It came onshore last night as a category 4 storm with 150mileperhour winds which would make it the strongest storm tied for the strongest storm ever to hit western louisiana. Its now a category 1 storm still, straight due north of where it came onshore. More than 450,000 people at last report in texas and louisiana are without power. These reports come in fairly slowly. Weve seen bucket trucks getting out there because the winds on the western side of the storm have died down enough for emergency crews to get out. There are still winds inside the storm. Hurricane force winds that are not allowing crews or Emergency Management to get out. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards confirms the storm has killed at least one person. It was a 14yearold girl in leesville, louisiana, when a tree fell on her. Thats a major source of the damage. Water tends to be the most dangerous part of these things. But after the wind an rain, the trees fall. Thats generally what results in the Power Outages. According to the white house, President Trump is going to visit fema this afternoon and he has been in touch with the governors of louisiana and texas. Texas largely got spared most of this thing. I rode it out in beaumont, texas, about 25 miles west of here where we lost power. There was an expectation of great flooding and serious damage there. Because it was on the left side of the storm and because these storms go counterclockwise, what we got was northerly winds that were blowing the water south and into the gulf of mexico. The bottom line is, while we got it easy, the folks in the storm and on the right side of the storm not only got it hard, but its continuing. Its going to continue into arkans arkansas. For that i want to go the my friend bill karins who has been tracking this all night. Whats the situation with this storm that continues to be deadly now . The worst part of the storm, obviously, is when it made landfall. The legacy of the storm is how far inland its still a hurricane. We had landfall at 1 00 central time. Here we are nine hours later, still a category 1 hurricane over land. When we see the damage and Power Outages, its going to go straight from the coast and go due northward toward shreveport. This was the landfall radar image, the historic part of the storm coming onshore as a strong category 4, only seven Miles Per Hour away from a rare category 5. We havent had or seen a ton of pictures of incredible storm surge. They said the worst Case Scenario was 15 to 20 feet. We know we did get at least a tenfoot storm surge. One of the people i talked to made a good point, the highest water levels were to the right of the center, over a wildlife refuge area. Theres nothing 20 feet high, theres nothing to measure it. We may have had those, but well never know it. As far as what were dealing with now, still 75mileperhour winds, almost parallel to the shreveport area. Its going to track towards little rock as we go throughout the day. If theres any damaging winds being done, it will be to the north and northeast of the center. Right now the winds are starting to come down enough, its only going to be minor Power Outages instead of widespread. Theres the new forecast track, 45mileperhour winds max, only seven, eight hours from now. Thats good news for everyone in arkansas and hopefully well keep the power on in little rock. After that, its going to be a big rain storm heading to tennessee and kentucky. The legacy of the storm is how fast it rapidly intensified. It scared the heck out of everyone in galveston and houston area. It made landfall in Cameron Parish with a population of 7,000 people. If this had been 40 miles to the west, theres 2. 3 Million People in the houston galveston area. You can just imagine how many millions of times worse it would have been hitting there. Obviously we feel horrible pour the Small Community of Cameron Parish and lake charles, but this storm being as strong as it was, made landfall in one of the most sparsely populated areas. The storm surge was over a wildlife refuge area where no one lives. We did get lucky in some ways. But it will still be days and weeks, ali. Bill, where i am in orange, you can draw a line sort of southwest of beaumont and then down southeast of port arthur, and it makes a triangle. Its called the golden triangle. This is the heart of Oil Production and oil refining in the country. So we had all those rigs and platforms in the gulf of mexico. 85 of them were evacuated. The refineries were shut down. The folks in this area in many cases depend on work related to oil refining, oil products, oil servicing. That is a major industry thats not just shut down but its going to affect everybody else because of gas prices. Ali, i was talking last night overnight with a few people that are environmentalists. They were talking about the possibility of these spills out of all these major Oil Production facilities. That storm surge, could we also get an ecological disaster on our hands throughout that region . It doesnt look like that storm surge went up into sabean pass or the kalka shoe river area. It doesnt look like they had water problems. Well have to see if they had wind damage. Those buildings are built to withstand storms like this, theyre major facilities. Yeah, theyve had them over years. I have unconfirmed reports of some sort of Chemical Spill on i10. There are helicopters, generally speaking National Guard helicopters involved in very heavy search and rescue operations under way, including helicopters, high water vehicles, flat bottom boats, things like that. I want to go to lake charles, the Population Center most affected by this hurricane. Morgan chesky is there. Morgan, whats the situation where you are . Ali, its a brutal morning