rain. the eyewall and louisiana coast and getting closer and closer. you re starting to see the winds already right here at the mouth of the river and over the next several hours those will spread inland through south louisiana. thank you so much, with the national hurricane center. we appreciate your time this morning. thank you so much. thank you. coming up, everybody, tom llamas is live on the ground in new orleans as the city is already starting to feel the effects as we ve been talking about what could be the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in louisiana. we ve seen rain, we ve seen some lightning and seen heavy wind already in the area. live report next. already in the area. live report next
possible catastrophic damage and where we find tom llamas. what can you tell us and what are you seeing? hey, guys, good morning. it s pretty quiet in new orleans which is even strange this early in the morning. the town is usually moving by this time. behind me is the famous st. louis cathedral in jackson square. we had a sted rain. you will see wind gusts if you look at the american flag, you can see the wind a little bit. right now it s still very, very early. we re not really feeling the full force or some of the effects of the storm just yet. as we whip around here we are by the mississippi river. all eyes will be on any type of body of water in new orleans because of the flooding issues. the riverboat, one of the famous scenes. it s things like this right here, there was no evacuation order, they didn t have a lot of time in new orleans to prepare for this. you can see all this loose debris here, if these winds come even at 100 miles per hour, it s going to lift a lot of this s
the esteemed football program, the team has left for houston, practicing in texas, before they go off for their first football game against ucla. as far as improvements that have been made in baton rouge, i spoke with the mayor yesterday and they have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million to $30 million to improve the drainage system and canals. in 2016 an unnamed storm dumped somewhere in the neighborhood of 30s inches of rain over the course of several days and created mass ka tas vofy. you had hundreds of thousands of homes, the financial footprint, in the neighborhood of 21 billion from an unnamed storm in 2016. they said the situation is nothing like that and warning people for days, they ve improved their infrastructure, but i will say this there s no mandatory evacuation here. there s mandatory outside the city of new orleans and the levee system, but here no mandatory evacuations. we were looking at the highways yesterday, congestion and
been flying in and out of ida. who literally said, there is some fire in her. for a hurricane hunter who does that her job, that s pretty striking. and getting more intense with each and every hour. we have a team of reporters and an analyst following the latest for you throughout the air via. now a monster category 4, intensifying by the hour as it closes in on louisiana. as we said winds ramping up to 145 miles an hour. the national weather service in new orleans predicting up to 16 feet of flooding in some areas. and the governor of louisiana is warning it could be the strongest hurricane to hit the state in more than that answer century. forecasters predict some areas may be uninhabitable for weeks or months because of this impact. potentially catastrophic wind damage and flooding from the rain which is why residents have been preparing since friday. some were ordered to evacuate. those who stayed put are being urged to hunker down right now and ride out the storm. meteorol
grossman has been following ida s path and sam brock is in louisiana preparing for the storm surge. how are things looking where you are and how are people preparing? lindsey good morning, joe good morning. it s calm, there s a slight breeze. we re expecting rain to fall here early this afternoon and the winds to pick up as well. lindsey, to your point about rapid intensification, that means 35 miles per hour or more increase in wind speeds over the course of 24 hours. 80 miles per hour to 145 miles per hour now is a 65 mile per hour increase over the time span which is roughly double the threshold for rapid intensification. the question right now, is ida going to run out of real estate before it actually reaches landfall or will we see another increase in wind speeds because at the moment 150 miles per hour is the record for the state of louisiana with hurricane laura, and as you mentioned back in the mid 1880s that is the historical