Pouring rain in the area through monday. We have Live Team Coverage tonight. Jonathan hunt on the ground in South Carolina where they are starting to get some of this, the brunt of this as well. The head of the coast guard is joining us on the massive rescue operation they have underway but we begin with chief meteorologist Rick Reichmuth who is here with the forecast and what to expect. Rick we have a long ways to go with the storm. Some of the impacts are lessening. The winds are coming down, strongest winds, which is good news. But they were extreme. Look at the numbers. 106 Miles Per Hour was recorded at cape lookout. 105 in wilmington close to where it came on shore. Those are the places where there is a station to read a reading like that. Who knows other stronger winds could be in places in between that. You get an idea of the storm now. This is organized and they are saying how amazed they are with how organized it is holding together. It has plenty of moisture around it. The wind is still going offshore in myrtle beach. So you are not getting the storm surge. Where you got the storm surge to the right of where it came ashore, east of wilmington there, that same direction is continuing. Its only moved since this morning. We are now at 12 hours since landfall. It has moved 45 miles. Its just creeping along. So if you have had the wind for all this time, you still have the wind. If you had the rain, you still have the rain. If the storm surge came on, its still there. We have seen spots of over 20 inches of rain. A lot about new bern where you are talking about where the people are still trapped there. This is the radar image from it. The heavy bands have been falling over the same area time and time again all day long. This look like its maybe just finally nudging to the west, which would be good news if we can dry out in morehead city. This is remaining rain that is coming. I quickly want to thank you with what is going to happen over the weekend. The rain will move in toward the mountains and across part of the carolinas. That water runs down very quickly into that flat plain. But all of that has to go down to rivers. This is a little nerdy, if you dont mind for a second. This is a hydro graph and show what is the river projections will be. You see the line there. That is a record crest before, 29 feet. This is forecast to get to 35. 2 feet on monday. So, a long ways from now. And all of that water just keeps on going down the rivers. This one here, Northeast Cape fear river is going to be at the record stage. That stays through wednesday. The same story here. All of the rivers are at the highest levels ever. And that flooding throughout much martha that is flooding. Like a barrier wall to bank the water back down in the rivers when you hit the mountain range. Thank you. Well be watching it with your help. South carolina is now getting hit hard tonight but the remnants of florence. State officials fear severe flooding could wash out major roads and cut myrtle beach off from the main land. Jonathan hunt is live in myrtle beach, South Carolina, where the conditions are worsening by the minute this evening. Jonathan, you are now feeling it there pretty good, huh . Yeah, feeling it really good here, martha. We are hoping that this might be the final whack we get here on the South Carolina coast from the winds of florence. But the rains predicted as rick was just saying to last at least another 24 hours. Right here on North Myrtle Beach. Now the good news for at least coastal South Carolina is that the storm surge that we were expecting does not appear to be coming. That is largely as rick was talking about the offshore winds blowing from the land on to the ocean pushing the ocean back. Im just going to walk a little bit off the beach. I can tell you this fine South Carolina sand, when its whipped by the 60plusmileperhour winds hurts a good bit. So ill come up off the beach here. As i do that, we can look down the beach and show you a couple of homes that have suffered some wind damage through today. There has been nothing major that we have seen. There are trees down. We have seen some power lines down as well. And much of North Myrtle Beach and the entire myrtle beach region is actually without power right now. Its likely to stay that way for quite some time. Simply because it is not safe. Obviously for anybody to come out and start fixing the power lines in these conditions. Most of the people who live here and vacation here did get out when they were told to by officials. Some have stayed. We spoke to one woman earlier today who said she grew up in miami and has lived here 20 years and not getting up. Most people have heeded the warnings to get out. That clearly is a very good thing as we face a long weekend here. Martha those who stay have to be hunkered down for the next 24 hours. It will be hovering over the area for some time. Be safe. Thank you very much. Good to see you out there. Sure. Martha with more than 720,000 people without power in the carolinas and i said the numbers are expected to skyrocket over the next 48 hours. Almost 150 people desperately waiting for help to be evacuated off the rooftops of their houses in new bern, North Carolina, alone. Rescue efforts are well underway. Here exclusively is the man tapped with laying out the strategy for the government rescue effort and response. The head of the u. S. Coast guard. Commandant charles schultz. Thank you. Its good to have you with us tonight. We know you are extremely busy so thank you for taking a few moments to tell everybody at home how it is going. Tell us. Its a big storm. This is a large storm. I spans 350 miles across. Downgraded to a Tropical Storm but still 100 Miles Per Hour winds in some locations. Catastrophic flooding. New bern, we just rescued a man who was a cancer patient stranded in his home. We brought him to safety. We have Shallow Water rescue teams deployed with the local and the state partners. You have seen rescues in new bern. Coast guard activity is picking up. We have had a coast guard c130 over flying North Carolina to get a better assessment of the circumstances on the ground, martha. Martha so explain in terms of new bern, are these rooftop rescues that you are doing . How deep is the flooding in that area . How do you, you know, people are signals to the coast guard as we have seen in the past to let them know there is somebody down here, please help . Well, martha, to this point the rescues in new bern have been mostly by local response agencies. Swift water experts in from other states. We are the one level depth and the strength there. We are ready to come in. There hasnt been roof rescues yet. But as we get in the space, we flew in an aircraft, jayhawk helicopter out of Elizabeth City earlier today. They had to sit down. They couldnt get to new bern because of the heavy thunderstorms and the micro bursts. We just got over the air here but we have not done rooftop rescues in the last 15 to 20 minutes. Martha so in terms of i know general mattis announced earlier today that they wanted to remove any sort of red tape that might exist in terms of getting military help to people who need it. Can you explain what the procedure is like . I can tell you this. For the United States coast guard, our authorities allow to us come in immediately after a storm. For general mattis, there needs to be approval to move military forces to do defense support of civil authority. So he is cutting any of that red tape. National guardsmen, active duty, navy, air force folks can immediately respond. That is encouraging. Secretary mattis is fully involved be the department of the defense team. All the agencies, all the federal agencies support the state and the local agencies here. Go ahead. Martha no. Finish your thought. Somebody must have cut in. I was going to say its a strong sign. You have the heft of the entire federal government here to support the state and the locals. This is a em sport. Martha thank you so much. You do an unbelievable job up and down the coast and all over the country. We are grateful for the help for the people out there tonight. