could i just add? could i just add? i think we all know that if the president decides to reach an agreement with us, the democrats most of them will fall in line. he is the leader of the democratic party, he is the president of the united states. he needs to indicate what he will sign and we are in those discussions now. reporter: something by monday, is that a firm deadline including the markets? i m not going to put it to any deadlines, but it should be clear to you that senator mcconnell and i believe we re going to be able to come to some agreement to end this crisis as soon as possible. thanks. okay, both mitch mcconnell and john boehner there underscoring that they believe this crisis will end, however, neither would be specific about how they believe it will come to an end, instead putting it on the president saying, john boehner saying tell us what he s for. he needs to, meaning the president, needs to get us out of the cul-de-sac that he has driven us into. k
2,000 people in st. landry parish west of baton rouge have been told to pack up and leave. they have until 6:00 p.m. eastern time. six other parishes in the region are also expected to flood. the evacuations come after the army corps of engineers started opening flood gates on the morganza spillway. more will likely be opened in the days ahead. they re merging spillways away from new orleans and baton rouge, but that puts nearly 4,000 people in the path of that flood. we re joined from st. landry parish where people have gotten the word. they re packing up as fast as they can. ed set up the scene for us. reporter: we re in a little stretch of community in a man-made lake called red mile lake, and they ve been told they need to evacuate by this afternoon, so we ve encountered lots of people packing up to leave their homes. authorities have been going door to door with the national guard, local sheriff s deputies, that kind of thing, urging people to pack up. you see moving v
officials are focused on this one 26-mile stretch of a dirt road to nowhere. it s actually the levee. see the crew on the left hand side, it s for the yazoo and mississippi river. this levee is holding it back. however, there s one foot between the level of the water and when it goes over the top. the prediction is it s going to go over the top. we were talking with the secretary of state of mississippi, they expect it to happen overnight. water going over the levee is not the end of the world unless it triggers the collapse of the levee. they don t want to guesstimate. i put the question of how bad it would be with peter. here is what he said. if this levee were to fail, what are the consequences and who would be impacted and how far? the town is 30 to 35 miles from here. that town would be under water. numerous towns would be under water. highways under water. thousands of people have to evacuate the area. hundreds of thousands of acres would be under water. we would floo