assess the damage. they re going block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. no one will be left out. reporter: the city s levee system rebuilt after it was destroyed by hurricane katrina 16 years to the day, this time held firm. but the entire metro area will be without power for the at least several days. it is going to be hot here. so i know that people are going to be making accommodations to go some place where they can get air condition. reporter: we power outage is hitting hospitals hard. many filled with covid patients. one hospital lost backup generators forcing the staff to manually help patients breathe. water flooded the first floor of new orleans children s which is also running on generator power. we have adequate fuel for a number of days to come. the longer this stretches on, the more concerning it could become for us. reporter: utility crews are already at work trying to rebuild a power system decimated by ida, a job that could take
think it has everyone made it out. think for watching tonight it s at th clock. captioning sponsored by cbs o donnell: tonight: america s longest war comes to an end, after the u.s. completely withdraws from afghanistan. also tonight: hurricane ida leaves a path of destruction. why the worst of the flooding may be yet to come. a deadly storm: 150 mile an hour winds tear the roofs off hospitals and homes, entire neighborhoods underwater, and more than a million without power. the warning tonight that power outages could last weeks. hospitals in duress, already overwhelmed with covid patients. the major concern for hospitals in louisiana, one telling cbs news they only have enough fuel for a few days. communities cut off, a major highway has four feet of water and debris.
final number. louisiana s governor saying he expects it to rise, quote, considerably. when it came ashore yesterday as a strong category 4 storm, ida tied to hurricane laura last year as the strongest storm ever to hit the state. which means the damage is extensive. power s out for about 1.1 million people across the area. trees are down. roads blocked. access, obviously, difficult. in west of new orleans and elsewhere outside the city, members of the cajun navy are conducting rescue operations with the other volunteer and other official agencies. one fleet captain telling us he believes there are hundreds of people, possibly more stranded in their homes. but again, hard numbers are still very difficult to come by. south of new orleans, flooding reportedly sent some people to their rooftops. same in another town nearby. levee overtopping being blamed for some of it, as well. however, unlike during katrina which hit 16 years ago to the day before hurricane ida, the big levees protecting
72 hours out had a beat on it. they knew it was going to be in louisiana. they even had the intensity up to a major hurricane and a category 4. but look when the areas of red. this is the track. it made a turn to the east. that s good news for baton rouge but it was terrible for houma. put em pretty much in the eyewall. they were expecting the eye to move over them. that would have given them lightened winds for several hours but unfortunately, they were into the winds. it was also bad news for new orleans and points to the west. that s why we had those flash-flood emergencies, which is a big concern without power for the 30 hospitals or so running on generator power. wondering if those kind of floodwaters would, you know, kind of hamper that and shut them down with that as well. so what happens now going forward? well, now, what we have is more flood problems. we have got a swath of 3 to 5 inches that will make its way into the tennessee valley. really worried west of tennessee w
weeks. but the healing is already beginning. today in the french quarter a musician serenaded the empty streets, the majestic buildings still standing. o donnell: and omar joins us, so what are we learning about how long the power will be out? reporter: norah, entergy which is the state s largest power provider says it will take them at least four days to do a damage assessment on those eight transmission lines and tower that were destroyed by ida. so people here in new orleans could be without power all week. maybe even longer. norah? o donnell: omar villafranca, thank you. well, some communities are cut off from the help that they desperately need. roads in and around new orleans might even be blocked for days, cbs jonathan vigliotti is near lake pontchartrain. reporter: norah, lake pontchartrain behind me sent a surge of water into low-lying areas like irish bayou where we are tonight. we thought this was a safe place to ride out the storm, clearly