Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that "millions of people will be in harm's way" with Hurricane Irma and that "the physical damage is going to be serious for sure."
"The focus is making sure people are prepared and getting people to hunker down if they can't safely evacuate," Bush, who oversaw relief efforts for eight hurricanes in his two terms in the Statehouse, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
Hurricane Irma has caused at least two dozen deaths in the Caribbean and is expected to bring winds as high as 155 miles per hour when it makes landfall in Florida early Sunday.
More than 660,000 people have been ordered evacuated from Miami-Dade County alone.
Bush told Blitzer that in handling so many hurricane efforts, "we learned that you couldn't evacuate everybody and that we needed to have much stronger shelter space.
"We passed the most meaningful building code reforms during my time, so all the new schools that have been built are shelter-compliant," he said. "There is a greater focus on special needs shelters.
"The state learned a lot during those hurricanes — and those lessons have been applied now, both at the local level and the state level."
Bush praised Republican Gov. Rick Scott for being "really all in on this and so are the mayors."
"They understand this is their chance to really show their heart."
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