we have prepared for the worst. we go through the scares throughout the years. but this is a pretty massive storm. this is the biggest storm that i have seen and i have lived here all my life so i think most of the citizens in this community and this area have heeded the warnings from our emergency operation officials and have started to move out. have been moving out for two to three days. thinking about moving out or leaving, this is the time to do it today. because by tomorrow we ll probably be seeing tropical storm winds coming into the area and i have told citizens over and over, once this event is upon us we re not able to send emergency operation officials out to get you. until storm passes so please, you know, heed the warnings. get prepared. because it looks like we ll be getting a direct hit here. i understand that the mayor of puerto rico also reached out to you, as well. she did. and what did she tell you? she just shared with me what she went through many puerto ri
if there was anything she can do for us here she would do it. she wanted to let us know that to take it seriously. it s coming. and, you know, that she s with us and to please give her a call and just sharing her thoughts and concerns of what she went through in puerto rico and obviously a devastating situation last year. of the concerns right now here in wilmington and there are many, obviously, the winds, the storm surge, the rain, what s your chief concern right now? what s top of the list for you, mayor? people think they can ride it out. a barrier island or low-lying area. you can t. 24 to 30 inches of rain which is what this storm is predicted to drop on us, it is going to be bad and not able to get you out. so please heed the warnings. move to higher ground. and be safe. have the evacuations gone smoothly so far? we saw people getting out of the town yesterday as we were coming in. so far, yes. it s gone fairly smoothly.
president s high priority and something he wanted to do himself. we expect to get more and more specifics as the day unfolds. craig? kelly o donnell there for us from the white house, thank you. tremendously big. as the washington post puts it, the president reaches for super latives in the face of calamity. i have the reporter that wrote the piece about the response to this looming storm standing by. also, are we ready? are we really ready? fema laying out the plan to deal with florence that the experts call a storm of a lifetime. we ll keep an eye on the carolina coast. a live look at nags head, north carolina. right there. we re also going to go to south carolina, as well. south carolina bracing for this storm. i ll talk to a former governor coming up in a few minutes. this is msnbc. george woke up in pain.
yacht. i have heard from a number of you on social media and a number of folks asked me here in person, as well, why have folks not managed to get their some cases million-dollar boats out of the marina. i don t have the answer. i don t know why. why all the boats are still here and tethered. we ll work on getting an answer. but there are easily a couple dozen boats here in this particular marina here in wilmington. north carolina s governor says disaster is at the doorstep. as hurricane florence zeros in on the carolina coast and expected to make landfall friday. take a look at the pictures of the staggering storm shot from the international space station. these pictures do an excellent job of grasping the size and scope of florence. a massive storm. more than 400 miles wide. larger than the state of michigan. most residents heeding the warnings, getting out, getting to higher ground, getting to
people were heeding the warnings? did you get the sense that folks living in the mandatory evacuations were actually not like the folks that we just featured there in the interview but listening to local officials and getting the heck out of town? no. it s gotten, you know, what needs to be remembered is, you know, back when hurricane hugo hit, there s 3.5 million in south carolina. now there s 5 million people in south carolina. 1.5 million new folks in the state who have not been through one of these movies. and they re really bad movies. it is interesting in talking to a folk i was just visiting with saying that the interesting thing of hugo was the people who stayed were just thankful to be alive. the people who came back and saw the wreckage that were aghast at the wreckage, again, the people were there like i couldn t care less. i m alive. and so, you have a lot of people who have not been around a storm like this which has just