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Thank you. Good to see you. Good night. Martha you bet. Florence battering the east coast and President Trump is tweeting. Standing by the controversial comments this week that the u. S. Response to Hurricane Maria in puerto rico was unsung success. That is despite findings of the new report that nearly 3,000 people died in the storm. We thought the topic was taking a little bit of a backseat given everything. But moments ago the president tweeted this in response to something that geraldo said apparently. He said they say all the people died in the storm in puerto rico. Yet 70 of the power was out before the storm. So when did people start dieing . At what point do you recognize that what they are doing is a political agenda couched in the nice language of journalism . That is from the president a few moments ago. He continues to battle over the outcome of the services that were provided in puerto rico. So still to come tonight, we are going to go live to new bern, which is one of the hardest hit areas in North Carolina. The coast guard as we have been telling you is helping them out as are folks on the ground as we heard from the commandant. Cooperative effort. We show you what is going on there first. But first, president obama is back very much and he wants to set the record straight. When you hear the folks bragging about this economic miracle, just remember when it started. 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And this is moving day with Reliable Service appointments in a twohour window so youre up and running in no time. Show me decorating shows. This is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and twohour appointment windows. Click, call or visit a store today. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. If you got a business, you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen. Martha remember that . It didnt go over that well with half the country at the time. Now the former president is speaking out in a big way. He wants to make sure that america knows the thriving economy really began he believes under president obama. He is telling President Trump when it comes to that, he didnt build that either. Watch this. Well, we worked hard to turn this economy around. When i was president , and the actions that we took during the economic crisis return the economy to healthy growth, initiated the longest streak of job creation on record, which continues today. Just remember that when you hear these folks bragging about this economic miracle, just remember when it started. Just remember when the billion got rolling. Martha he is back in a big way. So here are the numbers. Dow jones industrials were near 18,000 when President Trump was elected. Now they are up over 26,000. Consumer confidence surged to very high levels. The highest level since 2000. Small Business Optimism is topping the highest level in 45 years. That is due in large part to the rollback of a lot of onerous regulations that have been lifted under this administration. That is what Business People will tell you across the board. A new quinnipiac poll shows 755 of people say this economy is excellent or good. Tammi bruce with us and nicole richie, a strategist. They have different ways to help the economy. President trump is rolling back taxes. And president obama was not about that. It was a dampening factor for businesses. They wanted to find way to hire less people and they didnt want to expand the business. So this a tough argument. I dont think that obama is saying he is responsible for the current economy. He is saying he is responsible for the recovery of it. That is not fiction. That is fact. When he took office we had 10 Unemployment Rate and he took it to 4. 8 . Home prices were declining by 20 . And the stock market practically almost crashed when it was basically cut in half. So i think he is saying this, i think its sort of the republicans are trying to use it as a talking point to get trumps base out there. Because we know they have a serious martha understood. But i mean, the bottom line is what people think. What they feel and who they give credit to when they go out in the midterms. Right. President obama knows that. You can tell he is worried about his own legacy, how he is viewed. Keep in mind, President Trump ran on doing the opposite of what obama was doing. So in fact, literally it cant be the result of barack obama because President Trump has done the reverse of everything he has done. Proving that there is a different approach here, right . It really highlights what barack obama did not do and the damage. Its the magic wand comment. Obama didnt understand when trump said he would keep jobs in america and bring them back. Conceptually, barack obama did not understand how it could work. Its proven it can be done. The weakness with obama his lack of experience with business and lack of confidence in the American Worker and the nature of how the american system can work. We know that is the fact. That is what obama is fighting against now. Once again, this is why the Democratic Party is in such trouble. Its all about him. All the speeches arent about what can democrats do and how are we going to make the difference. Its about what he did and how great he was, et cetera. So, for people watching and as americans have you noted had an experience about what the future means now its because they have seen it work, they trust it and know what it will look like in the future. Martha they will decide what think think on their own. The New York Post oped column saying the democrats hit a new low in the crusade against kavanaugh. This has to do with the anonymous letter that was thrown into the mix at the very last moment, rochelle, accusing kavanaugh of something in high school he claims that he did not do. He has a letter from 65 women who speak out in support of him from high school and beyond. They say he wouldnt do that. Was this too low a blow . You know, i went back and forth on whether or not i would share this story with millions of people. But i have been a victim of Sexual Assault. So when i see politicians using Sexual Assault alleged actions of Sexual Assault or sexual abuse, its offensive to me. To try to use something to tragic to gain political points. I feel that if this happened to this woman, for anything, at least for public safety, you should come forward immediately. Not wait from july until now to say i have this letter and im handing it over. But i will say this, though. If kavanaugh did do what this woman is alleging that he did, then he should be held responsible. Because this is a Supreme Court justice and they are meant the uphold the law, not break it. Martha the f. B. I. Looked into it. They just passed it along. And she is anonymous. And doesnt want to move forward with anything. So i got to leave it there because we are out of time. But thank you very much. Good to have you both with us tonight. So coming up, bob woodward said he dug hard to find dirt to tie the president to collusion but in his research he said he came up empty. 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