is a ship that left thursday and maybe another one coming back sunday, but it is a bustling part of the country. >> christine romans thank you so much for that. and according to aaa a gallon of gas shot up almost five cents overnight, which is the biggest one-day spike since last february. thank you, everyone. we are watching the storm and all of the rest of the news as "newsroom international" starts "newsroom international" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com i'm suzanne malveaux and welcome to the "cnn newsroom." as issac unleashes on the gulf coast, the storm has weakened to rains and strong winds expected to last all day and into the evening, and that is because issac is moving so sl s slowsly. the more it hangs around the more pressure on the systems built to protect all tof the flooding taking place.

water is pouring over a levee that is in plaquemines parish about 95 miles southeast of new orleans. floodwaters are 14 feet deep and rising in some areas. homes are totally submerged. energy officials say that more than half a million customers are without power in louisiana alone. i want to bring in chad meyers to talk about what is this hurricane doing? where is the path and just how much longer do we have? >> there we go, now i can talk. >> you have the mic there. >> we are switching meteorologists out there, and the storm has not moved much and in fact, it is over homa and right where it made landfall again with our eddie lavendara. and it is not south of new orleans, but about 10 miles south of new orleans where the levee is filling in water from

braithwait to white ditch, and this is to stop the mississippi river from coming in, and there is a levee to stop the bayou from coming in, but the levee is busted and gone now. the water is filling in and you think it is great, because lit run into the mississippi, but it can't because the mississippi levee is holding this back, so all it will do is to fill the plaquemines parish area all of the way to the levee or unless they can get the levee opened to let it go to the mississippi, and the pictures three minutes ago with people being pulled out of there with boats and high water vehicles and the lady saying nothing left there in that town. >> and you are talking about water pour iing into the area, d are we talking about hours and hours of this happening. >> it is finally moving and the storm is moving and it is 75 miles per hour and it sounds like a little bit, but it is in

normous wind and it is blowing like that for almost 20 hours in the same direction pretty much. it is moving a little bit, but the winds and the waves are beat ing on the levees and not so much the levees around new orleans, because new orleans in good shape and still working and everything that they did in $111 billion that they spent is still working phenomenally and i'm not kidding if they had not built that wall from chefmeanter, the gulf of mexico would be pouring into the lake pontchartrain and it would be overtopping the lakefront. no question of how long this wind has been blowing that way, the army corps of engineers without a doubt have now saved new orleans with that water 13-mile barrier to the east of new orleans that they built to stop the water from coming in. phenomenal work by the army corps. >> and it is the plaquemines

parripa parish that is really the area. >> yes, all of the way to white ditch is going to look like the lower 9th ward did. >> wow. that is devastating when you think about that. chad, we will get back to you. we want to go to a family that we heard from this morning. they did not evacuate. they are now stuck in the attic with their baby. i want you to listen to this phone conversation with our affiliate wwl. >> right now, i'm in my attic with my wife and my year and a half-year-old baby and the local police came around about 2:00 in the morning and told us that the levee broke, and within an hour the water was coming up. i tried to get the vehicle to the levee, and the river levee is dry, but the water came up so quick, it looks like we lost everything. if i have to, i'm going to have to shoot the hole in my attic here to get up on the roof. >> and it is an unbelievable story.

obviously, we hope that people are actually going to get to them and help them out of their home. i want to bring in senator mary landrieu of new orleans and, you are at your home in new orleans here. i understand that you have spoken with both the head of fema as well as the homeland security secretary napolitano, and give us a sense of what people are dealing with now, and particularly in plaquemines parish. >> well, suzanne, you are very familiar with this area and region and it is unfortunate what is happening in the lower part of plaquemine parish and st. bernard getting a lot of pounding, but so has the entire new orleans' region including the, you know, the center city. it is very unfortunate that people did not heed the warnings that live outside of the federal levee protection to leave. that's what the rescue officials are dealing with this morning. and you know, our hearts go out to people that were stranded,

but the local officials asked over and over again for people to evacuate so that now the coast guard has to go out in the very, very tough winds still gusting in some places up to 50, 60, 70 miles an hour and try to do these rescues. the good news that i can share is that the general area of the metropolitan area and including the gulf coast and i haven't t gotten too much information about mississippi, but the region in south louisiana while we have been pummeled by the winds that won't seem to stop, the federal levee is holding. the system that the country invested in is absolutely paying off. we are not out of the woods yet. and something could go wrong, but the investments that have been made here are keeping literally hundreds of thousands and billions of dollars worth of federal investment safe. >> senator, when you say something could go wrong, what are you referring to? what are you talking about? what are the specifics?

