west, northwest through the northeast caribbean and it s hard to imagine it not missing the u.s. and british virgin islands and puerto rico on wednesday. this could be the first cat 4 to hit puerto rico in 85 years. so, this is a major hurricane. it could be catastrophic with land slides, flash flooding, 20 to 25 inches of rain in the mountains in puerto rico. not to say the u.s. virgin islands won t get hit hard. the islands that got hit barbuda, they re going to be too far north. again, everything rushed to completion in puerto rico and the virgin islands tonight and tomorrow. and, mike, about what s behind you, how much of a wallop are portions of the east coast going to get tomorrow? well, we re looking at jose as like a nor easter. it s going to be gusty northeast winds, maybe some of the winds gust to 50 miles an hour up around cape cod. up at montawk, we may get 40,
hit puerto rico in 85 years. so, this is a major hurricane. it could be catastrophic with land slides, flash flooding, 20 to 25 inches of rain in the mountains in puerto rico. not to say the u.s. virgin islands won t get hit hard. the islands that got hit barbuda, they re going to be too far north. again, everything rushed to completion in puerto rico and the virgin islands tonight and tomorrow. and, mike, about what s behind you, how much of a wallop are portions of the east coast going to get tomorrow? well, we re looking at jose as like a nor easter. it s going to be gusty northeast winds, maybe some of the winds gust to 50 miles an hour up around cape cod. up at montawk, we may get 40, 45, a couple inches of rain. but the real impact and we ve seen this for a couple of days along the entire eastern seaboard. battering waves, rip currents and beach erosion. we ll be dealing with this a couple days.
up and look at the numbers. it was a hurricane from august 31st all the way until yesterday, so that was about 12 days. it had, of course, it was a category 5 that hit barbuda. the first category 5 to hit cuba since 1924. the first time in our history we were hit by category 4. it was a cat 5 for three days, the second longest we have on record of a storm remaining a cat 5. it was incredible. cuba took a big brunt of it. the only reason florida didn t get hit by a category 5 is it hit cuba. if it was 20 miles north, it would have been worse through the keys, naples and ft. myers. their pain helped us out a little bit. here is what s left of it. we have feeder bands.
that is going to do it for this hour of msnbc live. we begin with breaking news on hurricane irma and a new update coming in moment rs from the national circumstance center on the strongest storm ever recorded in the atlantic. the monster storm is screaming through the carr beeian right now, just listen to irma in st. martin. irma first hit barbuda this morning and she went to st. martin destroying the island s four strongest buildings.