for thousands of people in this city i. Took the brunt of the powerful hurricane that rolled ashore 1 00 to 2 00 a. M. Were seeing the extent of the devastation today. We anticipated a wind and water event. People breathing a small sigh of relief because the storm surge isnt necessarily as big as they thought it would be, but the wind damage, just horrific. Let me show you one example of this. Were standing outside a tv station here. You can see structure on top of that building. Thats the tv tower. So it took out part of that tv station, and were just going to walk along this way. You can see it fell on top of this building here, and it didnt stop there. After shearing that side of the building, it came to rest on a third and thats where it came to a stop. Ali, this is the kind of powerful winds were talking about. You mentioned those gusting up to 150 miles an hour. They were sustained. Even though were 30 miles inland, whenever we watch that eyewall roll through this area, around 1 30, 2 00 a. M. , you could just see those kind of bands tighten up and you would have a gust after another. And then the crazy part is, when we were in the eye of the storm, that few minutes of peace and quiet, all of a sudden, you have the back side of the hurricane that blows from an entirely different direction. In a lot of incidences, thats whats causing this serious damage is because that first round kind of loosens things up, makes them unstable, and that second is there to knock everything down and just create a lot of havoc. Power outages for nearly half a Million People here in louisiana stretching into texas. We do know unfortunately that hurricane laura turned deadly with a teenage girl killed about an hour north of where we are when the high winds toppled a tree into her home killing her. Thats the only death reported as of right now. However, theres a big question, ali, in Cameron Parish. Thats the place that took the brunt of lawyurlauras force. It has a population of about 7,000 people. 150 of those people chose not to go anywhere. Weve reached out to officials to check on the status of those people, because thats the place where they said this storm surge could have competed rita in 2005 which brought 18 feet. They were talking 20 feet in this instance. So a lot to figure out here, but a tough day for so many in louisiana. Ali. Let me ask you a quick question, morgan. Where were you when the worst of the storm passed over you . Reporter fourth story of a hotel right on the waterway here in lake charles. Fortunately we were not in direct contact with the wind. It was kind of blowing past us. Id crack a window every now and then to witness its power. My photographer captured some of the exterior buildings just outside, a few yards from where they were staying, they handled the wind until all of a sudden, they collapsed. That was just one instance that made it kind of very real for us. This is what were dealing with. You think im 30 miles inland, its not going to be as bad here as it was on the coast. Yet were finding out it absolutely was. Morgan, stay safe. Ill come back to you later. Morgan is east of me. I want to go 200 miles north near shreveport, louisiana, where my colleague Chris Jansing is standing by. Chris, the center of the storm has not reached you yet. Its going to be add jie sent to you just to the east. Whats the situation where you are . Reporter weve gotten a little less rain over the last hour. But the wind, the wind gusts have picked up. I talked to the shreveport fire chief. He said they reported gusts up to 65 Miles Per Hour. You can see behind me i think, theres a walkway that i think goes into one of the casinos thats along the red river here. The cloth roof i assume its cloth just field off about a half hour ago and has been flapping in the wind. These winds have been a major concern here. They saw them 15 years ago with hurricane rita. Lots of downed trees, downed power lines. Thats exactly what were seeing now. We dont have any definitive numbers. All across the city theyre seeing that. Downed trees, downed power lines, even three fire stations and the Communications Center for the city of shreveport were down. They had to go to generator. The other big concern, of course, is what youre seeing behind me. And thats water, always the biggest concern. The good news is that the river had not been high. They had been pretty dry here for the summer. But all this rain coming down did raise a lot of concerns because theyve had major flooding here before. Last year some homes got a much as 22 inches of water right along the shore. Five years ago they had major flooding. So where i am, which is this beautiful park area, was very, very flooded. So theyve been pre positioning all these assets, theyve already been using some of them. What they havent had to use fortunately so far is any water rescue. They had a state Water Rescue Team here. But emergency vehicles have been very, very busy including responding to a couple of residential fires. Essentially this whole area is shut down. School just started in many of the local School Districts on monday. Schools are shut down, businesses are shut down, casinos shut down at midnight. Theyre hoping to reopen tomorrow. But in the meantime, theyre still in the brunt of this. Were expecting to feel the worst of it. Now the rain is picking up again. Were expecting to feel the worst of it in the next hour, ali. Youre going to have rain for several hours which means youre going to have the possibility of downed trees and power lines. Please, chris, i know youve been doing this for a long time, but stay safe. I want to go to sam brock. Weve been tag teaming all night, in beaumont together. Hes now east of me in orange texas. Sam, whats the situation