We begin with rob in morgan city. Rob. Reporter hey, charles, if you can hear me there, i dont have isp, i hope you can hear me, but were in morgan city, louisiana. Ive lost my earpiece out here in this nasty storm weve got here. Still barry is a Tropical Storm at this point here in southern louisiana. It could become a hurricane here at any minute. Were about 75 miles east of new orleans which is where a lot of the attention for this storm has been because it is a lowlying area, very populated area. But here just to west is where were really getting hammered. Were not too far away from the storm which is making its way onshore. Were here on a lake which looks like the gulf, its just getting pounded so hard. The waves are high, and this is usually just a flat lake that you can ride your boat around on. Not today though. Here in morgan city weve seen gusts at about 55 miles an hour, sustained winds a little lower than that and a lot of pounding rain as these outer bands and now a little bit closer to center bands continue to move through. Look behind me though, i did want to point out just as something to see, these ducks behind me just taking it, looking right into the wind. If you look over here, a lot of people put their houseboats over here, we saw a guy checking on his earlier. He said he wasnt too worried about it, they know how to handle these storms. The main concern with barry is going to be water. The wind is not a big concern here, its a category one, and water is because its such a slowmoving storm. You could walk about as fast as this storm has been moving. And if it dumps a couple inches of rain an hour for a couple of days, this could bring a couple feet of rain to areas that sit pretty much at sea level, a lot of areas sit below sea level. Theyre very worried about the levees, the army corps of engineers, the federal government has dumped billions of dollars trying to shore up these levees and make these areas safer so that we dont see what happened in 2005 with katrina happening again. Charles, back to you. Charles thank you very much. Storm surge, river, rain, thats the triple threat that louisiana is bracing for because of massive flooding. To fox news meteorologist Rick Reichmuth. Rick hey, charles. Yeah, flooding is the biggest story. The storm itself has looked over the last number of hours really organized. That is not good news for strengthening. Its up to a 70 mileanhour sustained storm. When its organized, it can strengthen more quickly. It now is organized, just running out of real estate. Somewhere offshore here, this is mostly just a fishing island, completely uninhabited. You have to get into interior sections of southern louisiana where you get some population. Down to south here, this is where the worst of the storms are. However, go around 200 miles away, weve been seeing this persistent band of really strong storms towards the mobile, alabama, area. And were likely going to see flooding out of that spot. This is abu by just abu by just offshore. Weve been seeing winds gusting well in excess of Hurricane Force for about the last three hours. That energy is going to move onshore, so we are certainly going to see some really strong winds from this, and weve been seeing 5060 mileanhour gusts in this band around 200 miles away. This is the center of the storm right now very close towards the land, its going to slowly move off towards the north and i think very slowly, in about two days, its going to move towards southern arkansas. All of that moisture is going to fall across that exact same area, and because of that the department within the National Weather service that handles flooding threat has issued a high warning for severe flooding across the southeastern part of louisiana. Anywhere especially towards the river basin needs to be watching this. Just want to point this out, these are two models we look at, both of them much more in agreement that to west of new orleans, baton rouge probably in the bulls eye of the heaviest of rain, going down towards morgan city. Some spots in that 1020 inch range. This is the official forecast from noaa, some spots in that 15 plus range because of that flood concerns all the way here across the southern Mississippi River valley. A rough few days, we probably wont see the pictures out of this for a couple of days to come, but get ready because there is a lot of flooding heading towards this area. Charles . Charles thank you very much. Republican louisiana senator bill cassidy staying on top of the emergency response, and he joins us on the phone now. Sir, thanks for taking the time out. Describe to us the preparations currently underway. Hey, charles. It is a very i compliment my state and the federal partners and community leaders. It is a federal, state and local are response. I was communicating with the folks down in morgan city. The mayor sent me back pictures of these big, big boxtype structures. E said, what are these . These are additional pumping stations. And then this morning he sent another picture of another pumping station being sent down. Now, all of that is with federal resources employed by the state, deployed to federal to local officials. Its a good, its a good response. Charles right now everyone acknowledges that it wont be the winds, but the rains in the days to come afterwards. And, of course, that creates a tremendous amount of anxiety over whether or not these levees will be up to task. We know that up to 15 billion invested by the u. S. Army corps of engineers alone. The state has done, obviously, things as well. How confident are you in these levees . You know, speaking to the army corps, they are confident, and thats where i have to place my confidence. They say that theres no scouring taking place where the currents undermine the levee, that the amount of that the top, theres still going to be 23 feet between the top of the levee and the top of the