we ve learned by these big storms that we re getting better at addressing? second question very quickly is there any fear besides climate change we re focused on response and coverry. that s what we re doing at dhs and fema. what we have learned is not losing any time. on harvey and this hurricane, maria, the president declared the disaster before the eye hit landfall that is absolutely critical to allowing us to come in and support of the governor before the disaster really hits. to me that has been a game-changer. i think the last 35 days have been a gut check for americans that we don t have a true culture of preparedness in this country. we have work to do. whether it s in education, being ready. it s not just saying, hey, have
damage they can take, katy. nbc s morgan radford on the ground in jacksonville, florida. morgan, thank you very much. nbc s kerry sanders is in marco island, florida. kerry, marco island took a direct hit. i saw you standing outside in naples, which is close to there just getting blown around. talk to me about what it looks like there the morning after. you know, the morning after is kind of surprising. 3:35 p.m. the eye hit here, made it landfall right here on marco island, top winds of 130 miles an hour. as it moved up towards naples, which is just a short distance here, the top winds were 142 miles per hour. and those may be the strongest winds clocked at least on the west coast here. as you can take a look here, the tree tops were shorn off. the reason i m showing you that is because between the trees you can see some of the electrical equipment. the state is basically in the dark. most of the state has no power. the entire island here on marco island without any power at all.
topics, between the political news tonight, and we re just getting started plowing through that, and the situation we re following on the coast of texas. i want to show you what s being broadcast right now by our friend at the weather channel. we have their permission to be dipping in and out of their coverage tonight. that s mike seidel up in the upper right hand corner. the fearless veteran meteorologist mike seidel in port lavaca, texas, where before the end of tonight, they re going to get all the storm they can handle there. he has been at times unable to stand up in the hotel they re staying in has quickly been surrounded by rising water. they re 25 miles inland, by the way. that gives you some visual idea. we are so fortunate to have in our very own studio here tonight our friend bill karins, our meteorologist. and bill, take it away. tell us everything we need to know about the storm, including are we calling it landfall yet as the center of the eye passed
of these category 3, category 4 couple of days ago when whens it was barely a tropical storm, you thought how is that possible? it has been really spot on here. the center of this storm, a lot of times they interact with land and begin to break apart a little bit. looks like a doughnut. visibly a perfect shape of a hurricane. and the outer eye wall getting right here about to make landfall. we talk about landfall and that landfall technically means where the center point of the hurricane, so the center where the lowest pressure is crosses land. then have you a landfall. so that s this when it gets across land then we will call it landfall. i will tell you what, right here we have winds about 115 miles per hour. right now we have had them reported 110 miles per hour. you get an idea, the impacts are wide. the biggest problem is it doesn t go anywhere. it s slowed down in forward speed. the next day or so it moves inland maybe about 40 miles or.
feet in addition to, computer models are estimating, possibly 40 inches of rainfall around port connor. where will it make landfall? it looks like the vicinity of corpus christie. there is no guiding force, but it is possible. it s headed to the interstates. they ve boarded up their homes, prepared with food and taking their families away from this. if you haven t prepared, you should. that s how dangerous. hurricane gustav and ike were back-to-back terrible storms in 2008. that was the last time you saw the gulf coast slammed like this. ike was the first to hit landfall, a hurricane to make landfall in texas. i covered the storms at the time. when she talks about days and days of rain and misery, we re at the leading edge of what is going to be a tough few days, maybe even a week or so for