Her and her own political future. And the growing crisis and outrage after an americanbased journalist is going missing at the Saudi Embassy in istanbul. And will the saudis confront one of the closest persian allies . Im Andrea Mitchell. And now, Hurricane Michael is unleashing fury on the coast, and we could see the landfall this hour of the hurricane. And it is a urgent problem for the panhandle inhabitants who have not evacuated will be facinging storm surge of up to 18 feet, and causing Power Outages and damage that these communities have never seen. Okay. Michael is a deadly category 4 storm. This is the worst storm that the Florida Panhandle has seen in more than 100 years. Remember, we can rebuild your house, but we cannot rebuild your life. Take this seriously, and keep your families safe. Joining me now is nbc meet yourologist bill karins, and gabe guterres in ap lach kalach and bill bradley in tallahassee, and i was in a hurry to reach tout you, and while gabe, i think that he is coming to us first. Gabe, what is the latest . Hi, there. Andrea, i can barely hear right no now. We are here and feeling the wind pick up over the last hour or so, and as you can see, the rain is really pelting me, and it has been for the last several hours now. And right behind me is the most dramatic images that we have seen. This road is flooded, andrea, and earlier on water street which is right by the apalachicola river, and we have moved inland a block or so, and this is not a river or any sort of roadway, but it is a road completely flooded and the storm surge here in apalachicola is rising by the minute. The authorities here expect 9 to 13 feet of storm surge and the downtown areas and parts of it are flood and many of the businesses here will be destroyed, andrea. As you can just get another gust right now. There are many businesses that have been sandbagged, and this entire town is basically clear ed out. Earlier we were forced to evacuate from our hotel, because we were, we were going to be trapped, and so we moved further down the block, and we are okay for several hour, and now we are having to move further inland and this is within the last hour and a half or so, this road has gotten completely flooded. It is a devastating storm, andrea, and intensified so quickly overnight. And this is now a category 4, and the most intense storm that the Florida Panhandle has seen on record, and again, the authorities expect it to get worse over the next three hours. Andrea, back to you. Gabe, thank you. And please, move as quickly as you can obviously. Mariana atensio is in st. Joe, and what about the flooding there . Andrea, the flooding is picking up here. We had to the leave the area where we were last, and move over here, because the roads were impassable. Im about 30 minutes northwest of where gabe is, and you can see the wind gusts picking up here, and 50 Miles Per Hour or so from where gabe was, because this storm is moving this way, and headed to panama city where it is likely to make landfall in the next couple of hours. I want you to check out the marina behind me. You can already start to see many of the boats there, 35 degrees, and you can start to see many of the boat covers, and then you the roofs starting to peel off, because, again, the wind gusts are really starting to come in in this city, and the m mayor is saying to everybody, it is now time to hunk r down, and the next couple of hours will be critical in this area, and as we have been discussing, unprecedented storm for the Florida Panhandle. Andre andrea . Mariana atensio, Everyone Needs to take shelter. And now, Kerry Sanders in panama beach where the landfall is bracing for a direct hit on landfall and what do you see, kerry . Well, andrea, i am blocked by a building and the wind has picked up. What is most instructive and demonstrative from the picture and i am coming down the stairs and i will certainly not go down too far or turn my back on the gulf of mexico here, but the waves crashing here, and this is normally as flat as a lake where youd go skiing, but right now, the waves are krashg and some of them top are crashing and some of them topping out at 18 feet. The distance of the sand dunes out to the gulf of mexico on a normal day would be 100 feet. Right now it is about 50 feet, but we have actually seen the beginning of the storm surge, and that is the water making its way n and i will stand here for a moment, and you will see the sense of the waves crashing in how it is coming right where i am. Mostly foam at this point, and the reason i dont turn my back, is because there is a possible of a rogue wave coming in. To give you the idea of the community as we rare waiting to see the action back and forth of the gulf of mexico here, about 24,000 people decided to stay put, and they chose to stay put, because they thought that it was a category 2, and that is a good place to hang out, and we wont have to worry about it. And we are matt bradley is in tallahassee and Kerry Sanders is fine, and i should assure everyone, but it is the transmission there. And matt bradley up the coast in tallahassee, and this is going to be extreme wind, correct . That is right, andrea, and just in the last couple of hours, tallahassee issued the very first ever extreme warning, and we have been seeing the wind picking up, and one of the main things, and the concerns here as i was speakinging with the m ii Andrew Gillam and many of the trees are with the spanish moss here, but 50 are with tree cover, and so in past hurricanes, you will see a number of these trees and especially the old growth ones like the oaks