>> well, i don't have any specifics, but the storms are still coming and the winds are coming out of the south and not moving as fast as anyone hoped. it is a nasty and determined storm. it may sound little , because i is a category 1 and broken up some, but don't let it fool you, because it is a dangerous situation down here. and what i'm saying is that so far so good, suzanne, but this storm is moving very slowsly. the mayor and the governor and the local officials are urging people still here to stay inside. there is some highways now flooded. there's some street flooding throughout the region, but again, the corps of engineers is on the job. fema, and craig fugate is in baton rouge with the governor and the local elected officials and the president has been very engaged, and it is a matter of a lot of electricity out, but until these winds stop, you can't get your crews out. it doesn't have to be sunshine, but it does have to be safe

enough for the energy crews to go out to try to restoring power in the region and nen we can do an assessment of the real damage. >> i understand, senator, 75 rescue that have happened in brathwait and is there a sense of how many people you think are trapped inside of their homes? >> i think it would be difficult for anybody to give you that. the west person might be the parish president or some of the parish officials. that is a relatively small community, and again, they were under mandatory evacuation, and lot of people evidently did not or could not evacuate, and sometimes that happens in these storms, people either underestimate their power or they just don't have a which to leave. so the coast guard, believe me, is doing everything they can along with state officials, fish and wildlife to get people to safety. but i want the country to know

that although this is a terrible determined and nasty storm, there is no massive catastrophic flooding happening in the region. that's thanks to the extraordinary investments made to elevate homes and to invest in a corps levee protection system, and frankly, there were those who argued that south plaquemine should be included, and it wasn't. we will revisit that issue, and hopefully people can understand why grand isle is so important to protect, and may not have as many people, but the island protects an entire region that benefits the whole country, so we will be working on that when we get back to d.c. >> and senator, finally, why is it that the plaquemines parish did not get that support for a levee? >> because the corps of engineers has a formula that they use based on economic impact, and so if you are in a rural area or you are in a

sparsely populated area, you will get much less points than if you are a urban area. but we keep trying to explain to the corps, that if you don't take care of the rural areas south of new orleans and the region, you are going to be dealing with having to protect the center of the city, you know, with a 30-foot wall, and they are learning, but not quite fast enough. so we are going if go back and hit it again in congress to explain. new orleans is not the only area with this problem, because there are other places around the country. we are grateful for the investments, and they seem to be working. and the local officials are doing the rescue necessary for the people outside of the protection levee. >> all right. senator landrieu, thank you for the update and we will get back to you to get more information about the folks trapped in their home and need rescuing.

along with the mississippi gulf coast, hurricane issac kicking up rains and some of officials are thinking that the storm surge could reach up to eight feet. david mattingly is joining us from gulfport. david, tell us what you are dealing with. we are looking at the pictures and we see strong winds and water there, and what are you seeing? >> well, suzanne, what we are dealing with right now is this rain. this rain we have seen coming down since midnight. behind me, i want you to take a look at the ocean behind me. this part of the gulf of mexico is normally very placid. you would look out there on a calm day and it would look like a lake out there, but today, it is very angry. we just went through a high tide, and we didn't see that water coming over, over the wall that they have there by the sea. so, it is possible that the predictions of the storm surge that they were fearing may not be as bad as they thought.

