plan for the best is planning to prepare for the worst. as soon as the storm passes, we re going to put this we re going to put the country s full might behind rescue and recovery. let s go right to meteorologist bill karins. bill, you ve been tracking this thing relentlessly. i know you got an update from the national hurricane center. as expected, downgraded to a tropical storm. so it made landfall, 150-mile-per-hour category 4 yesterday, 1:00 local time, and it s taken all the way until now to become a tropical storm. so it s finally weakened down. in other words, about 99.5% of the wind damage has already been done, so that s not going to be a big concern going forward with the storm. will will be some minor tree damage in possible areas, mississippi with power outages. let me give you an update. 60-mile-per-hour winds, 90, 95 miles south of jackson, mississippi, and it it s heading to north around 8 miles per hour. i ee moving pretty slowly. it s kept rain in the s
this is just some of the destruction in louisiana, that s about an hour south of new orleans. in new orleans, the french quarter was hit hard with significant damage. still dark there but as the sun comes up we ll have a better feel for things. in all, more than 1 million people there are without electricity. the power outage could make the area for susceptible to extreme flooding like we see in this video from grand isle, along the coast. joining us now jay gray. good morning, the power is out in new orleans, what does it look like this morning? reporter: willie, it is a mess right now. once we get some sunshine i think we ll see more problems in new orleans. but a break in the conditions, the winds dropped off, the rain thankfully after 16 straight hours has stopped. we have a chance to look at some of the devastation. you can see the roof top behind me pulled from a building thrown into the french quarter, bringing with it an elevated street sign. you can see the brace t
it could make the final days of evacuations even more complicated. focusing first on hurricane ida, it had been forecast to strengthen rapidly and over the past few hours, and it has done just that. just a little while ago the national hurricane center up graded the potentially catastrophic storm to category 4. it is forecast to slam the louisiana coast today hitting the state on the exact same date as hurricane katrina 16 years ago. the national weather service office in new orleans says storm surge and high winds could leave some locations uninhabitable for even weeks or months. both voluntary and mandatory evacuations have been ordered for several louisiana parishes as the national hurricane center warns of life threatening situations. officials say if residents are planning to leave, do it now. louisiana s governor is stressing the dangerous and historic nature of today s threat. when you talk about rain totals that could be up to 15, 16 inches in an isolated area above
peter meijer join me in a moment. plus, brutally killed in a suicide attack, 13 service members along with 130 afghan citizens. a look at these brave soldiers who helped to save the lives of others. hello. i m jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is trying to pull off an infinity number of miracles. that s how one veteran described the race to save americans and afghan allies, still stuck in afghanistan. and in addition to the t terrifying situation on the ground in kabul we re covering on this special two-hour state of the union, two other crises, second on the gulf coast of the united states where on this anniversary of hurricane katrina, folks are waking up to horrible news. hurricane ida grew rapidly overnight to a dangerous category 4 storm. we ll talk to john bell edwards coming up. of course, the third crisis, which has been with us since last year, covid. we ll ask dr. anthony fauci about rising covid deaths, boosters and vaccines for children.
that attack and 20 others wounded. all that made it such a difficult day here all the way into friday. that s when we began to learn, not only the names and ages, but the lives and the stories of these service members. that made it all that much harder. this is all part of that process in dover, delaware, at dover air force base, watching this final journey home, just part of it with the dignified transfers here. it s never easy to see this. certainly, it s even harder to see that many of them, one after another. i suspect even with the secretary of defense there, there are many service members, officials, enlisted officers watching this happen around the country realizing what it means to have lost a brother, sister, colleague, service member, somebody who was part of the family here in the pentagon. they re so young. some of them were just babies 20 years ago when 9/11 occurred. now they re being brought back to the united states in these transfer cases. it must be so dif