i can't say it enough. we're really blessed. this was a storm that we expected to be the worst that we had ever seen, and the end result is that we were spared

from the hurricane winds and now we're just dealing with storm surge, which was bad enough. it was, i believe, if i'm right in saying that it was a historic storm surge, even at 6.8 feet in cedar key, but we'll recover from that. our citizens are resilient, and we're just thankful at this point we know of no major injuries or certainly not any death, although we're really just in the early stages of search and rescue, but whistleblower hopeful that we're going to come out here and have survival we thought was going to be probably the worst we had ever seen. >> and we hope that for you too. bobby mccallum, let's go to south carolina, governor henry mcmaster is up dating us. >> winds down, throws trees over, and also power lines down. all the power companies are making preparations.

they ought to have vehicles and people and equipment out, already prestaged in order to restore power as quickly as possible. we know we're going to lose some power. that is the overview. we had a meeting this morning. we have been in telecommunication with the counties. everybody's ready, everybody's prepared, and of course we're operating under an executive order, which i issued yesterday that allows us to move people and equipment much more quickly. we are not going to have any evacuations. we're not going to have any closing of state agencies. this does not appear to be one that requires any evacuation orders or closing of state agencies, but the schools, some of the schools are closed. and we urge them to try to get back opened up as quickly as possible. the longer the schools are closed and the children can't go to school, we know there's

consequences for that as far as learning. i urge everybody once again, get information from official sources. always a lot of chatter in the social media. a lot of it is right. most of it is probably wrong. if you get information from official sources, you'll be much better informed. so, again, this is not something we haven't seen before. and they being newcomers to the state, never seen a hurricane, never seen a flood, but those of us who have been here for a number of years have. and, again, we've seen some bad ones. one of the worst was hurricane hazel back in the '50s, and another was hugo in 1989, and that really hit us. this does not appear to be in that category at all. but it is still dangerous, and we are prepared. we have some shelters that have opened up. we'll explain that more.

some opened and more available to be open, and i advise everybody again, and you're all well to do this all the time. this gives us another opportunity to do it. get all of your important papers together, if you have to leave the house and can't come back, get your pills, your precipitations, have a plan for all of that, and understand that you may be trying to get those things together when the power is out, and you need to get out of the house. but until you have to get out, stay home. stay home tonight. don't go sight seeing to see what's happening. don't go driving around. there's nothing good going to come from that. so, again, we have been through this before. been through a lot worse than this one appears to be, so we are ready. your team all across the state is ready, and we want everybody to be as ready and prepared. don't panic. be prepared. and get your information from official sources.

>> south carolina's governor, henry mcmaster. they think that it's not going to be as bad as they have seen in the past, which is not to say, there is no danger there. we have already seen some of the rain gauges up there, they have been having squalls, they know that more, much heavier rain is coming their way. there's the possibility of isolated tornadoes. we're keeping our eye on what's happening in south carolina. joining me dr. erwin redletter, head of disaster preparedness. i have been watching you as we have been covering all of this over the last hour since you and i talked. you have been taking copious notes. what are your overall thoughts as you have been watching this storm unfold? >> let's start with the danger is not over. i think as we start getting reports about receding water, not as bad as we thought, it still remains the fact, chris, that people have to take care of themselves and be overly

cautious in a situation like this. it's not time to be brazen. to kind of start venturing into places you shouldn't go, and your goal right now is to stay safe. wherever you are. and if you need help, to reach out, and the fact is that if there's a lot of people in your area that need help, it may be a little while before 911 responders can actually get to you. we have to understand we will take care of ourselves and try to stay safe in the next few hours. for people who need things, for example, medication for chronic illnesses where they need their heart medicine or their blood pressure medicine or whatever, hopefully they will be able to stop some of that beforehand, but if not, they should call 911 to try to get assistance in getting some of these vital medications. and one more point about children in this. they are vulnerable. just like older people. they are being traumatized.

this is a psychological trauma of some significance for a lot of kids. everything is disrupted. families are anxious. what they're looking at in their neighborhoods is gone in many places. and, you know, kids need normalcy. and what big disaster like this do, whether it's wildfires or a flood or a war for that matter, the loss of normalcy is one of the things that really affects children. one of the goals of recovery that we say is going to be let's get recovery going as quickly as it's safe, as quickly as possible, and try to get the lives of these families back to normal. >> well said. as always, and for people who don't know, first of all, the reason you and i met many many many years ago is because of your work with children and the children's health fund so you know of what you speak. dr. irwin redlener, you're sticking with us.

