1800 total dying from hurricane katrina. right across from this canal is this water pumping station. as we speak, we hear it. there are people inside. the purpose of that building is to pump water, pump flood wadder into lake pontchartrain right behind that building. officials here in new orleans feel that that pumping station, the new levee system constructed since 2005 will leave everybody safe in new orleans at least that s what they hope for right now as the rain is about to come down heavier than 30 minutes ago. anderson? some people you re talking to, what are their thoughts about this storm? how concerns do they seem to be? reporter: as you know, anderson, this neighborhood was so heavily damaged and construction is new. less than 14 years old. there is no mandatory evacuation order. most don t feel this will be so
acosta was not viewed as being sufficiently loyal to the president s agenda. senior administration official said he was not moving swiftly enough on his deregulatory agenda here in washington and they are saying all sorts of things inside the white house, you can imagine where alex acosta was giving them information they needed to essentially cut bait by the time this morning came around but according to our sources, anderson, alex acosta was not a favorite cabinet member and took the jeffrey epstein case unfortunately to force him out. jim acosta, thanks very much. a live report from the new orleans and the latest forecast for the tropical storm that s expected to strengthen when it hits. we ll be right back. direct messages have evolved. so should the way you bank. virtual wallet from pnc bank. just one way pnc is modernizing banking to help make things easier. pnc bank.
that s right. and, you know, i talked to this administration official who said it appeared oh acosta stabilized things but when you talk to officials across the west wing you hear muted praise that he stopped the bleeding and gave information to defenders to counter his critics and so on but there wasn t full throated support that alex acosta would stay on the job. and was it more the political optics of the controversyacosta epstein that bothered the president because clearly the president or at least people in the white house knew about his role in the epstein matter before he was made secretary. right. anderson, they were certainly worried about the revelations and potential for more to damage alex acosta further into the year and campaign season. there is another element to this and that is internally alex
tom sater, appreciate it. we ll watch for a ground s eye view and landfall, let s check in with gary tuchman in the lake view area of new orleans. how is it? reporter: anderson, the outer bands of berry are hitting us. the worst as we just heard will come in the morning. we re here in the lake view district of new orleans. this was devastating during hurricane kawakatrina and where standing is where it illuminated. this is the largest drainage canal in new orleans to the left and to the right is the levee. 20-foot levee. these are 20-foot levees. these were constructed after hurricane katrina because the levees before failed. a 450-foot gash on the left side was split off the levee to the east side and that led to water pouring into the neighborhoods from lake pontchartrain.
yesterday the height of the river in of course new orleans was 16. we re almost at 17 now. so a closer inspection of the graph tells us here this little peak, this is the surge anderson that southeast wind backs that river up going to 19 feet. that expectation that was yesterday at 20 down to 19 is significant because the levees are at 20 feet. we could have had over topping everywhere but you get in closer and all of these red dots along the levee system are areas below 20. over topping could take place. this is unprecedented. we re not sure how it will turn out but you have to believe in the core of engineers and they say will make it through. 10, 20 inches concerned about the entire state of mississippi because 911 calls could be from lafayette to baton rouge to the north. maybe even east of little rock to memphis. it will be a wide spread event. the category means nothing.