and down in lower st. ber nand in the fishing communities, we re getting power outages down there we re getting gusts up to about 75, 80 miles per hour. we have about 3100 customers out of power. everybody has been told to hunker down, because there s nowhere to go. nobody to come out and do rescues right now. we re just watching this move in, getting ready to get it to clear and assess the damage. i know the hurricane came too quickly for a mandatory evacuation for your perish. what advice do you have for resident who is are still there trying to ride out the storm right now? well, just tell them to stay inside. don t go outside into the weather with this type of wind. that s what we fear most. it can cause damage to a person trying to move around in this weather. it will blow cars off the highway. we re also expecting some flooding from the rainfall. that s going to be minimal, but just stay inside. don t go outside.
southern louisiana. you are looking at jefferson parish that pace about five miles southwest of new orleans proper. water covering many of the roadways there. and it is the same story in the lower st. bernard s parish, where the sheriff s department worked to distribute half a million sandbags ahead of lee s landfall. the mayor of new orleans worried about all of this precipitation and the impact it is having on his city. we are expecting 15 to 20 inches of rain in the new orleans region, as a result of tropical storm. as all of us who have been through this know, it is not how much we get, it is how much we in a short period of time. reporter: officials say they have already sucked out about eight inches of flood waters from the streets and pumped it into lake pontchartrain. all of the pumps said to be working fine. the levees said to be holding up. army corp of engineers keeping
we are experiencing wind gusts at the moment of probably 40 or 45 miles an hour. it is extremely windy. it is not raining at the moment, and that is good news. some of these squalls come through, and there are moments where it is dry, and that allows some of those floodwaters to recede. but we have been driving around new orleans today, and i have to say some of the damage is fairly isolated. we are talking about some downed power lines of a few thousand people that are without power and downed trees. the primary concern, of course, is the flooding. take a look at this video that was shot in jefferson parish. that s five miles southwest of where i am standing. it is in a low-lying area. a lot of flash flooding, water over the roadways, but no serious reports of flooded homes or injuries associated with the storm. we are seeing the same pictures also coming out of the lower st. bernard parish where the sheriff s department distributed some half a million sandbags ahead of lee
i m standing now. a lot of flash flooding, water over the roadways, but no serious reports of flooded homes or injuries associated with this storm. we are seeing the same pictures coming out of the lower st. bernard parish. again, all spots that we heard so much about during hurricane katrina. the sheriff s office tried their best to get a handle on the situation ahead of this storm making landfall and it distributed half a million sandbags. as this system hovers over the gulf coast states, more rain is expected today and tomorrow. which is why the mayor of new orleans is saying, do not breathe a sigh of relief yet, we are not out of clear, just yet as more rain is expected. today even though it is not falling at this point you can see the dark clouds over the skyline behind me, so more is on the way. jamie: of course the concern is the levees. we were all there for katrina