coast. folks need to take those very, very seriously. but again it s not just folks on the coast. it s further inland where you can see flash flooding. you can see tornados that spawn off of these types of storms even if they do not make direct landfall. rafael, thank you so much. you are definitely making us smarter this evening. former fema official rafael. we are going to keep trying to speak with chef jose andreas, but phone communication from the bahamas is very difficult. you saw the images, that is exactly where it is hitting down. he is there on a rescue mission setting up food centers in the bahamas like he did a year ago in puerto rico. unfortunately right now we cannot get him on the phone. still ahead, the latest on the deadly mass shooting in odessa texas coming just as the state loosens. you heard me correctly, loosens its gun laws. stay with us here on msnbc. we ll be right back. service, . our 18 year old was in an accident.
panama city, florida. mr. mayor, can you walk us through the preparations happening now ahead of the storm? we have been preparing for this now for the last three days pretty intensively. we re about as prepared as we can be. some of the things that we can t predict are going to be the tornados that spawn off of these storms. right now it looks like we re directly in the path of the storm. i know evacuations are still taking place. how are those progressing? it is a mandatory evacuation, obviously people sometimes heed the warnings. sometimes they choose not to. we begged. we have asked. we have knocked on doors. it s gotten to the point now where if you are saying, then you better hunker down because we have probably tried to evacuate 120,000 people from our country. at last count we only had about 25,000 that left. in the past, we had a lot of
of the storm? well, we have been preparing for this now for the last three days pretty intensively. and we re about as prepared as we can be. some of the things that we can t predict are going to be the tornadoes that spawn off of these storms, and so right now it looks like that we re directly in the path of the storm. i know evacuations are still taking place. how are those progressing? it s a mandatory evacuation but obviously people sometimes heed the warnings, sometimes they choose not to. we ve begged. we ve asked. we ve knocked on doors. and it s gotten to the point now where if you are staying then you d better hunker down because we ve probably tried to evacuate 120,000 people from our county and at last count we only had about 25,000 that left. in the past we ve had a lot of storms that turned out to be not that big a deal. and so you know, people get complacent. but this one we are directly in the path. we ve been on the edge of
of tornado that might be slipping off. you know, it sounds as confusing as all the words you just said. you see the rope tarnts. they come down under the cloud, do their damage, and go back up. but then you have the storm clouds, wedges, and sometimes mile-wide tornadoes that spawn off. that s why this is such a huge storm. it shows the energy of the storm when you talk about about the multiple vortices that are spinning. that s what trackers are trying to spot. now as it gets into a more populated area, it is wrapped in debris. you use radar and spotters on the ground. when we talked about the noe yas storm watch system, it has
we ll see the rain continue to move across southeast and part of that system, that cold front that s draped across the southeast is going to kind of spawn off and bring us the potential for a nor easter over the northeast. we re going to continue to monitor that for the next several days. there is your travel forecast. we ll clear that out and watch the new england area for the potential of a nor east better maybe up to a foot of snow north and west of boston. we ll keep you up to date. it s cold outside burks not cold enough for some margaritas. let s go to steve and anna. steve: you know what? not only time for a margarita, it s because it s national margarita day. if you go out and realize the banks are closed, it is because it is a national holiday, national margarita day. we re grabbing the tequila and celebrate. it s 7:37ish. but it s 5:00 o clock somewhere. steve: absolutely. thank you very much for joining us on this joyous day. my pleasure. it s wonderful 28-degree wea