What are you seeing . I lost you, chris. I lost you, chris, but if you can hear me, if were still on the air, we have taken refuge inside a Parking Structure in miami beach, because i want to show you why the beach floods so quickly, why that storm surge is so dangerous. Our camera man is going to stay underneath the Parking Structure, im going to move over here so you can see just how fast the wind is moving. This is why the storm surge is so dangerous and why this area of miami floods. The wind is barrelling here up miami beach. Its very powerful. Were estimating over 60 Miles Per Hour. Police officers cannot be patrolling the streets when the wind goes over 40 miles per
people evacuated even though the storm shifted west ward, this could be dangerous to leave your home even on the east side of florida, certainly down south around miami, miami beach, until tomorrow morning. Be very aware of those high winds. The beginning of the eye wall starting to affect the keys, those winds whipping up 130, 135 Miles Per Hour potential there. I will repeat what Emergency Management officials on the keys have said to us. I am terrified for all the people still there right now. Were keeping our eye on it for right now. Were going to take a quick break and well be back with more right here on msnbc. Date. The latest information we have from the Hurricane Center and that is that the northern eye wall of Hurricane Irma has reached the florida keys. The full eye 15 miles southeast of key west right now. So we are going to start seeing some of the major impact that is there. If we go north to fort lauderdale, thats where we find nbcs phillip menna. I understand you are seeing some flooding where you are . Absolutely. This used to be a parking lot when we started earlier this morning. And now you can see the water is almost up to my knees. Its high shin right now. So all the cars we see here are now threatened as the rain and wind is starting to intensify, we are 200 miles north of the florida keys and this is what were feeling. Were 7, 8 miles inland from the
beach on the east. So we are not really close at all to the beach and were still feeling these winds and 200 miles of where all of the eye of the storm is. So that gives you an idea of how widespread this is and how powerful some of these bands how quickly the rain can drop. Thank you, phillip very much. The situation deteriorating there. Irma is 50 miles off of key west. So it still has a way to go until it gets to fort lauderdale. Weve been watching in naples, florida Kerry Sanders was on the peer. Hes moved out. Where are you . Im underneath the peeier. I want to show you the distance from the Gulf Of Mexico, up the
beach. The Gulf Of Mexico is not roy royaling yet and thats because irma has not made its way here. Think back to maybe the 1900s thinking its a rainy day, the fish will be biting and going out, unaware of how big the storms will be. One of the biggest concerns is the storm surge. Geological survey has put a sensor here for irma so they can determine how quickly it happened and the extent of the storm surge. Were going to see that for ourselves as well. So if the storm surge comes in as predicted and were talking about 10 to 15 feet. Dont be confused by 10 to 15 over sea level. Were talking 10 to 15 feet above where it is. So as we head in some of those homes 6, 8 above sea level will still see a tremendous amount of
water. Understand its going to be driven by the wind. In napeles we have high tide at 4 00, irma will be around 2 00 meaning we have a high tide with the back winds bringing in the storm surge. So the timing here is perhaps the worst it could be. Ideally and we believe, based on what the police are telling us, everybody has evacuated block after block after block inland to the shelters. So it will be a matter of waiting to see, and right now i think theres a lot of anxiety because the predictions are bad, its dire. Understandably so. Kerry sanders, thank you for that. The mayor is bill barnett, and i wonder, whats your major concern mr. Mayor . Everything. Im watching it pretty carefully
and, of course, as was just said. The time of high tide for us and when irma is going to hit us does not make for a good storm surge. But well have to wait and see. Its pretty nasty here. Tell us about how youre positioned to handle whatever might come your way. Well, we have you know, as far as as far as people on the road, there are zero. Our Emergency Responders are here and checking in and out, they have been out on the road just making sure nobody is out there. And, you know, a lot of palm fronts down, you can see them blowing around and its only going to get worse as we get into a few more hours. But morale is good. Full staff is working. They have our emergency
operations center up and running. We havent had any Emergency Calls that i heard of last night at all. Which is which is a good thing. I shouldnt say it, but we do have power. One of the big concerns, obviously, we were talking to the folks over at the Power Company earlier and they said millions of people could be out, there are areas they will completely have to rebuild. So obviously its a wait and see situation for a lot of people. But do you feel that Everything Possible has been done yes whether its on a state level, local level, federal level. Yes. Obviously its a waiting game because you can say we did as much as we could, and i think we absolutely did plenty of advance preparation, plans for during this hurricane and then the aftermath of how to clean up, what the steps are. And so, i think that as far as
preparation between the county and the city of naples, its really gone well. But as you said, its going to be a matter of you know, its the wait and see game. You keep your fingers crossed, say your prayers and well just see. I guess irma will be through here probably around 2 00 today and well get through it. Bill barnett, mayor of the beautiful city of naples. Home of the governor of florida, rick scott. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. You can hear, its a Nerve Wracking waiting game for all the people there. People who are sheltering in place. Were going to speak to someone who chose not to evacuate coming up. Stay with msnbc throughout the morning and afternoon, well have constant updates. We will be with you throughout irma. So we have seen what is happening already. We have seen some of the rain, some of the wind, we know that the northern eyewall has already made way to the florida keys. We are expecting that landfall to happen anytime now. But north of that i want to go to nbcs jo ling kent, shes been in ft. Lauderdale. I understand were seeing some debris, seeing some things being whipped around by the winds. What you see in front of me are Palm Tree Fronds and these are come off here in broad county. What we see are increasing winds. As you know, we are not in the path of the eye of the storm any longer, but this area really prepared for this and Hunkered Down. Theres still 100,000 people out of power. These fronds that you see here are supposed to sustain a pretty high level of wind and we arent