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at this moment, emergency teams are scrambling to help areas hit the hardest by

hurricane idalia. using airboats and the few roadways still access, we have this i-95 video, florida of course a group of national guard trucks in route to assist with the damage. i want to bring in a pulitzer prize winning reporter for the tampa bay times and a resident of gulf port, florida, for 23 years, layne degregory. thank you so much for being with us. i want to show folks a picture you took and shared with us of gulf port just hours before high tide. already then seeing serious flooding. what's the situation where you are now? >> yeah, so we live just across from the barrier island beaches which have all been flooded but our beach is on the intercoastal waterway, so i was out there last night when the water was coming up, and they closed all the restaurants and bars on that street because they're in an evacuation zone but there were a lot of people out there who live on boats, and they were bringing their dingies into shore with

all of their belongings after they have anchored their boats offshore. i don't know if you can see it, in the photo there was a couple of big sailboats that crashed up behind the casino. you're looking at gulf port from the pier at the bars and restaurants that everybody kept coming to all day to see if they were open again. i was out there at high tide, and got a little bit farther up the main street where the shops are at high tide today. >> let's go back to what you were talking about, there are quite a few people whose homes are boats. do we know how their fared and i'm sure because you're a reporter, you have been on the phone in recent hours with officials and friends and family, what are they telling you? >> yeah, so i spent the morning on the phone with people at st. pete beach because all the bridges have been cut off from out there, and they were telling me what was surprising was it wasn't the gulf of mexico that had come over the sea wall at the beach, it was the intercoastal waterway that had come up the back, so the water was pushed up after the hurricane passed us, and came up flooding on the back end of a lot of people.

gulf port is kind of on the other side of that, and we probably have at least 30 or 40 people who live on small boats, big boats, whatever kind of boats out there, and they were offshore so they wouldn't crash into each other, but a couple of them broke loose today. the people who live on the boats rode in with their stuff. they were taken to shelters and family members came and got them. i think everybody is safe at least, but the boats didn't fare as el. >> is that your kitchen you're in? i understand your house is a mile and a half from the water. 110-year-old house. is everything is okay? >> yeah, we were outside a few minutes ago, and it started raining again. it was built in 1910. we did not get flooded where i am. >> layne, we are glad you're okay. i know there's a long clean up ahead. good luck to you and your friends. thank you so much for taking the

time to talk to us. we appreciate it. >> we feel very lucky. thanks. >> we appreciate the local reporters who work so hard. i want to check on another pinellas county community, about 20 miles north of gulf port, home to several beaches, including the denidian causeway, honeymoon island, that's consistently rated among the best beaches in the world, the city's mayor, julie ward bajalolski joins me now. how did you fare through all of this? >> thanks for having me, and thank god, i don't think we have suffered any deaths. i think our northern partners have gotten it worst. flooding is the big issue issue. if you go on my mayor's facebook page, you'll see a live video of the flooding out on the causeway. the entire beach is underwater. and we have everything west of alt 19 is under water. we have a number of

neighborhoods that have no way to get in or get out. it's not a good situation so we probably have millions of dollars of damage to homeowners, it's very sad. very sad. >> do you know if there are people who are stuck who need rescues? what's 911 doing right now? >> we did have a rescue last night, a boat rescue, and we have sent out our fire team with the jon boat just to check. nobody's called today. but just checking it out, making sure anybody that wants to get out can. nobody has called. a lot of people did evacuate. they saw this coming. >> what's your biggest concern then right now besides the obvious, which is you have people who potentially have millions of dollars of damage, maybe their houses are uninhabitable. are you under a tornado watch? what's your big concern right now? >> i think we're good there.

