parking garage. as this water rises we will will keep going up in the floors of the parking garage. as we were driving out here you could see what was left over from that damage from katrina. you could see a lot of the tree damage and you could see probably at least 20, 30 feet of water easily. thankfully we won t have that. but there is enough water with this storm surge to cause foe tenelly catastrophic damage for low lying areas around here waveland and new orleans and far south of louisiana. shepard: reed timmer from mississippi. mississippi coast as well. i understand steve is up and with us now. you are in biloxi gulfport? that s right, shepard. where the rain has picked up over the last hour or so, some gusts of 20 to 30 miles per hour. the most dramatic thing that we have seen so far really is that rising water. it s creeping up towards highway 90. officials have been urging people to evacuate through the much of the state. governor saying if you have relatives in norther
piling the water into marsh land around sea level and even below. it s definitely a worse case scenario here in terms of this hurricane. in terms of the track. but thankfully this isn t going to a category 3 hurricane or it could have been a lot worse. the flooding we are seeing here is really bad in waveland. shepard: reid, we know there is a loft rain. we were expecting that waveland is a town that during hurricane katrina was almost literally wiped off the map. if you were to look at the coast of mississippi. the far left side. the western edge of the state of mississippi, before we get to louisiana, that s where waveland is. a small town where people have been living through hurricanes since camille back in the 60 s. i m telling you, it took the foundations of homes and washed them away. you remember the pictures from there. reed, you are not going to get that i wonder if they are prepared for all this flooding? yeah. i mean, very resilient people here. that s for sure. as we
pulling this graduation stunt on stage. wait until you hear the whole thing. i have a mixed reaction. good morning, everyone, welcome to early start, . we re bringing you the news from a to z, it s 5:00 a.m. in the east. so let s get started. we re following breaking news out of maine. firefighters battling a fire on a nuclear submarine for close to 12 hours. the uss miami was in dry dock when a fire broke out in the forward compartment. six people suffered minor injuries. the attack sub is capable of carrying tomahawk cruise missiles but no weapons were on board at the time and the ship s reactor is not affected by the fire. we ll bring you developments as warranted. making top news, a promise from mitt romney. the former massachusetts governor has been hammering president obama for months over the high unemployment rate. right now it stands at 8.1%. mr. romney is pledging if he s elected president, eel bring that number way down. i can tell you that over a peri
everywhere. i thought it was a dream. a dream? more like a nightmare, if you want to be honest about it. this is what was left behind by a strong storm. total devastation. several tornadoes touched down. as many as 28 people are dead. in some areas, rescue crews worked deep into the night to find survivors and victims. national guard troops were called up to kentucky and indiana to the hardest hit communities. you can see tornado in tennessee. dozens of people were injured in the storms. we are watching all angles of the story this morning. susan c susan is in ohio. rob is in tennessee where we have seen significant damage. bonnie schneider is standing by in the severe weather center. the damage we have seen have been small towns like henriville. how bad is it? reporter: it is very bad. crushing damage. people here are reeling from what happened to the area. 15 deaths confirmed so far in the entire state of kentucky. a couple of them here in clark county. just to give you
tonight about 65 million people from north carolina to new england are in the path of hurricane irene. ten governors declared states of emerge system new york city officials ordered the first mandatory evacuations in city history, but along the jersey shore, drivers can testify trying to get out of harm s way is a slow nerve-racking process. the hurricane isn t waiting. right now, the storm, a category 2 with 100 mile-an-hour sustained winds is heading for the north carolina coast. our coverage starts with john in north carolina. we probably don t need to ask you to set the scene for us. what does it feel like there? reporter: we are getting the winds as you see right now gusting and picking up a little bit. the rain has been constant. periodically heavy and then it lightens up a little bit. the past couple of hours or so here on atlantic beach, a mandatory evacuation, obviously, this is an island. the atlantic ocean is that way. that s actually south the way this beach fac