but, what we are looking at with this storm, because it hasn't moved and just continues to dump buckets of water every single minute, everywhere across the coastal areas of mississippi, all of this water is trying to get out, trying to get into the streams and drain away. at the same time, you have the ocean elevated, pushing it back. spoke to the governor of mi mississippi a short while ago, and sorry the wind is picking up now. and really starting to sting as the rain hits. hold on. >> take your time, david, because there is no rush and we can see the conditions that you are dealing with. >> what he was saying is that they may have to redeploy some resources to other parts of the state away from the coastal areas that deal with the inland flooding that they are now anticipating but nobody thought that this storm would be here

this long with this much fury. this is tremendous amount of water, and you know what, suzanne, on the anniversary of katrina, the last time i was in a hurricane, standing in the middle of this much wind and rain, it was actually hurricane katrina coming ashore in florida. i joked with friends after that saying i felt like i would drown standing up. there are times in this storm that i have almost felt the same way if you inhale too hard, you will get a mouth full of water, but it has been absolutely rele relentless. suzanne. >> david, i know it is hard to talk, and i know what it is like to be out there covering a kind of hurricane like that, and the strength of the wind, and if you will give us a sense how fast do you think that the speed of the wind is, and just how difficult this is to even be out there, and whether or not there are people who are out there. >> well, these are not

hurricane-force winds, but tropical storm force winds, and we have had these tropical storms going on since midnight last night. and the thing with these storms they all make their mark in some way with some kind of damage that is unique to that storm. with issac, it is going to be this tremendous amount of rainfall and the flooding it leaves behind. when you talk and when you look at it on paper, tropical storm force winds and driving rain sounds like any hurricane, but this particular storm is going to be remembered for quite a while for how much water it is leave beg hiing behind and you that it isoming down in sheets, and showing no signs of letting up. suzanne. >> david, excellent reporting as always. be safe as you are covering this. we are looking at a lot of damage, and there has been already system some amazing rescues. take a listen. >> we were going the try to

leave, and then we didn't, because we had nowhere to go. (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. the charcoal went out already? [ sighs ] forget it. [ male announcer ] there's more barbeque time in every bag of kingsford charcoal. kingsford. slow down and grill.

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taking place out of brathwaite, louisiana. i want you to watch and listen. >> first we were trying to leave and then we didn't, because we had nowhere to go. then they came on tv and said that the stoun full and that there was a breach in the levee and then we were trying to le e leave, but trying to drive in the car, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. with me being a diabetic, and i had a stroke, we were in the house. we stay in a trailer. >> what's it like back there now? >> bad. water is over the top of the roof. we had to break through the ceiling and come through the attic. >> this woman is not alone. i mean, we know now that there are 75 rescue s s in that area

braithwaite and 25 awaiting rescue in the parishes east bank and people are little ralerally rooftops and breaking through attics and this is what we saw seven years ago with katrina and now we see it with hurricane issac, and it is testing of course, the levee system in new orleans. it was rebuilt as you know, and the mayor says he is confident, confident that the levees will hold, but issac is moving slowly and new orleans is getting pounded, and we are talking about rain that is nonstop, and wind and mayor mitch landrieu did not issue an evacuation order, but he did ask people outside of the levee system to leave. and i want to talk to martin savidge who is in new orleans, and can you give us a sense of where people are in new orleans? have they hunkered down? are they in their homes?

how are people doing? >> well, first of all the conditions. the conditions here are fairly consistent since the sun came up, and fairly strong wind and we are sitting in jackson square in the french quarter and like you saw with david mattingly, getting blasted with rain that feels like needles. everybody has left since katrina, and they take the storms much more serious than they used to in this city. and there are people hunkering down in place, and it was interesting around and about and not much traffic and the businesses not closed down and not traditional, because used to be that you would come here and people would party all night long, and that has changed. katrina was a deadly wake-up call, and the fact that the storm comes on the seventh anniversary is extremely sobering here, and no one forgets what happened around this area. >> martin, i recognize the french quarter and where you

are, but at the time of katrina, s some of the hotels were open and it was crowded and a couple of folks kept the restaurants open, and is it dead or are people out and about? >> no, it is. it is dead. it is really quiet. just showing you the lay of the land, and anybody would recognize it, the st. louis cathedral in the background and then if you walk in the other direction, of course, you have jackson square, and the park, and the central point and many tourists would normally be here. it is very, very quiet down here. no restaurants open, and no place to get food. again, all of this is very different from say what you are used to seeing. and let's talk about what people were feeling and remembering as they ride out the storm. take a listen. >> tropical storm conditions expected -- >> reporter: if you want to know how folks in new orleans really feel about another hurricane after hurricane katrina, well, don't talk to them before the