flood waters. Theyre restrict thing marine traffic. You may recall during katrina there was a barge that plunged through a levee that exacerbated the flooding. In this case they are restricting the marine traffic so that that cannot occur. So those provisions have taken place, i am reserving my concerns for other areas. Charles well, two things on that. A, other lessons that were learned from katrina that are being implemented and, of course, the specific concerns that you have. So i will say theres been this kind of process where the federal government has learned from their experience in louisiana, and louisiana has learned from the that federal experience. And i was speaking to a local official, a mayor. His whole crew had gone to a seminar placed by fema on Emergency Operations centers. They have now stood up their Emergency Operations centers. Obviously, the place that coordinates the response across the community. And so in this way, our local officials are learning from fema, who learns from our local officials. Its been, again, a good process. Not to say that its not dangerous, its not to be concerned, but theres a state of preparation that exceeds anything which has previously occurred. Charles and your personal concerns . My personal concerns are the rain event such as you were describing. We have something called the great flood of 2016 where there was an incredible amount of water dumped in south louisiana. I dont think the rain will be as much now as was then, but still when youve got 15 inches of rain coming down within a 12hour period, no matter what youve done, you can overcome it s. And thats my concern right now. Charles earlier we started the show with a reporter down in morgan who said that the people of louisiana are tough, and everyone acknowledges that. But are they sometimes too tough for their own good . We hear that theres a lot of folks who have not heeded the evacuation warnings or demands, actually. Yes and yes. Yes, theyre tough. And, yes, they are sometimes too tough. And if so if youre on a Barrier Island and youve not evacuated, youre not only placing yourself at risk, but youre placing the rescue crew that will come to rescue you at risk. And so if youre in those frontline, lowlying areas and youve been ordered to evacuate, i tell folks its like first grade. Your first grade teacher told you to do something, maybe you didnt understand it, but you did it. Now, if your official tells you to evacuate, get the heck out because they know better than you. Charles sir, have you been in contact with the white house, and if so, what assurances have they been making, what extra precautions are or actions are they taking . Yeah. Let me compliment President Trump. We, the federal delegation the senators, the members of congress and the governor all asked President Trump to make an Emergency Declaration for communities, and the president did that. And what this does, if you will, is preposition and gives access to federal resources. If theres pumps that can be deployed, Financial Resources that may be called upon, the president makes those available. And this president does that. As does every president when he sees a Natural Disaster thats coming. So hats off to president , the pumps i described going to morgan city, its something that federal taxpayers may be helping. Charles senator bill cassidy, your line is breaking up. Want to thank you very much. Really worrisome period down there, we appreciate and know that all of us are praying for you, and were watching. Thanks for taking the time out. Okay, charles. Charles well, the u. S. Coast guard already getting to work. Rescues are underway now. Weve got those details next. With sofi, get your credit cards right by consolidating your Credit Card Debt into one monthly payment. And get your Interest Rate right. So you can save big. Get a nofee personal loan up to 100k. I like to plan my activities before i take trip, so by the time i get there i can just enjoy the ride. With tripadvisor, its easy to discover over 100,000 bookable things to do, from walking tours in rome to Wine Tastings in tuscany, and if you like what you see, you can book it with ease. Just another way tripadvisor helps you make your trip a masterpiece. Hoo read reviews, check hotel prices, book things to do. Tripadvisor. In one of americas favorite boats the boat for summer sales event is going on now at Bass Pro Shops, cabelas, and other fine dealers nationwide. Where you can get a gift card and more with purchase of select boats. Like a 750 gift card plus boat cover and gear with purchase of a sun tracker fishin barge 20. Thats a total value of over 1800 for a limited time only, during the boat for summer sales event. Charles we are hearing rescues are already underway in new orleans as Tropical Storm barry barrels toward the gulf coast. To foxs casey Casey Steagall is in new orleans where not all residents are leaving, but the risks are rising. Reporter hey, charles. Yeah, actually, weve switched locations, now not in new orleans, but in sly dell which is not far, its just on the other side of lake pontchartrain. We had to get over here because once the sun came up, we started getting a better sense of the water and in terms of how much it is coming up, because you can see in this neighborhood that youve got a whole lot of standing water already here collecting in this yard. You can see the sign there, North Shore BeachAssociation Community building. But further down you cant even access it really because this road is totally underwater. So, again, this is slydell, louisiana. They were saying we were going to get a whole lot of rain in new orleans once barry made landfall. So where all of this waters coming from, charles, is straight back there. I dont know if you can see it real well since the rains coming down really hard, but you have those giant white caps in the background. That is lake pontchartrain. And