falling on to cars and houses, and they are especially going be falling on to powerlines. Last time with the hurricane hermine, it was in tallahassee, and so the governor is going to be trying to show how the city can get back on its feet after these historic wind levels. And it is the last days for the Voter Registration there, and lot of the cross currents right there in tallahassee, and not just that race of course, and the most urgently the eme e Emergency Management and how he handles it. Matt . And lets matt bradley is apparently not hearing us. We will go to bill karins in the studio. Bill, talk about the historic storm, and the panhandle has never seen anything quite like it. No, once in a generation or lifetime and we have been keeping the records of the hurricanes since the late 1800s and we have never seen anything like this in the panhandle. It has the pressure of the equivalent of a category 5 and pressure of close to katrina and andre andrew, and those are storms that the bar is set so high that you say the name and it gives people the chills. This is the bowling ball and that is what i am calling it, because it is going to feel like a bowling ball has slammed into the region over the next two the three hours. This area in blue is extreme wind warng and the equivalent to the Tornado Warning and expecting winds of 130 Miles Per Hour over the next couple of hours equivalent to ever2 or ever3 tornado over the entire region. They are telling everybody to bunker in place, because there s is no one coming to rescue you. And no power. And now, look at the lightning strikes around the center of it, and the pressure is continuing to drop. If this had more time the over water, it would guaranteed a category 5 overlandfall, but rig over landfall, but it is still a chance to jump to catt 5, but when they go back in the final report and look at the damage, they may say it is a cat 5, so that is just for the history books, but now we are worried about who is going to be seeing the most damage out of this. As we are zooming in. We have been talk abouting a lot panama city, and this is what looks like to be the brunt of it. This is northern eye and the Northeast Quadrant where the strongest wind s will be if we get the 150mileanhour gusts, it is in this vicinity moving in shortly. It is going to bring panama city, population 75,000 when you combine panama city and panama city beach, and the smaller areas around mexico beach and point st. Joe, and if you live here, you dont like it, because you are in the worst portion of the storm as it comes on shore. And the winds, and you can see the portion of the storm right now, andrea, where we have the reporters and get in and out and we are losing the transmission a little bit, but in the next hour or so, we wont be able to talk to them, because it is too dangerous for the crews or anyone to be outside, period. The winds are 71 in apalachicola, and panama city about 48 and this is when we will lose the power when the winds are into the 50, 60, 70, 80mileanhour range. And as far as the storm surge, the area to be hardest hit to the right of the center where they will be 6 to 10 feet, and in some areas 14 feet of water. That is an incredible number. If you are look at the beaches and the houses, they are usually on the stilts, and nobody is up there past 14 feet, and especially with the wave action on top of it. This is how the winds will play out as we go through the rest of the afternoon, and going through 2 00 p. M. , the landfall and the 90mileanhour winds and then we will watch the winds ramping up. Tallahassee by 4 00 p. M. , around 79mileanhour winds. That is going to knock out the power on the interior section. But andrea, from the wind and the destruction from the storm surge, it is now through 4 00 p. M. This afternoon. The only thing that i can equate it to is a bowling ball, and the pana panama city here and the panhandle to apalachicola is the pins, and it is going to be so sudden and so destructive over t the next couple of hour, and people will equate it to a tornado that came through. And just to review what really happened here. The water is as hot as 90 degrees here, apparently, and the wind i guess that the wind sheer that could have slowed this down did not happen. So it came and it is getting stronger and stronger, because of the hot water . Yes, the fuel for the hurricanes is the warm water. And that is the process that they need and that is why the peak of the season is end of the summer and into october, and the wild card with this one was the wind sheer. And the wind is up where the jets fly, and they can tear the thunderstorms apart and so all along over the last week, it was supposed to have enough shear to keep it at weaker storm, and we were saying four or five days ago, tropical cat 1, but when it ramped up in the begin, we knew we were in trouble, and two the three days ago we thought that it was a major category 3 hurricane, but overnight, it never stopped intensifying, and it is still intensifying, and this is why it is close to being a category 5. This is, andrea, going down as the seventh lowest pressure for any storm in the u. S. At landfall, a tnd the winds are going to be somewhere in the top ten, too, and this is going to go down as one of the worst hurricanes we have ever seen. And if there is a small sliver and obviously, horrible for where it is hitting, but at least it is not hitting a big huge major city, because then it would be a katrinatype disaster, but it is going to be horrible for a small area, and we will see how bad tomorrow morning when we get the hel k t helicopters up i flying to see what is left. Bill karins, thank you for that. And gary jarvis is the major of destin, florida, on the florida coast and in the storms past, and joining me now. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much, and i know that you have been doing the preparations, and plenty of warnings, but no way to protect your coastal city, your community from this. Good afternoon, andrea. That is correct. All you can do is to prepare, you know, the families and the businesses for the impacts of the storm that the previous folks have been talking about the wind and the storm surge. Fortunately from our community, just now, we are receiving 40, 45mileanhour winds. We will miss the brunt of the storm, and the winds even though they may get up in the 60mileanhour range, the net benefit to sus that we are getting a north northeasterly wind on the west side of the storm to reduce the storm surge dramatically which is going to help a lot of the businesses and our homes along the beach. So we really feel for our friends to the east, but we are breathing somewhat of a sigh of relief on the west side in destin, florida. Well, we still wish you all of the best and thinking of you and all of the neighbors in the other communities there along the coast in the panhandle. Thank you so much, and mayor gary jarvis from destin, florida, and we with will continue to monitor the very latest. And the hurricane is about to gain speed as it heads toward panama city. And who is next to replace nikki haley up next here on Andrea Mitchell reports. Follow that bright star. Because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. And brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with moms changing needs. woman because dad made us promise wed keep mom at home. vo call 8444brightstar for your free home Care Planning guide. If your moderate to severeor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. 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Ambassador nikki haley and he has confirmed nbcs report that the former National Security adviser dina powell is on that list. She was a former secretary to Condoleezza Rice in the Bush Administration and also reports that Joe Lieberman may be under consideration and he was seen at the white house yesterday. Joining me now is White House Correspondent kelly odonnell, and michael beschloss, president ial historian and the author of the new book president s of war. Welcome both. Kel kelly, first to you, and we understand that the president is meeting now with brock long his fema director and other officials on the storm obviously, but nikki haleys rather surprising are resignation effective at the end of the year certain lu opens up a lot of oquestions about her motivation, and who is coming next. I have been told that dina powell is on the short list, and the president then confirmed that yesterday. And first of all, why now . Why leaving before the election . Well, some of the people that i have talk ted to in the republican circles have said that by announcing now, but she will depart her role by the end of the year, she is effectively have served half of the president s term, and that is a considerable a amount of time not unusually short given the larger issues of the pressures f of being a part of the trump administration, and by announcing now, it is before any verdict is rendered by the voters in the midterm election, so if there is any kind of the shakeup or the changes after the midterms which is a typical practice for white houses, she would not be swept into this. So it is really calling the shots in her own time and giving the president the opportunity to have another high profile appointment. Now it is obviously a negative to the trum administration in that she brought a lot of credibility in the republican circles and the more traditional realm of the a party to the job, and has been part of the prominent events of the Trump Presidency everything from sanctions on north korea and the ongoing talks about denuclearization and moving that forward and the change in the Embassy Location in israel, and she has been a person who could split the difference at times taking a position somewhat different from the president without taking the blows that other officials have had when they have done that. The and so, another theory is that she is leaning heavily toward moving into the private sector for a period of time. She has been in public life for a long time, and she could raise her own Financial Health but i getting a private sector job for some people, and then perhaps she would reenter public life at some future date, and we dont know for certain what her plans are, but she is high profile, and certainly at a point where she could leave the administration without as one official said much scar tissue which might make her more valuable in the private sector on the short run. And on the short list, you are right, andrea, d the ina powell is in new york already, and that may be helpful, because she left the administration in part, because she did not want to be away from her family who remained in new york. Andrea . And she has Foreign Policy experience, and the parents are from egypt. And this is someone who is very well regarded in the int International Community and the business community, but there is also pushback, and michael, people like the former aid to john bolton, and some of what we are hearing from some of his people, allies saying that the ambassador the germany now would be a good pick, and he is not well thought of by the european ally, but well thought of by john bolton and