Now winds topping 100 miles per hour, or 160 kilometers an hour as the storm approached. The National Hurricane center says the storm surge up to 20 feet, or 6 meter, is unsurvivable. Well, that unprecedented warning came as flooding already engulfed coastal areas. Officials expect the devastation to be immense over very wide area. Anyone who did not evacuate is told to prepare for hours of destructive winds, heavy rains, no power, and record flooding that could last days. Tom sater joins me now with more on the path of the hurricane as it moves ashore. I know youve had a busy night. The superlatives in trying to describe this hurricane as it makes landfall are also out of this world, catastrophic, unsurvivable, apocalyptic. What do we know is happening right now . First of all, interrupt me at any time, robyn, because there so much to talk about here. There is. The term unsurvivable, im glad that was used. Ive never heard that used from the National Hurricane center, probably because the urgency to get people out of here. The words lifethreatening seems not toe matter to people anymore. Ive lived through that one, i can go through this again. Laura is not that other hurricane. Use mentioned, it ties as the strongest in the history going back to 1856 before they even named hurricanes. But when you look at the top ten now of hurricanes to ever make landfall in the continental u. S. , this is an elite group. Storms such as camille and andrew, michael that devastated, of course, mexico beach in florida. Were going have images like that tomorrow. Well defined eye making landfall at 1 00 a. M. Local time at winds of 150. That ties that storm back in 1856. And again, the town of cameron, where we had landfall, elevation is only about 5 to 10 feet. Its just a few meters. Its mostly completely underwater. There will not be a chance to get to that area until late in the morning. I want to jump to the forecast first, and well go back and look at the radar. This is local time at 2 00 a. M. So weve got it making landfall. Lake charles, right now may get into the eye. Now thats not a bad thing, because the winds will really lighten up. Theyre calm inside there. But a little jog in one direction or another will keep lake charles in this wide eye band for several hours. The most destructive part of the storm. This is not going to look the same. Lake charles back in 1913 had a level of water of 13 feet. It submerged half of the city. Theyre looking at tomorrow to be above that about 15. 6 feet. So again, with the flooding just from the surge itself and moving northward with the heavy rainfall, sunrise at 6 47 in the morning. First responders, this is 8 00 in the morning. Theyre not going to be able to get any aerial pictures yet because the winds are too strong. Theyre not going to be able to get a plane or even using a drone. First responders may not be able to get through many of the closed roads because theyre submerged or with downed power lines. But even at 11 00 a. M. , maybe you can get to the coastline. But its going to take forever to get there. Those that decided to stay behind are going through a harrowing night. When you look at the amount of the aerial coverage, youve got a tornado watch. So power is out. And ill show you the Power Outages for most, and more will lose power. The dark of night, the winds are howling. There are Storm Chasers right now that are talking about glass being blown everywhere. But the ears are hurting because the pressure is dropping so low. Then the sirens from warning. How frightening is that . The dark of night, 8 to 12 inches falling from the skies above. A few tornado warnings with the bands knocking out the power. Then again, right around that core. This is what we call an extreme wind warning. Its not very much use. Its seldom used, maybe once or twice before. Its a new product from the National Hurricane center to describe sustained winds at 115 miles per hour. Only used for hurricanes. Not for tornadoes or severe thunderstorms. So its pretty much just covering that area that will see these winds around this eye wall. The warnings in effect here in red, hurricane warnings, 4. 5 million are in this warning. You toss in the blue, Tropical Storm warnings, thats another 18 million. I fear that the images were going to see tomorrow are going to be a number of different fronts here. Lake charles is not going look the same. In fact, the entire coastline is going to be altered. Were going to see topography change. This is hitting with such force coming right in on a perpendicular angle. Not a glancing blow that its going to create new inlets. Its going to erode some of the birrier islands. But the amount of winds alone are going to destroy houses, businesses, churches, schools, you name it. And then the winds shift in the other direction. Downed trees and more Power Outages. We have 250,000 when you include texas. But this is just the beginning. Its going to be a long night. And the recovery time, robyn, were not talk weeks or months. Its going to be years. But i really fear that what were going to see tomorrow morning is going to be completely jawdropping when the surge goes inland some 30 miles. Its just amazing. And the scarier thing i think is for all of us. We know were looking at your images. But this is happening on the ground right now. This landscapechanging phenomenon, this Mother Nature wreaking havoc. And folks are still stuck in there. They didnt heed those warnings. And you talked about the wind service warning. They told people if they stayed behind that. Need to get a helmet on, something to protect their head area. Get a helmet. A Motorcycle Helmet, your baseball helmet, your football helmet and get under a blanket or mattress. Thats best Case Scenario here. Were going check in. I warrant to go to