recover from this monster storm. earlier i spoke with jack seiler, the mayor of ft. lauderdale and began by asking what the priorities are. we ve got obviously to dry out a little bit. we ve got a fair amount of rain from a very, very big and bad and very, very broad storm. but we re in a phase right now where we re dealing with trying to complete our assessment. we ve been out of the storm now for about a full day, but our area being just a rather large urban area, greater ft. lauderdale is almost 2 million people. we ve just are in the process of finally doing our assessment in terms of powerlines, street lights, a lot of sand that got moved across the barrier island and a lot of trees that snapped. we were doing a tree assessment
we thought it was appropriate to put a curfew in place to make sure that nobody goes out there to take advantage of those that have already been disadvantaged by this storm. mayor seiler, we know that the folks in fort lauderdale, some of them went to naples to get away, to seek shelter, only to come right back and try to avoid what s going to happen to the west coast of florida. what s the biggest challenge right now in trying to track this storm and make sure that all of your folks stay safe? well, listen, every update we get, watching your tv station, every update we get, this thing is moving here, it s moving there. and as you focus on safety and security, and as an elected official for 25 years, look, you take the careful, very cautionary approach and that is, i mean, i don t want to send somebody over to naples or ft. meyers and have them have to come back across the state when it shifts. you all, msnbc, has so covered this storm for four or five
days. people ought on on notice. i was on with some of your experts last night. this is a big storm. it is one of the biggest, baddest, broadest storms i ve ever dealt with. the level of the immense nature, the intense nature is huge. and rather than worry about, are we going to be on the east coast of florida or the west coast of florida, listen to the people and, you know, government that are telling you, go hunker down, grab a book, get with family and friends, go to higher and dryer ground but this thing about going back and forth across the shat a state and worrying about what shelter is filled, this is dangerous. this surpasses every storm we ve ever covered. yeah, the evacuating can be as dangerous for folks that choose to hunker down. the chaos that is created. sir, we re going to let you get back to work. the mayor of fort lauderdale, jack seiler. i m going to have you take a listen to this. it is the sound of the waves near key biscayne, an island
this was the scene only moments ago in cuba. watch this, hurricane irma beginning to hit cuba. that s our correspondent patrick oppmann. been reporting in sunshine till a little while ago. then all of a sudden he was caught in the wind and rain. this shows you how quickly the bands of rain and wind can hit. patrick now is safe. he s under cover, but there he is. you saw what was going on. we re going to check back with patrick shortly. there is a new forecast that s just been released extending hurricanes warnings and watches north on both florida coasts. the storm now is expected to be a category 5 when it first makes land fall over the florida keys. let s go back to florida right now. the mayor of fort lauderdale jack seiler is joining us right now. mayor, thank you so much for joining us. you look at that, all of a sudden what happened to patrick oppmann, if there are folks in fort lauderdale, your beautiful city thinking about ride ing it out, maybe they see pictures like that. t
issues tomorrow, we ll have a curfew in place and we ll be very strict in terms of enforcement. we do not want people coming onto the cause way or crossing the cause way coming onto the barrier island. more importantly, after the storm. we don t want to see looting. we don t want to see people taking advantage of those who have been disadvantaged by the storm. so, our police have been told if they need to take whatever necessary measures are to keep the barrier island free of people during this curfew period, if someone stays in their unit, they re going to stay in their unit. we re not going to criminalize that. but we have encouraged every single person with the same message that you all have had. this is a serious, serious storm. and all you ve got to do is watch your coverage of cuba right there to recognize 150, 160 mile an hour winds, rain, and my big concern, a storm surge with a potential high tide with an east wind. we could see five to 10 foot storm surge. the mayor of fort