storm, but talk to them during it. >> it just brings all of that back up, the whole experience, and the loss. >> reporter: bill and gigi lost everything and started over. >> well, this is all new of course, and this is the house we built after the storm. >> reporter: he admits to being more prepared. since katrina he stocks coolers and bought a generator and added something. so you added another level to this house. >> correct. just in case. >> reporter: as in just in case the city floods again. issac intensifies as we drive to new orleans east. derek,ow are you? mart savidge. and meet police officer derek brumoo brumfid, and like bill, derek lost everything except for this picture that han prominently in the house. why is it poorrentave sog? >> because iwas in the house before andt survived just like

me, so i kept it >> rorter: l we meet, derek alrnates bween watching the television and watching out the window. >> when the wind is blowing hard like that, it is something and brings back memories. >> reporter: because of those meries, he evacuated his daughter andrand kids and his neighbor neighbors left, too, so this cop has a new beat. >> it is kick up now? >> yes. >> reporter: his own street. you think that people come out in a storm like this to do some harm? >> well, it has been done. >> derek is not the only one we find out on patrol. how are you? martin savidge. i arrive at the home of dr. norman francis in time for the power to go out. we will wait. there we go. fortunately, he has a generator. for over half a century he has been the president of xavier university and married to blanch even longer. seven years ago after losing their home, blanch began suffering from dementia, and he

believes that katrina played a part. >> she did not want to go back. >> reporter: in the year, they have moved four times. you can't have your mind not are drift back to seven years ago? >> yes. as a matter of fact, the worst time for it to happen is to have it happen at night. >> reporter: for the people of new orleans, the real power of isaac is not wind, but it is memories. remember, that of course 1,800 people died in this state alone. katrina lives on very strongly even as issac comes ashore here. but there are strong lessons that were learned, and those are saving lives today. suzanne. >> martin, you bring up such an important point, and i was just in new orleans four weeks ago, and a lot of people post katrina were suffering from a lot of psychological and mental distress. i can imagine, too, that today going through this experience

that people have a lot of anxiety around this storm, and thank youerer agai thank youerer martin, for the strong reporting. i want to move on and she was a power player the last time the republicans were in the white house, but we wt to hear what condoleezza rice thinks of the party's chance of taking back the presidency. ♪

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vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. the start of the republican national convention is of course the nominee, but the party got fired up twice last night. both party speeches, one from new jersey governor chris christie and ann romney who set out to define her husband.

and tonight, we will hear from paul ryan and also former secretary of state condoleezza rice. and hala gorani had a chance to speak to condoleezza rice a few moments ago and do we expect because there is so much speculation of whether she would be a v.p. pick if she is part of team romney after the conversation? >> yes, and there was speculation as well, because she was seated next to him at the convention as ann romney was giving the speech and after ann romney gave the speech, and new jersey governor chris christie was aressingporters in t tampa and i asked her straight out if she would be working for mitt romney in a possible romney administration, and this is what she told me, suzanne. >> i wrote a memoir called "no higher honor" and i consider it the highest honor to serve my

country. >> are you thinking of -- >> no, i'm happy to be a professor at stanford and i was fortunate to be the secrety of state, and that is enough. >> she has said it in the past, and suzanne, there was speculation as well that she was on the short list of the vice presidential nomination as part of am romney, and of course, a post that ended up going to paul ryan, but there you have it. so condoleezza rice is very much taking part of this. earlier we saw her doing sound checks behind me there at the podium for a speech that is scheduled for this evening. >> she his a lot of star power for the republicans. i know that a lot of people are interested in what she is going to say tonight, and one of the things that you discussed is the situation in syria, and the dire case of folks who are being killed there on a daily basis and the civil war that has erupted. does she believe that the obama

administration is doing enough? >> no, she doesn't. she sayings that i are going forward, but what has to be looked at is vetting rebel groups, and she says that the barack obama administration wasted time on syria, but some of the efforts should have been undertake anne loenne a long ti in the beginning of the uprising and here is a portion of my conversation with condoleezza rice about syria. >> well, we have wasted time in the security council. china and russia were never going to go along with a decision, and i am sorry that kofi annan left, and i have great respect for him -- >> and for -- >> well, there needs to be a political framework for the post-assad regime and then to

