people are responding more than in the past. they told us to seek refuge to get out of the low lying areas. we re talking about a storm surge of over 15 feet. perhaps 20 feet. the highest point of land is only 30 feet so much of this island by tomorrow will be under water. islands around us will be completely under water. i just cannot imagine. patrick, you and the crew do take care of each other there, thank you so much. we appreciate it. we re also staying on top of the developments in west texas this morning. investigators are there at the scene of a mass shooting that left five people dead and 21 others injured. we ll hear from one man that says despite the recent shootings, what happened yesterday still seems unreal.
dorian. absolutely. well it s not happening here right now but dorian is on its way to where i am, grand bahamas and within the next few hours we should begin to feel tropical force winds and then by this evening hurricane force winds which will continue for perhaps as long as 24 hours and it will bring powerful winds and very powerful storm surge. last night t government of the bahamas told people that at this point they need to have evacuated and needed to have found shelter. we were driving around yesterday here and people were doing their last minute shopping. a lot of the stores were closing and shelves were bear so people were as ready as they could be but when you re talking about a storm of this magnitude and this powerful how ready with you be?
lots of breaking news tonight. right now we re focused on the breaking news out of the gulf coast. all of louisiana, parts of texas and mississippi being hammered right now by the storm that was hurricane barry. for more let s get inside the storm zone for a look at the conditions on the ground as they were, as they have been. cnn s randi kaye is in baton rouge. nick watt is in lafayette. reporter: the good news, the levies at the mississippi in new orleans did not break. the flood surge is over. but barry is far from over. the mayor of new orleans warning there is still a flood risk. and there is still a flood risk for huge chunks of louisiana. now, that storm surge, as barry came ashore, they have already had partial evacuations of four counties or parishes, as they call them in louisiana, down on the coast. they ve had trouble getting
currently around 120 kilometers an hour this is a category one hurricane now but as you mentioned it is also it is always the water that is of particular worry him in new orleans and we could see hoffa meta dumps on the city over the course all of the weekend the good news is that once hurricane barry does hit landfall it can lose some all of its strength by leaving the gulf of mexico from where it takes its power from but then of course there is the storm surge which it dumps on the city and we have seen one levee states banks about an hour and a half away from here unleashing a flood surge there on posture is that we have also seen 12 people in the state of louisiana need to be rescued by helicopter the good news is it was a timely release of funds through the declaration of a state wide emergency in louisiana which meant at least relief efforts and money could be prepared in anticipation for this storm which will be going on through the
couple of minutes, a couple of cars go by people. we don t want to put a camera in their face, just out of respect for them. but here s a look at that pole right there. i don t know if you can zoom in on that. you can see, the water level was about a foot and a half higher earlier today. so it is definitely going down here, but it has a long way to go before anyone is able to return to their homes and there s no telling how long power is going to be out. okay, so, here s another clip, in which i describe that i am standing by a road that is on higher ground and is being used for evacuations. the highway 62, which is the road that we re on right now, there s a thin slip of it, which just has a couple of inches of water. and that s what these rescue vehicles have been going on. we haven t wanted to clog up that road, so that s why we ve been off on the side of the road. and this is where you really get a sense of the depth of the water. if you walk out there, it just goes down much