louisianians are without power. and fema is preparing for what could be a catastrophic event through the state. the timing of the storm is particularly notable. today marks the 16th anniversary of hurricane katrina, which devastated the new orleans area, killing more than 1800 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes. this hour, nbc s richard lui and i will bring you the latest from the reporters on the ground and continue to follow this historic and dangerous storm. so let s begin with hurricane ida s current path. nbc meteorologist bill karins joins us with the latest. how are things looking in baton rouge as the eye of the storm approaches? yeah, they re one of the cities that we were most concerned with as we went throughout the evening hours, and we re watching the storm getting closer, and power outages are starting to occur in the baton rouge area. 46-mile-per-hour winds. my rule of thumb is anything above 45 miles per hour starts taking down tree limbs.