nbc's catie beck has details. >> reporter: the day after she broke the record for winning the most emmys in a single role -- >> thank you so, so much. >> reporter: -- beloved comic actress julia louis-dreyfus learned she had breast cancer. today on twitter the 56-year-old wife and mother went public to send a message. one in eight women get breast cancer. today i'm the one. the good news, she wrote, is that i have the most glorious group of supportive friends and fantastic insurance through my union. the bad news is that not all women are so lucky. so let's fight all cancers and make universal healthcare a reality. ♪ america knew her best as elaine benes from the hit comedy "seinfeld," later as the self-centered vice president on the hbo series "veep." >> and whether you voted for me -- >> reporter: and a three-time host of "saturday night live." off camera, louis-dreyfus is an advocate for cancer research. and doctors say when celebrities share their diagnosis, it makes a difference. >> i've personally seen women come into our clinic to say, i read this story. do i need to be considered

and there is catie beck with oncoming rains and winds still in the teeth of the storm. s that still the same squall line we saw you in an hour ago? >> it absolutely, brian. and we keep getting these wind gusts. they're so powerful. it really is hard to keep your feet on the ground, not to mention that whistling sound we were talking about before. it sounds sort of like a teakettle on the stove. but it's so loud, we've been hearing that off and on as these bands come through orlando. now orlando has been desolate, really, for the past two days in terms of the roadways and the theme parks, completely empty. a total ghost land, which would typically be a high population tourist area with lots of families on vacation. they are hunkered down in hotels. if you drive through international drive, every parking lot is packed with cars. and those folks are hunkered down because of what we're experiencing now. for most of today, the weather has been pretty mild. but as irma moved up the coast, orlando was in sight and now is really at the center of the storm. so we're seeing wind

let's go to nbc's catie beck who is up in jacksonville, florida. catie, what's it look like there? >> well, i am actually in a low-lying neighborhood where obviously all of the storm surge has collected. the entire neighborhood is basically under water at this point. but what's interesting about this is the water levels keep changing as the tide goes in and out. this is probably actually the lowest the water level has been all day. but that could change around 2:00 a.m. when the tide comes back in. so what people are dealing with here is storm surge, record storm surge and rainfall and wind that has all found its way to these low-lying areas. the st. john's river is at the end of this street, and that is where all that water has been pouring in and will soon be pouring out. as i walk through the streets, you can tell all of the houses are pretty much evacuate and dark. but interesting enough, i see small fish swimming in the streets. and that is just a sign of the fact that all of this is water that came from somewhere else, and hopefully will go back to somewhere else in the near

we just saw what happened in orlando with catie beck. up next our special coverage continues. we will go back to miami where flooding is now the big concern in many parts of that city. our full coverage continues after this. you are watching msnbc. >>> this came off one of the palm trees to the east of me. and i'm not going to let go of it because i can fly around. probably weighs about 25, 30 pounds and snapped off. you can see the wind. it's just really hard. this is the kind of projectile that can be a real danger in a hurricane. rather than let it fly across here i went and picked it up and held it. i will just dump it in a place where the wind isn't. this is the real danger in a hurricane with things flying around. >> that is kerry sanders who has watched this thing go from clear skies into the hurricane that you were watching. maya rodriguez is in miami. the worst of it is over in miami. now we are looking at the after effects and the debris and looking at flooding. this is a city that has a flooding problem because of rising sea levels sometimes on sunny days have water

msnbc's catie beck. more we're joined right now by the mayor of jacksonville himself, mayor lenny curry. thank you so much for joining us by phone. i have to tell you i'm not often in this mind-set, but i am impressed by the urgency with which the officials in florida led by the governor, governor scott have addressed this threat. they have talked about it as a serious threat from the first moment it appeared over the horizon from the caribbean. they have gotten people in their ear sight. they have got the people ready. people are being told by officials what to do. it does seem that if we have a more limited loss of life than expected, it's because of public action. your thoughts. >> that's right, chris. thank you, and good evening. the governor has been on top of this, working with us well before the storm. president trump's white house has been in touch with the governor and reached out to us before the storm. and we here locally, you know, we began evacuations on wednesday. we told people these are v

catie beck, thank you. we'll seal you again. >>> as i mentioned, in just a few minutes, president trump and the first lady will set off for their second trip to texas and while there will visit with people affected by hurricane harvey. let's bring in joe watkins, former white house aide to president george h.w. bush, rick tyler, an msnbc political analyst, and zerlina maxwell former adviser to -- >> did the first visit not cut it or things he couldn't see then that he wants to see now, can you explain that? >> he made an impetuous decision to go and ended up in corpus chris christi. corpus christi got a lot of wind damage, but only received about six, seven, eight inches of rain. that's fine because you don't want him drawing resources from people on a rescue mission at that time. so now he wants to go back and probably get closer to where the damage occurred. i'm not going to second-guess it. i think it's fine. you're not going to see donald trump have the sort of empathy that, for instance, mike pence sho

nbc's catie beck joins us. know there have been a couple of fires this week at the arkema chemical plant. are there expectations that it's going to get worse before it gets better? >> reporter: at this point, yes, they are keeping a very close eye on that plant, expecting there will be more fires and more explosions. right now it seems to be pretty contained but they are still holding that mile and a half perimeter for the evaluation of that area and the reason is because of toxic chemicals that may be released into the air. now, the epa has aerial surveillance right now. they are going around that area and assessing whether or not those toxic chemicals are in fact getting into the air, but they are telling folks in that area, please heed all of the safety precautions that we have been giving to you over the past couple of days. please stay out of that area because they don't want to put anyone at risk. alex. >> all right, catie. very quickly where you are, that area, just all the stuff behind you. it's people'