vet and arm the opposition so that somebody can stop the slaughter of the syrian people. when people say if you arm the opposition, it might get worse, but look at what assad is doing to the people. >> well, vetting the political opposition, and then vetting -- >> well, if we had been doing this in the last year, maybe it would be done by now, and we wasted a lot of time in the security council. >> what do you do from now on? >> from now on i hope that the vetting has been done. >> we are hearing reports that it is happening. >> nthen in that case, arm the opposition to resist the terror of the assad regime and resist the iranian interference in the affairs of the syrian people so that we can do something about the terrible spillover that is happening to lebanon and turkey and iraq. >> and would you say the u.s. should be arming the rebels? >> i think that the united states should be participating in the arming of the rebels, because we have to remember, and you know this region as well as anyone, there are regional

agendas by the outside powers that are essentially confessional agendas, the sunnis arming sunnis and the she yas arming shias, and europe and the united states bring a morel balanced approach to the region, so yes sh, we should be participating in it. >> all right. there you have it. condoleezza rice, the u.s. should be parties pailing in arming vetted rebel groups, and another thing she said is that u.s. foreign policy has been too muted, quote, unquote, her word, under the obama administration and that american power by being in a position of retreat is not something that is good for this country that on the contrary it should be reaching out and being more proactive in the regions such as the middle east. >> powerful words coming from condoleezza rice. thank you, hala, appreciate it. these are live pictures of ann romney a day after she fired up the convention and a personal speech that she gave about her

husband as well as her marriage and love. right now, she is at a luncheon and this is hosted by a latino coalition in tampa. later she and the wife of vp choice of paul ryan attended a breakfast and visited a hospital. the coverage will continue tonight at 7:00 p.m. with my colleague wolf blitzer and paul ryan who will be speaking at 10:00 p.m. eastern, and we will be wrapping up the second day of the republican national convention and i will be reporting from charlotte, thk nc state. i want to take you inside of the storm that is going to hammer the gulf coast. (sirens)

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a thing that helps you wbuy other things.hing. but plenty of companies do that. so we make something else. we help make life a little easier, more convenient, more rewarding, more entertaining. year after year. it's the reason why we don't have customers. we have members. american express. welcome in. welcome back to "cnn newsroom." as issac unleashes on the gulf coast, the storm has weakened to barely hurricane strength, but it is still pounding the region with heavy rain, and we are talking about strong winds expected to last all day and all

night. that is because issac is moving very slowly. the longer it hangs around, the more pressure, of course, it is putting on the systems built to protect against all of that flooding. the water is already pouring over a levee and flooding plaquemines parish southeast of new orleans and floodwaters 14 feet deep and rising in some areas, and some homes are totally underwater. energy officials say that more than half a million customers are without power in louisiana alone. i want to go to st. charles parish west of new orleans and officials there have asked people to cut back on flushing the toilets because of the power outages and bracing for the storm surge, and flooding reported everywhere. we have with us on the phone council clayton snooki fuche, and tell us what it is like in your parish? >> well, suzanne, the weather is

starting to increase again. we have been pretty close to the eye, and it is subsiding for a while, but now it is inincreasing again with the winds and the rain picking up. we have been pounded regularly, and due to the length of time of this sustained winds, we are starting to see fatigue and failures and ruin in some of the infrastructure. we have a lot of downed powerlines and probably 16,000 or 17,000 residents out of power. >> it is safe inunder any condition for people to leave their homes if they are faced with flooding? >> suzanne, if people can remain in their homes at this point in time, they are going to be safer than trying to get on the road. or as the weather continues to pick up. >> el tus about the storm surge. i understand it is still push prg the gulf. do we know when that is going to actually peek? are there going to be more

buildings to flood? >> yes, we are expecting more flooding and the word from the e eoc is that the storm surge has not peaked and we are seeing an inkre increase in the water gauge of the river, and we are not sure where it will peak. >> what kind of rescue efforts are under way? >> i'm not sure. i don't think that we have anything actually out in the commu communities unless it is extreme emergency and the sheriff's department is responding to those. i haven't had reports of those. but i'm sure those will increase as the weather continues to increase. >> and finally, right now, what is the biggest challenge? >> biggest challenge is going to be flooding and the continuation of the winds that we are receiving. we have had gusts up to 110. presently, they are a little bit less than that, but we do expect to see an increase as the storm

