mayor seiler: that's 100% accurate. couple of things -- one, i've lived here all my life and been in public office 25 years, so this is not our first hurricane or our last. more importantly, city staff from top to bottom, everyone was so prepared, so ready. this storm, we had 3, 4, 5 days notice that we were going to get this big, bad storm. we were aware of its intensity. we spent a lot of time preparing for it. about 2500 employees did a remarkable job. once we felt that we were ready for the storm, we started focusing on post storm recovery. we kicked into gear at 5:00 a.m.. we had police and fire out the minute the winds got under 45 miles per hour. we felt well-prepared and we recognized that we have got to get things back to normal here. it may take some time but at the end of the day, we have such a world-class destination for tourism, a world-class marine industry with the world's largest boat show coming up in an hour and a half. what about s of looting? we have had reports, especially in miami, how bad is that

the mayor of fort lauderdale jack seiler is joining us right now.or, thank you so much for joining us. you look at that, all of a sudden what happened to patrick oppmann, if there are folks in fort lauderdale, your beautiful city thinking about ride ing it out, maybe they see pictures like that. that's only the beginning of what we can anticipate. this hurricane is only beginning over there, the outer bands. maybe they'll get some second thoughts and decide it's not too late to leave. what do you think? >> you're 100% right, wolf. between the visual of this storm with the immensity of it, intensity of it, to see it firsthand right on the screen, this storm looks just outrageously huge from space. it looks huge from the ground. and then to see what it just did to your correspondent, it's scary. we've been warning our neighbors, we've been warning our visitors, and we have made sure that we have been ready and prepared for this storm for several days. and cnn has put a spotlight on it and has made it known to everybody that this storm is coming. >> wh

the mayor of fort lauderdale, jack seiler. i'm going to have you take a listen to this. it is the sound of the waves near key biscayne, an island town here in miami-dade county. just listen. >> pena lindsey joining me now via skype. we have key biscayne's joining me now. you issued a mandatory evacuation on friday to people living there. how effective was that? did people listen? >> most people did listen. we have, i'd say, 98% of our residents have, in fact, evacuated. we have some people who decided to stay, despite our best efforts and our warnings. >> when you think about the changing track of irma, how difficult is it for people like yourself and also for the governor to get it right when it comes to evacuations, especially when we know that there are people trying to get shelter that are facing very hard, long lines. >> sure. well, the biggest challenge is this is a monster storm, so while we are no longer getting the worst of the worst, all of florida will be impacted and will be hit. in fact, our causeway is already under water, and you see the visual over to the

earlier i spoke with jack seiler, the mayor of ft.e and began by asking what the priorities are. >> we've got obviously to dry out a little bit. we've got a fair amount of rain from a very, very big and bad and very, very broad storm. but we're in a phase right now where we're dealing with trying to complete our assessment. we've been out of the storm now for about a full day, but our area being just a rather large urban area, greater ft. lauderdale is almost 2 million people. we've just are in the process of finally doing our assessment in terms of powerlines, street lights, a lot of sand that got moved across the barrier island and a lot of trees that snapped. we were doing a tree assessment and we had over 100 trees blocking roads at various places. so it's a significant storm, so whether we escaped the brunt or not, we're feeling the after effects. >> yeah, clearing roads i think is described by a lot of people as a very obvious thing. but a real priority. if you don't have clear roads, you can't get emergency vehicles around. and

. >> major jack seiler. good luck to you p. >> thank you.a good morning. >> check out this one, this is hollywood, florida and more than a quarter million customers are in the state. that's down by about half. at one point officials told us it was half a million. but they say it will reach into the millions as the day goes on and the storm moves into the land. we'll continue to update you all morning long, continuous coverage of irma's track and its impact here on msnbc.

melissa >> aisha harris >> stuart herod's >> john clinton hartz >> emeric harvey >> and my wing man, seilerailor. when my minds eye is frozen in time as a young man who each welcomed his grandchild, his namesake, your friends and family miss you. but we all feel blessed and young again when we see you in your grandsons face >> and my mother, barbara walsh. 16 years have come and gone and you have left big footprints to fill. we will continue as a family to plan, celebrate and go forward. it's so very difficult without you. we know it is what you would have wanted. we continue to persevere and honor you, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend. your grandbabies would make you so proud. we miss you and love you always. god bless america's >> lisa >> thomas theodore haskell junior >> timothy haskell's >> joseph free >> leonard hatton junior >> terrace haub >> michael haub >> timothy haviland >> donald havlish junior >> anthony maurice hawkins >> nobuhiro haytsu >> philip hayes >> philip t. haynes >> scott jordan hazel korn >> michael healy >> roberta heber >> charles francis xavier heerna >>

. >> julie: jack seiler, thank you so much for talking to us. >> bill: we had crews throughout the stateflorida. i will be joining our coverage in florida over the weekend. we will see what we get when she hits. keep it here on the fox news channel as we all hope for the very best for hurricane irma. 8 minutes past the hour and a we move from that storm to the other storm in washington now. this weekend, the president will head to camp david, full meeting there with the cabinet. also facing challenges from a possible north korean missile launch. we have backlash over a debt ceiling with democrats. chris wallace has been watching all of this this week. good morning to you, chris. i would guess the primary concern is what happens to florida with irma, but certainly keeping an eye what the cabinet does on saturday. >> absolutely. of course, irma is going to be on our watch on fox news sunday and we will be all over talking to federal state and local officials. we will be sharing some of those crews with you that are going to be all over south florida. and the federal response is very import