it's the tide. the high tide just left us at about noon, but there's still those outer bands that are pushing water. that's probably our biggest concern, but with this much flooding, you're going to have sanitary sewer overflows, and we want people to stay out of the water. don't go walking through the water in the neighborhood. don't let your kids play in it. there's no way to avoid it. and we've got a great system, but you can't put that much water in it and have it not overflow. i'm worried about that all along the coast of florida, it's going to be a problem. keeping people away from the flooded areas is probably my biggest concern at this point. >> and when the time comes that they're able to come back, do you feel confident you have the resources you need to help them, but also that the insurance situation is good, that people will be able to start figuring out rebuilding, getting themselves settled again? >> i do. the state of florida's fema

program has been really super good. i mean, most people i have ever talked to, you know, as good of an experience as you can have when you're going through this, and those are the resources that we're going to try to unfold, and we'll be working with pinellas county, you know, and dunedin is a small town. we care about our neighbors, and we're one giant neighbor, anybody that needs help, we'll be pulling for them for sure. >> mayor, julie ward, thank you so much. and wherever you're driving to, stay safe, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you so much. have a good one. >> you too. up next, we'll have the latest from savannah, georgia, which is being hit with hurricane idalia right now. but first, the first lady of florida, casey desantis tweeting out this image from the governor's mansion in tallahassee where idalia's winds took down this 100-year-old oak tree. part of the giant trunk was

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back with our coverage of hurricane idalia, let's get an update from georgia. it looks like the rain is coming down pretty good.

what's the biggest concern where you are right now? >> hey, chris, we get these bands on and off of heavy rain and heavy wind. of course right now, a period of both. you can see the currents also here in the savannah river picking up. we're also seeing more debris in the river as well, but the concern remains for this area because we are expecting idalia to be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits us between 5 and 10:00 p.m. that is the latest from the mayor. the mayor spoke to our colleague, andrea mitchell, let's listen to what he said. >> we know our impacts will really start coming this afternoon. the conditions here will deteriorate as the day goes on. between 5:00 and 10:00, we're expecting to be over us, and, again, obviously we're very concerned about the wind. we're already under a hurricane warning, a storm surge warning, always very dangerous. low lying land, like savannah. >> >> reporter: so we still are

expecting 50 to 60 miles an hour winds and more rain. it will not be any joke. of course a couple of positive factors, it has been downgraded. it will likely be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reaches us. it's happening. most of georgia, at least, during the daytime not at night which is safer for residents. southeast georgia, some 61,000 people are without power. some areas seeing flash flooding, 9 to 10 inches of rain. hopefully the wind will die down so crews can get out there this afternoon. >> lindsey reiser, thank you for your ongoing coverage. we have breaking news out of st. petersburg, florida. that's about a half hour's drive from tampa. officials now say that their fire team has rescued more than 75 people. remember the warning was if you're one of those zones that was prone to flooding, get out. but not everybody does. so those 75 people were from areas, obviously, with the most severe flooding. the government shared this video on twitter of emergency

officials moving through flood waters in a boat as the rain pours down around them risking their own safety to bring others to safety. joining me by phone is mayor of st. pete beach on the barrier island west of st. petersburg, and that is one of the areas in the mandatory evacuation zone. mayor, thank you so much for joining us. what do you know about the safety of your residents? did most people leave? are you doing rescues? give us an update. >> yeah, for the most part most of our residents left. we're in evacuation zone a, which is the highest risk for flooding and we had severe flooding here with these first 4 to 5 feet so most of our residents, from what i can tell did evacuate. >> is that about what you expected? what are you doing to deal with it right now? is it just a matter, frankly, of waiting until it's safe enough to go out and do assessments?