Martin Savidge next, but i know were going check with you later on in the show. I do have question, particularly how this compares with katrina. Martin savidge is in lake charles, louisiana. Hi. Youve been there for the last couple of hours. Whats happening there . What can you see . Well we had to retreat. You did . Wow. It became too dangerous to be outside. So oui come inside to the hotel lobby here. And were waiting for moment that tom is talk about when the eye will pass over. Right now you can still hear the wind. Its screaming through the cracks and vcrevasses of the building. When you were outside you felt the entire building shirding under the wind loechltd its taking a beating. This is one of the strongest buildings in the area. Its why we chose it. Its also up above sea level to give us some protection from the surge. Even though the coast is 30 miles away, were still projected in a storm surge that could move 40 miles inland so. So far we are managing to keep ourselves safe. But you can tell. As tom was talking, if youre outside in your home, and imagine, the power is out. You boarded up the windows. So you cannot see anything outdoors. And all you hear is the roaring sound of a jet engine. And literally a world that is coming apart outside your windows. And your imagination just runs wild. Then you the fear of i need to get into the basement, for instance. But you cant because the storm surge will pour into the basement. And its the water thats always even more dangerous than the winds in a circumstance like this. If you stay behind and youre trapped in your home, youre in an agonizing position of not knowing which way to go. Its only going to continue for several more hours here. As soon as the eye wall or the eye goes over, and we hope it does here, were going to try and get out and give you a sense of that eeriness that suddenly settles in. Its only shortterm. But its a welcome respite even for a few minutes to a half hour. Yeah. And also you can probably have a cup of tea or something because you have the luxury of being able to have that in that hotel. I see there are people around you. I must ask you also. We are in the middle of a pandemic here. How has that affected the evacuations, and even a hotel where people are lucky enough to be. How has that been managed . Its had a tremendous impact. Logistically its a nightmare on a lot of fronts. They had many buss they brought in to take people away. They had to double the number of buses or maybe triple because they could only fit a few people on each bus due to social distancing and the medical requirements. And then on top of that, there are a lot of people who didnt want to leave because they feared the exposure they might potentially get in the circumstances of an emergency in an emergency shelter. The shelters are all set up to plan for covid. But even still, the mind saset many people is it far nor dangerous. The storm is far nor dangerous than the possibility of exposure in a shelter. Again, people are worried about it. But the reality is this storm is far more dangerous. Now that station has already been made. There is no way anyone could move at this point. But it just shows you in every step of the way from the evacuation process when it was going on to the mindset of those that stayed behind, covid19 weighed very heavily ahead of all of this. The truth is the state has had to stop testing. So we dont know what the impact is. The coronavirus is still out there. Its still likely to be growing. Well only find out when testing begins how bad it has been. Okay. So i know you are safe for now, marty savidge. Thank you so much. Keep us posted when you go back out and any new developments. Thank you so much. Okay. So i want to take you now to austin lewis. He is actually riding out the hurricane on a tugboat in hackberry, louisiana. Please, sir, tell us how youre doing out there. What are you seeing . Its not so bad at the moment. Were in the eye now. Right before we got into the eye, it was the highest gauge we got here was 137 miles per hour. We had a couple of buildings around us come loose. A couple of satellites off of some boats. So you feel like you rode out the easy bit of it . What are you waiting for . What next . How safe do you feel in terms of whats coming . The force of it im sure. Once the eye gets past, well catch another gust of wind and everything. But should it pass 6 00, 7 00 in the morning. Who are you with . And why you still on the tugboat . Were there calls to evacuate . Give us a sense of the actual location where you are. No. Yes in phackberry, louisiana. There are fleets and barges and plants here. Theyll need assistance pulling barges away from docks, just organizing and getting everybody where they needed to be. And what are people around you saying . Have they seen anything like this before . Yeah. Its fairly common for people to stay. They always have boats in the area. Most people that are here volunteer to be here. Nobody everybody knew what they were getting into before they got here. Okay. Austin lewis there, i really appreciate you sharing your moments and experience on the ground. I want to go to tony guillory. Tony is the Police Jury President of calcasieu, a parish in louisiana. And he spoke toe Cnns Chris Cuomo a short time ago. The fact that a lot of people havent formed evacuation has come up. Take a listen to this. Oh, we fighting this hurricane out here. Very big one. What are you seeing so far where you are . A lot of winds. A lot of big heavy winds. It is blowing really heavy right now. The building that were, in you can hear it outside. It sounds like a train is coming. Were you able to get the people out and get people to safety that you needed to . What do you know about people who got out and who stayed . We called them mandatory evacuation yesterday. Most of the people got out, but a lot of them did not. We also had a bus bring them to another area in louisiana for their safety. But some people did not get out. We are getting calls in today, tonight, i mean. Were getting calls in saying people that are out there. There are some people still out there. Its too late now, though, tony, right . Its too late. Its too late. The only thing we can tell them is find a place in their house where they could go to a good safe okay. So more than 1. 