pick up dramatically over the next several hours. jay, one last quick one for you. is there a sense people have listened to these requests from officials to evacuate the area as the storm bears down? reporter: you know, jonathan, i hesitate to say many haven t. it was crowded yesterday. we made the trip from tampa into gainesville where the storm is also making the trip, and there were a lot of people out. a lot of people preparing but preparing to stay, getting supplies, getting into place. so it looks like a lot of people in this area have decided to ride this thing out. it is a bit inland, so that surge won t be an issue. but they best be prepared, jonathan, to go for weeks if not longer without power and with problems to the infrastructure across this city because it looks like they re going to take a tough hit here. nbc s jay gray live for us from gainesville, florida, thank you and please stay safe.
sheriff s office. he didn t get that chance and we d like people to give us the truth of what happened and be honest with us. reporter: the lopezes one of several gold star families demanding accountability. i don t want to hear lies, i don t want to hear excuses from president biden. reporter: many blaming president biden. several presidents preceded mr. biden in this 20-year ward but none of it them are going to be held accountable for the withdrawal. that is he and he alone. reporter: the chaotic withdrawal began as the taliban quickly took over the country. president biden argued leaving afghanistan was the right choice. i was not going to extend this forever war, and i was not extending a forever exit. reporter: the pentagon defending its response. u.s. military commanders on the ground in afghanistan made decisions that they could with the information that they had at the time.
now live from gainesville, florida, nbc s jake gray and also our friend angie lassman at 30 rock. jay, i ll start with you. you ve covered a number of these storms. how are things looking now? we can see the rain is coming down as the storm is just a few hours from landfall. reporter: yeah, and jonathan, no question we re seeing the bands get a little tighter. we ve had the outer bands bringing rain like this and some stepped up winds over the last several hours. we know that s going to change dramatically as we move closer to landfall, and we won t get that break in the bands. it will be one steady rain here in gainesville. we re going to see hurricane force winds. a big concern obviously with the university of florida campus located here, those students don t have class. i mean that s pretty clear, but they re also being told to either get out of the area, and if you haven t done that at this point to shelter in place and make sure to ride this thing
one should always question a story that is completely reliant on anonymous sources. nbc news cannot independently verify rolling stone s reporting. we ve also reached out to giuliani team for a response but have not heard back yet at this time. to note there have been reporting over the years over trump s time in office he had expressed some concerns about giuliani s alcohol use. two years since the u.s. military s chaotic and deadly withdrawal from afghanistan, the families of service members killed in a bombing there are still demanding answers. nbc news correspondent ryan nobles has more. reporter: two years ago herman and alicia lopez lost their son hunter. it s something that no one thinks will ever happen to their family. reporter: he was one of 13 u.s. service members killed in the isis bombing near abby gate atika boule airport in afghanistan. he planned to join his hometown
expansive it is. do you think it could go to trial as early as october? reporter: i think it s extremely unlikely the request is going to be granted. it s one thing for a request like that to be granted at the defendant s insistence, but when you re talking about a group of people going to include a group of people that don t want to go to trial that quickly for significant legal reasons, they need to be able to defend themselves, and they could argue we need time to mount a defense, we shouldn t be tied to just this one guy who wants to go earlier than everyone else. i think it s a pretty, pretty high bar for her to clear to keep them all together. and it s one of the sort of consequences of bringing a case this large. i m sure that, you know, the d.a. and her colleagues foresaw this possibility and sort of prepared a contingency scenario around it. it s not the only adjacent court fight going on right now, and there s going to be more of this as the defendant s lawyers proceed thro