>> yeah, we actually have a meeting in about an hour to go city wide with our fire department and public works to see what the situation looks like, coordinated with the pinellas county sheriff to talk about reopening the island, late evening or early afternoon. >> we talked at the pinellas county sheriff and he said this is what he saw when he was out today, let me play that for you. >> i've been out there personally, and i can tell you it's not a good situation on the gulf beaches. we're going to have to shut down, and we have shut down, and keep shut down access to all of the barrier islands. we haven't seen the worst of it. the estimates are based upon the storm surge and based upon the high tide, that we're going to see 4 to 6 feet of water. that's a significant amount of water. the sand is also coming up on to the roadway, and, again, as i said, i was out there personally, and had to turn around. >> how long, mayor, do you expect dangerous conditions to

last? >> most of the storm surge should have passed by now. the roads are starting to clear up. but again, until we get the all clear from the sheriff, make sure there's no hazards on the roads, and we're going to ask residents, and we have been asking residents to stay off the roads for the time being until we get the all clear. >> do you have a sense of how long that might be? i know how people are anxious. i know people want to see how their homes fared. it's very hard sometimes to get that message out to them. what's the most detail you can give those folks right now? >> well, our next meeting is at 3:30 at the emergency operations center where we're going to be assessing the city as a hole, and we're going to make a determination based on what we find at that time. so we're going to ask everyone to stay patient. i know they all want to come home. >> st. pete beach florida mayor,

adrian petrillo, good luck to all of you. thank you so much. let's me go back to erwin to er letter if i can. >> they're profound and some are immediate. what happens in a big flooding situation like this, is you can get damage to sewage plants. you can have bacterial contamination of drinking water and the soil. number one. number two, you could have all kinds of serious accidents and injuries in a circumstance like this for all the obvious reasons, things that you can't see that are going to harm you and hit you. the other thing is chemicals and pesticides. this is a rural, agricultural area. lots of pesticides in use, and some of those end up in the water supply. and that's something that has to

be monitored. that monitoring has to start basically as soon as possible to make sure that the populations in the affected areas are being protected and that surveillance, looking for those hazards start right away. >> you're going to stick with us. still ahead, storm surge damage could stretch as much as 200 miles along florida's west coast, as we show you the scene earlier on sanibel island, ferocious waves ripping along the road and a bridge. let's state the obvious not a great time to be out for a walk or a drive. ous not a great time to be out for a walk or a drive my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. [sneeze] (♪♪) astepro allergy, steroid free allergy relief

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somedays, i cover up because of my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to bare my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪ ♪nothing is everything♪ i'm celebrating my clearer skin... my way. president biden talking about the two disaster in hawaii and of course now in florida. let's take a listen. >> governor mcmasters, governor cooper, about the impacts of the storm and that made landfall at 7:45 this morning as a category 3 hurricane. and it's moved over lan. it is now shifted to category 1, but it is still very dangerous

with winds up to 75 miles an hour. and the impacts of this storm are being felt throughout the southeast, even as it moves up the eastern coast of the united states, affecting georgia, south carolina, north carolina, and we have to remain vigilant, and there's much more to do. i just came from the old office where i met with a fema administrator who's standing to my left here. and our federal response folks and early monday morning, long before the storm made landfall, i spoke with governor desantis, and approved an early request for emergency declaration to enable him to have the full support ahead of time to protect the people's lives of the state of florida. personnel to florida to help people move quickly to safety and out of the danger zone and help the governor's team to the greatest degree possible in advance of the hurricane's

arrival. now, i directed fema to redeploy resources including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 coast guard personnel throughout the southeast. i directed the administrate to stay in close touch with the governor, and she was speaking to me. he's made tiring of hearing from both of us, but seemed like he welcomed it. as a matter of fact, i have asked that she get on the plane and leave for florida this afternoon. she'll meet with governor desantis tomorrow, and begin helping conducting the federal assessment at my direction. several teams on the ground are going to work with the governors of florida, georgia, south carolina, north carolina. to get people to safety. you have been reporting this on television, a number of rescues have taken place as i walked out of my office a moment ago to begin to recover from the impacts of this storm. i let each governor i spoke with

know if there's anything, anything the states need right now, i'm ready to mobilize that support that they need. i don't think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. just look around. historic floods, i mean, historic floods, more intense droughts. extreme heat, significant wildfires that have caused significant damage like we've never seen before. not only throughout the hawaiian islands and the united states, but canada, and other parts of the world. we've never seen this much fire. and while we're dealing with this latest extreme weather event, i remain laser focused on recovering and rebuilding efforts in maui. we were out there and many of you were there as well, it's devastating what happened there. when i took office, i directed my team to raise our game and how we coordinate our responses