5 Million People we know are under some type of Evacuation Order across parts of texas and louisiana because of this hurricane. Still ahead, were going have much more news on this. Youre watching cnn. Im robyn curnow. Dont go away. Only mask odor . 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Pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and its ready to go. Our costs for shipping were cut in half. Just like that. Shipstation. The 1 choice of online sellers. Go to shipstation. Com tv and get 2 months free. This is cnn breaking news. Welcome back. Im robyn curnow live from cnn center here in atlanta. So back to our top story this hour, the u. S. Gulf coast is experiencing now one of the strongest and most destructive storms in years. Hurricane laura came ashore in louisiana near the texas border. Winds we know topping 100 miles per hour. Thats about 160 kilometers an hour with gusts much, much higher. Now the National Hurricane center says the storm surge is up to 20 feet, or 6 meters, and that it is, quote, unsurvivable. Now that unprecedented warning came as coastal areas are already under water. Anyone who did not evacuate is facing hours of punishing winds and rain and a high probability of no power. Well, tom sater joins me now again with more on all of this. Tom, i know a little earlier i wanted to ask you about the comparisons here between laura and katrina. Okay. What are we looking at . Thats a great question, because everybody remembers those images and how harrowing they were, and well probably see some of those images tomorrow, believe it or not. 2005. It was a crazy season. Not only did we have katrina, we had rita. Many locations, this took the same path as rita. Rita left in its wake not only the loss of precious lives but 18 billion in economic losses. That was 15 years ago. Same year we went through the entire alphabet. We went into the greek alphabet for six letters. The forecast for this year is to be just as bad if not worst. Were breaking records for the earliest fifth named storm, seventh, katrina in the same year, katrina was a strong category 5, stronger than laura, but it was way out into the gulf waters here. When it made landfall, it made landfall as a category strong. So not as strong as landfall. However, because it was category 5 and a strong one, it kept all that energy and power and water upwelling underneath it and brought it with it toward Bay Saint Louis and mississippi. So it was a larger storm because the storm grew outward. All the parishes of louisiana, making its way towards slidell and lake ponchartrain and the levees broke and it was chaos. Thats a big difference. This is actually stronger. When you go back to look at the records since 1851, robin, you look at all the landfalls, the greatest number of landfalls the u. S. Has seen through august, the record was six. It happened in 1886, in 1916. And then it happened about 55 hours ago when marco moved in as a Tropical Storm. Were now breaking it. The greatest number of landfalls in a season through the end of august. Now we had landfall as mentioned. It was 1 00 a. M. Local time. Still have our tornado watch box. But you are talking about in the darkness of night. Youve got no power. Youre hearing sirens from tornadoes. A couple warnings that were here earlier. There will be more. You were talking about how they were telling residents who are staying behind to find a helmet. A football helmet, a Motorcycle Helmet there are other areas where weve heard local authorities tell those stays behind to write their name and their date of birth on their arm. Thats when it really sinks in. They told them get a piece of party, put down your Social Security number and the list of your next of kin. Put it in a ziploc bag in your pocket. Thats really strikes home whats happening here. The winds are going to continue to be off the charts. We lost the radar in lake charles. And its hitting with such force, this could still be a category 1 well up into the state of arkansas. They could lose power in little rock as well. One for the books. I cant tell you how much i fear what were going to see when theyre able to get up there and give us an image of the entire surrounding area. Especially areas like port arthur and lake charles. Just amazing how far inland this is going to be knelt. That gives us a real understanding of how big and a monster storm this is. Tom, thank you so much. Well check with you again. I do want to bring our viewers an update on other news weve been following here at cnn. The u. S. Vice president is pledging the Trump Administration support for those in the palo alto of hurricane laura. Mike pence spoke on the third day of the Republican National convention, delivering a law and order message. He denounced rioting and looting at Racial Justice protests in the u. S. But he did fail to mention the Police Shootings of unarmed african americans. Take a listen. The violence must stop, whether in minneapolis, portland, or kenosha. Too many heroes have died defending our freedom to see Americans Strike each other down. We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every american of every race and creed and color. So i want to get more on all of that from kaitlan collins. Katelyn . Well, night three of the