if youre watching us at home and you live in iowa or you live in michigan, this is not like a normal lake. I think you should pull it up on google maps and see just how large it is. So lake pontchartrain feeds into lake bourne, and then lake bourne is what is connected to gulf of mexico. So when we have hurricanes and tropical systems coming through, the storm surge pushes up into the mouth of the gulf, into lake bourne and then pontchartrain gets really high as well. So the white caps back there just lapping against the shore. One thing that you probably notice when youve been Walking Around here and seeing, all of the houses for the most part, theyre on stilts, right . Because this is extremely low land, and its right here next to lake. So a lot of the houses are at least up really, really high. So right now you can see theres no its not even getting close to living quarters of the homes. As you drive through in those under portions, those are the garages under the stilts, and they have giant lifts that pull up their boats, and they get their atv. We saw one guy that had his camaro and jet ski raised up really high, and they almost hug the bottom of the house itself. So thats how people are protecting and defending their property. At this point we have heard about some to coast guard rescues happening down in a southern parish. Youve got a lot of sort of little fingers of land that stick out along the gulf coast down there where a lot of the fishing happens and kind of where the oil spill was. Those areas always flood, and so there is a report of some people in a house, eight people in a house, and the coast guard is trying to get to them. Were told that theyre okay, so were going to stay on top of that. Clearly now that barry is starting to show us what hes got, i think we could be in for the long haul here if its going to be raining like this over a prolonged period of time like it is forecasted to do, charles. Charles yeah. Im struck by the idea that we already are seeing rescue attempts. As you were speaking, i saw a couple of folks Walking Around, yet one of the streets, the street that you started on, had already completely flooded. So tell us about the people in these areas. I mean, theyve been through a lot, you know . Maybe some are confident they can ride this out. Reporter yeah, its an Interesting Group of people. Theyre so fun to talk to. Its kind of strange because, you know, were here covering a very serious event, and then you get out and you talk to some of these folks, theyve got smiles on their faces, none of them are kind of some of them are kind of making a party of it, if you will, kind of sitting on their lawn chairs under their homes and watching the water. One thing for sure, they know what to do. If you live down here and if you have property and this is your home or this is your beach house, well, you know what to do. The area is extremely low lying, and thats why the buildings are all raised. So, you know, youve got a mix of people who are, you know, taking this seriously, they are heeding the evacuation orders even if theyre voluntary. We were live two days ago out in the lower ninth ward talking about the preparations underway, and one guy stopped by our Camera Position and told us that he was not in the mandatory zone, but he was still going to take his four daughters or his four kids, and he was going to go as far north as he could. So youve got a mix of people that arent playing with this. They went through katrina, and they just dont want to take any kind of chance. And then you have others who are, you know, saying that they have been through cat four, cat fives and, not to minimize this, but this relatively speaking isnt what theyve gone through in the past. So theyre not that worried. Charles what about plans, casey, to in case it does become worse than perhaps some think it might be, are there community plans, you know . If people say, okay, ive got a boat, ill come by, you know, x these amount of houses and homes . I mean, some of these local communities, have they already devised their own ways of getting out if things get worse . Reporter absolutely. Again, this is an area that is, you know, so used to these types of events. And as they stated at some of those press conferences and those, you know, briefings with the press prior to barry making landfall in the last few days, theyve been talking about how they have drills year round to prepare for this. So a lot of the parishes, the individual powerrishes have their own parishes have their own evacuation plans in place. Everything is so unique that the other part about in the, when you drive all through here, its so unique. We were just in downtown metro new orleans, its the mayor metro major metro area, you know . 25 miles in that direction. Now were out here sort of, you know, in a more remote location right here along the water. So youve got just a variety of communities and various situations. Youve got a lot of industrial down here as well, charles. You well know that, youve got the Oil Platforms and all that. So a lot of different scenarios. But they say theyre ready. Charles Casey Steagall, thank you very, very much. Appreciate it and be safe. Reporter you got it. Charles speaking of Oil Platforms, they have been evacuated. More than half of production now shut down. Were going to tell you how this storm can hit you no matter where you live. But first, water not the only thing rushing in. So is the cajun navy. Volunteers ready to help out. The head of Cajun Navy Relief is here. Thats why esurance is making the whole experience surprisingly painless. So, you never have to talk about it. Unless youre their spokesperson. Esurance. Its surprisingly painless. Whenso if you find your. Com, you get troom at a lower rate,tee. Hilton is like. Were gonna match that rate and give you an extra 25 off. 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