to natural disaster, because i have been around for a people, to meet people where they are when they need our help the most. the devastation of wildfires to california, new mexico, oregon, washington state, idaho, louisiana, we have learned a heck of a lot. a lot of damage in the meantime, but we learned a heck of a lot, and we're putting the lessons we learned to work. in a few moments i'm going to meet with my entire cabinet in the next room over who are leading the federal recovery and rebuilding efforts and report on their progress providing urgently needed support to the people of maui. if i can note par parenthetically for a moment, when you have for home washed away, when a fire has taken your home away, when your school has been destroyed and you can't send your kid to school. these are urgent needs, and no matter how bright, how informed, how wealthy, how poor they are,

you just need reassurance. how in god's name am i going to get through this. well, jill and i saw the devastation in maui firsthand. and i want to thank governor josh green who's doing one hell of a job, along with our congressional delegation, there's total unity out there, and for everything they're doing to support the recovery effort. i directed my team to do everything we can for as long as it takes. to help maui recover, rebuild in a way that respects and honors hawaiian traditions and cultures and the needs of the local community. we're not going to turn this into a new land grab. we're not going to see multimillion dollar homes on the beach. we want to restore that part of the island like it was before, only better. to that end, when i was on the island last week, i appointed bob fenton, one of the nation's leading emergency managers. i mean that, that's not hyperbole, who has been on the ground in hawaii before the

fires erupted as our chief federal response coordinator to lead our long-term recovery on maui. i've charged him with making sure the community has everything the federal government can offer to heal and build back better as fast as possible. he'll be giving me a report virtually on maui when i walk out of this room and go to the cabinet to our meeting in a few minutes. as an example of our commitment, we're not only building back, but building back stronger in a more resilient future. we need to be ready to withstand any challenge that's in the way. today i'm announcing that $95 million from the bipartisan is on the way to hawaii to harden the ground power, harden the grid, we talk about. i know when we start talking about the grid, the average american outfit thinks we'll be talking about. the ability to transmit electricity.

well, let me tell you what it means. it means investments to make sure electricians can continue to reach homes, hospitals, water stations, even during intense storms and extreme weather. funding will be used for stronger and better poles holding up the wires that transmit the electricity. it will mean stronger material. it will mean burying these lines that transmit the electricity underground. it's more expensive but they're safest. it means clearing trees and brush around the wires. it's like, you know, i think kindling is what it ends up being when one of these wires come down. and this funding is going to pay for installing technology, technology like smart meters that can tell you where the problem actually is when the line goes down. that's part of the problem, a lot of these other, maui's not

that big, but in parts of california, oregon, all of those places where these fires were, where did the wire go down? we're going to be installing meters to let the person sitting back at headquarters know, whoa, it went down at such and such a coordinate. to enable emergency responders to identify which lines are damaged or down so repairs can happen as quickly as possible and get the power back on, and prevent damage from occurring. anything else at our disposal, and the department of energy and the secretary will be talking about this in a minute, accelerated the announcement of this funding to meet the moment. all of this is going to help maui and the entire state of hawaii better withstand future disaster. this is not going away. it's not like, these are the last disaster. i have watched some of you folks standing in front of me on television in dangerous circumstances reporting on this stuff. you know it, it's one thing to

look at it on television and hear someone else report. you're standing there and wondering what's that behind me, it makes a difference, you know, because we've, you know, we've done it before. look, under the obama/biden administration, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars. in the state of florida, replacing wooden power poles and steel poles and we buried these electric lines. well, i want to know what happened now if we hadn't done that. i'm not sure. but the point is we did it. and help them withstand and recover from disaster more quickly than they other side would have. it works. cost a lot of money but it works, but it saves a lot of money in the long term. when jill and i visited maui last week, we saw firsthand the magnitude of the loss. the lives have been dramatically changed, if anybody in maui is listening, you lost everything. they lost everything. and we're doing everything we

can to move heaven and earth to help you return and rebuild, and return to your lives. we already have dedicated $24 million to removal of hazardous materials left behind in the fire's wake. there's pollution that is in that material. a lot of that you can't just go in and take bulldozers and clear it out, you have to take the bad stuff out, the polluted dangerous stuff, and once we've done that, and be able to remove all the debris, but it's going to be frustrating for people. why can't i go back. storm's over, why can't i go back and look and see if i can find that wedding ring or that album, can't find that thing i lost in the house, it's really tough. i didn't have anything like that, but when lightning struck my house, we had to be out of the house for seven months, and the house almost collapsed.