where you are . Reporter its sunny where i am right now, ali. Good to talk with you. We know for sure there were days of advanced warnings for people to get out of town. That includes in Orange County where we are right now. 83,000 people who live here. I talked with one gentleman who lives in this house right here who decided he wasnt going to go. Not just that, hes been here for decades, but since rita in 2005. At that point, the whole barn flooding, the vinyl siding of his home ripped off and didnt have power for 31 days. He decided im never going to do that again regardless of what warnings or level of hurricanes are coming my way. He decided to wait it out. You see all these trees in his back yard that have been toppled. There are a couple that could have easily fallen the other way onto his house. He knew which way the wind was blowing and he felt confident. I asked him, is your mentality of this pretty representative of what other people in this community feel as well. Here is what he said. You were not at any point, mike, worried that your safety could be at risk being in that house last night . No. Is this how most people feel around here or are you alone . Some people feel that way. Reporter as we take a look, ali, at some of the communities that look utterly devastated or at the very least have lost power lines, trees, damaged homes, youll recall there was our rescue team, multiple search and rescue teams launched from baton rouge to impacted areas. Lake charles was one of them. There are reports right now there were 150 people who did not heed the warnings and stayed. We followed up and asked the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Agency about this. They said theres not 150 people unaccounted for, but there could be that many people who did not leave when they were told to leave. That is concerning. There are search and rescue teams coming from outside state as well, at least florida and other states, to try and find people that might have been impacted by this storm that werent listening to directions. That would break your heart if there was a tragic outcome to that. Officials were so adamant for so long to leave and not take chances. Thats exactly right. In the final hours before the storm hit, people may have left. One of the things i heard one of the mayors staying, make sure your family knows youre staying. If youre leaving, make sure your family knows youre leaving. When they have to account for everybody and someone is not in their house, are they missing, in trouble or did they go somewhere else . Ill come back to you in a little bit. Im joined by tony noah who lives in that house just next to us. A lot of damage in this area as you can see. In typical fashion, i see this, not just this great texas ethic, but i see it all over america, after a tornado or a hurricane, youve been blowing stuff, cutting stuff. You stayed here, you were in this house overnight when it hit. Tell me what it felt like to you . Like a Freight Train coming through the neighborhood. It hit at 12 56. And it was a roar like ive never heard before. I knew it was here. I called my daughter immediately and said its here and it sounds like a train. Youve been through a few hurricanes. Ive been through a lot of hurricanes, yes. What kind of damage do you have and what have you seen in the neighborhood . A lot of fences down. This house has two trees through it. I can see into the attic. Are they here . No, theyre not here, no. Theres a few other damages that got minor damage. A house on the other side of the neighborhood that has a power line pulled down and bentd the weatherhead. As far as the shingles go, i see some lifted up, seen a few houses with shingles that are in patches, theyre missing, not necessarily whole roofs or anything. Vid you know of is safe . As far as i know, yes. Everybody that stayed here last night, two people four people down there and two people next door three people next door to me. Were all fine. It didnt occur to you to evacuate . I mean it always occurs. My daughters are always working on me to leave. I just dont like to leave. At some point last night, were you thinking that maybe leaving might have been a good idea when youre hearing that Freight Train noise . No, ive been in some other hurricanes when it was like that though, when i was like why didnt i leave, why didnt i leave. But this one last night, i just i dont know. It was real loud. It was a lot of wichbltd it got really, really dark as the night wore on. It was about three or four hours that it was here. It got so dark i couldnt find my way around the house. Of course, the lights went out immediately within minutes after the storm hit. I could see for a while, but after awhile it got so torrentially the downpour and the winds and everything going on, i couldnt find my way around the house without a flashlight. As youre Walking Around today, do you think you guys got out of this better than you expected . A lot better than i expected, yes. We thought there was going to be some substantial damage, but from what weve been able to ascertain, its not that bad. Tony, glatd youre safe. I know you have a lot of work to do getting your property back in order. Well talk through the course of the day. Tony noah here in orange. One of the places tony is describing, here in eastern texas, things were not as bad as they were really fearing they would be. The gain in eastern texas is the loss in louisiana. Things are in many cases much worse than they were expected to be. After the break well go to lafayette, louisiana, for an update there. 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I was talking to tony noah a few moments ago, he noticed in this tree theres a baby squirrel. You may be able to see it. I dont know