tropical storm lee has strengthened as it beginning unleashing rains over southern louisiana as well as the northern gulf coast. this storm could bring 20 inches of rain to some areas providing the biggest test of the levees since hurricane gustav in 2008. president obama is stunning liberals and environmentalists on friday by halting a plan for stricter air quality regulations. it would have tightened it, which would have cost $90 billion. what frustrated members of the base is he acted without working with the environmental protection agency. a politico argument says the epa was completely blindsided by them. jake, good morning. good morning, alex. all year long the president
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breaking news on tropical storm lee inching closer to the gulf coast. the storm s outer bands are slamming southern louisiana and parts of northern gulf coast with rain right now. for alex. . rning, this . 10:00 tonight for includes baton rouge,
a break in the lashing rain and gusty winds most of the morning in the big easy. we re right on the mississippi river. we have a chop out there. right now light rainfall, but this morning it was raining at 1 to 2 inches an hour across metro new orleans. north of here up north of lake pontchartrain in lifg ston parish, a town called walker has flash flooding. a gauge up there reporting 4 inches of rain in two and a half hours, and south of here, some mandatory evacuations in the lay of little feet. that s in jefferson parish because of rising water from all the rainfall. some of the totals may up add up to 15. right now we re getting a bit of a dry punch into parts of louisiana, so that s cutting back on the rain. as you can see here, a little bit of light rain right now. we will get more bands through the big easy, and we ll get more wind gusts probably over 50 miles per hour. we ve seen that this morning. power outages increasing.
tornadoes. video from the morning. you have trees down and energy tee is reports 37,000-plus customers without power. the french quarter is packed this morning now that the rain is backing off, but a lot of people are walking around and doing what they do best in the french quarter.