and you wonder what's going to happen. we dedicated $400 million to pay for the debris removal. once we get the toxic stuff out, federal government is going to pay for that. the state is not paying for that, and we're going to dedicate more if necessary. i want to be clear with the people of maui about what to expect, the work we're doing is going to take time. in some cases a long time. we're going to do it in a way that makes sure we're respectful to the wishes of the traditions of the people of hawaii as well. the process of removing hazardous material and cleaning environmental damage means folks can't get back in the area right away. the start of school has been disrupted. it's painful. i get it. what can i tell you? the one thing i can tell you is that we're going to be with you every step of the way. we're not walking away. when jill and i visited, we were struck by the absolute courage

of the people there, people who lost loved ones, lost everything. they're trying to find out are they gone, dead or missing or not accounted for. where are they? they've lost everything. everywhere we turn, we saw and felt the aloha spirit, neighbors helping neighbors. i know this sounds kind of corny, but it's true. it's true. everybody's reaching out, trying to help the other guy, through the pain and purpose, keeping the faith. my administration continues to work with urgency and focus to help the people of maui on their journey of recovery and healing. and we're going to make sure you are healed and you're in better shape than before. i said when i was on the island last week, we're not leaving until the job's done. and we'll be there as long as it takes. i know there's a lot of questions you probably have. i'll take a few. but i have a cabinet meeting coming up right away.

yes. >> reporter: mr. president can you assure americans the federal government is going to have the emergency funding that they need to get through this hurricane season? >> the answer is if i can't do that, i'm going to point out why. how can we not respond? my god. how can we not respond to these needs. and so i'm confident, even though there's a lot of talk from some of our friends up on the hill about the cost, we got to do it. this is the united states of america. >> reporter: governor desantis is also running for president. any politics in your conversation with him about this issue? >> no, believe it or not, i know that sounds strange, especially in the nature of politics today, but i was down there in the last major storm. i spent a lot of time with him, walking from community to community, making sure he had what he needed to get to done. i think he trusts my judgment

and my desire to help, and i trust him to be able to suggest -- this is not about politics. it's about taking care of the people of his state. >> reporter: mr. president, on the hurricane, in your conversations with the governor, is there anything that you've heard from them, things that need to be there that are not quite there yet, and secondly, are you making any contingency plans on your own schedule, either with labor day, your own personal travels and international travels coming up next week that need to shuffle events? >> i may. i don't know yet. first of all, each of the governors seem to be focused and i think what's changing, particularly the governors from north and south carolina, as well as georgia, is there wasn't an anticipation that it would be moving up the coast. they were hopeful and initially looked like it was going to go further east and not affect

them. i think they're all in the process of rapidly focusing on what may happen, what may not happen. and what i hope the people of those states listen to is the warnings when they come from -- they may not see 130 miles per hour winds, but they may be on the shore in a low lying area and have an 8 foot surge of wind surge coming from off the ocean. but they've all went through it. the guy furthest north, governor cooper is really focused on it. they all are. but he's the least likely to have the most impact occurring on his shores. it's a lot of low lying country. i was joking with him, i mean, my state, you know, wouldn't

have anything like a hurricane in my state in delaware, and eastern shore of maryland. we're 3 feet above sea level, man, you worry about what those surges do. and the same thing is still happening in florida because you're talking about the high tide, low tide, adding 3 feet, and so on. so i found them all to be laser focused on what their needs were, and ask them, but i think they're reassured that we're going to be there for whatever they need, including search and rescue offshore of the coast guard, and coast guard helicopters and the like. >> reporter: mr. president, a question for you, we talked a lot about power lines and having stronger poles, i was curious so