even at the highest winds that we are expecting here in the ft. Lauderdale area. Were expecting winds of about 60, 70 miles an hour. There is a Tornado Watch under way right now until noon. There was a Tornado Warning all night and there were warnings going out to citizens of Broward County because a tornado was spotted by a citizen here in the ft. Lauderdale area. Now, what you should know is this and i want to swing around, caesar, and show the street here. We are completely isolated. Theres no one on the street out here in ft. Lauderdale because the police have issued a curfew as of 4 00 p. M. Last night. Police cars are able to come down, we have seen a few, the wind continues to pick up, but if it continues to pick up at this pace the police will not be able to respond to 911 calls. Folks are Hunkered Down in hotels and red cross shelters in Broward County are completely packed. We have seen hundreds of thousands of people without
power, but theyre grateful, optimistic even though they are not in the eye of the storm, though some people say that these bands may be like something they have never seen before. They are bracing for the of irma in ft. Lauderdale. I know probably like all of our correspondents you are getting little or no sleep. What time did you come out this morning and how many people have you seen on the roads in that period of time . Yeah, well, there is a lot of people in our hotel, safe and sound. We are lucky we do have power. We were out here about 4 00 or 5 00 this morning and it was completely isolated, then the wind really started to pick up and were feeling those outer bands, the eye of the storm is about to hit the florida keys and we feel that all the way up here in ft. Lauderdale. So so youve seen nobody on the road at all since 4 00 or 5 00 in the morning . Reporter weve seen a couple of emergency vehicles, we have seen an errant family or two driving, but if we swing around this way, caesar, you can see, chris, all the way down here there is nobody on the road because of this curfew thats been imposed and those lights
are green and no one is here. Usually on a weekend you see quite a bit of traffic. Down that way thats the beach way down across those bridges and those bridges have been closed since yesterday afternoon. Jo ling kent, that is exactly behind you what officials want to see, that people are heeding their warnings. Thank you for that. I want to bring in dan noah sr. , he is a veteran nbc producer, now lives in sarasota, florida. He produced coverage of hurricane andrew. Good to talk to you, dan. I have to ask you what are you doing still home . Well, im not in an evacuation area, im pretty high ground and, you know, one of the scariest or worst parts of these storms is really more the high tide, the water than the wind. So as long as im dry, you know, i think we can hide from the wind. We mentioned you are a veteran producer, youve seen this, youve lived it and obviously now live there, but i know weve been hearing all of these terms from the governor,
from folks at noah, kinds of terms, kinds of warnings i have not heard before. Based on your experience what are you looking for . What scares you for your state . You know, what scares me about hurricanes, frankly, is the eyewall. I know this is a big hurricane, its got winds that cover a large area. Really the scariest part of the hurricane always has been, as is evidenced from andrew and every other hurricane is that eyewall and unfortunately sarasota right now is scheduled to get that eyewall. So even though its calm, even though its okay right now, this is actually a bad time because this is when you are evaluating everything youve done and you said did i do this, did i do that, you start watching the coverage from the people down south. So just knowing whats coming is makes the fact that there is no wind right now of little comfort. Obviously when we saw the track of the storm change and it went up the west coast, then we saw people making last minute
preparations, we saw the long lines at the big box stores, we saw Grocery Store shelves that were cleaned out, but i wonder up north where you are, up in sarasota, what you saw in, say, the 24 hours prior to where we are now. Actually, this place started going quite crazy way earlier in the week. I mean, everybody started preparing for this hurricane early and even the evacuation started out quite early. So even you know, this thing was supposed to go up the east coast, but people around here took it seriously right from day one. Dan noa sr. , you can tell he is a veteran nbc producer, he is as calm as they come and very experienced. Dan, you take good care out there. Its good to talk to you. Good to talk to you, chris. Thats going to do it for me this hour. Im chris jansing. We are awaiting that new advisory at the top of the hour on the intensity of hurricane
irma. At 11 00 there will be a major update. What i havent heard yet and maybe were expecting, weve been getting these regular updates from governor scott. Lets see if we get one of those as well today. Mostly what were looking for is landfall in the florida keys. Im going to hand it over to my good friend ali. Governor scott has been giving regular updates. We will keep speaking to mayors and chiefs of police. We will see you later. It is sunday morning, lets get started. All right. Good evening good afternoon, good morning. Thank you for being here for our special coverage of Hurricane Irma which is already wreaking havoc on parts of florida. The storm center is about to make landfall, its closing in on the lower florida keys with a wind speed maxing out at 130 miles an hour gusts. Right now the storm is 20 miles