starts to pass this area, but the prolonged winds are definitely going to cause extensive damage. >> all right. before i let you go, i have to ask you how you got that nickname, snookie? >> well, my grandmother gave it to me the day i was born, and it just stuck. >> all right. thank you. clayton "snookie" faucheau, thank y. this is a crew driving through plaquemine parish right here and what they are seeing here, and you can tell that they have a lot of water and rain still, and you can see the flood iing ther on the street up ahead as the water is building. this is one of the areas that is very dangerous. this is one of the places where you will see a lot of the water and a lot of the flooding. it is also one of the places where they have recorded that people are actually having to be rescued. that they are in their homes, that they are in the upper level of the attic in some stories of

people having to break through the attics to get to the rooftop, that these kinds of situations are happening, and it is very reminiscent of what we saw with hurricane katrina. there are actually some people who are still waiting to be rescued. the lights are out for more than half a million power customers and talking about southern louisiana. the pumps, they are still working. we will tell you actually how that is possible. [ music playing, indistinct conversations ]

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issac has knocked out power to more than 500,000 homes and businesses, and this is in south louisiana, but the gigantic drainage pumps that suck the water off of the streets are still running. how can that happen? well, on the phone we have the chief engineer at the sewerage and water board of new orleans responsible for the pumps at 24 drainage stations across the city. so joe, tell us first of all, the power goes out in new orleans and we know that the power is out, so how do you keep the pumps, the critical pumps running? >> well, what happens is that we actually supply our own power. we provide our own 25 cycle power to the pump stations. the pump stations were built in the 1900s and at that point in time there was not a reliable power source so when we got into

the drainage system here in new orleans, we had to develop our own power system, and we developed a 25-cycle power system, and there was not an issued standard, so we developed our own 25-cycle system, and that system is in effect still today. >> joe, i know that the backup power plant is 100 years old and issac is predicted to dump as much as 10 more inches of rain in new orleans for the next 48 hours, and do you believe it can keep up? >> i do. we have the ability with the drainage system in place right now, we can pump over 50,000 cubic feet per second which is about the amount of water that flows down the ohio river in normal flow conditions. so we have a massive pumping system to be able to keep up with this type of event. >> joe, i understand that most of the pumps, the huge pumps can't be run remotely, so you have the pump workers who have to be on the sites across the city. how do you protect them?

are they safe? >> they are safe. the pump stations were design and built as safehouse, and in some places, other people will have remote safe houses, and they will go into the bunker, but we have built the stations themselves to be safe houses, and this is going to enable us to have personnel on the site and work with the equipment if there is a problem with the motor or the equipment as the event is happening and not unhave to wait for it to be over. >> issac is costing you money as gas shot up five cents a gallon. according the aaa, the pricef of regular rose to $3.80 which is the biggest jump in a day since february of last year during the libyan war. and the gulf coast has shut down refineries and cut production of three others. i want to go to the stocks to see how they are doing. we will get that to you as soon

as we can. 17 points up i am told. like most americans, my family was hit with hurricane katrina and we will talk about how folks in new orleans are weather i weathering the storm like my cousin adrian on the ground who is of course waiting for issac to pass. g. conversations help us learn and grow. at wells fargo, we believe you can never underestimate the power of a conversation. it's this exchange of ideas that helps you move ahead with confidence. so when the conversation turns to your financial goals... turn to us. if you need anything else, let me know. wells fargo. together we'll go far.

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everything. i had a chance to share our experience in a series of stories that i did after katrina, and one of the stories featureded my cousins the dobard brothers shown there. and now this is in the esplanade ridge, and they were in a tremaine neighborhood which may seem familiar because hbo did a documentary. and you had evacuated to go to a friend's house that was two story as opposed to one story, and so when we spoke to you yesterday, you were hunkering down and it had started to rain, but how are you guys doing? >> well, yesterday, i we lost power and -- [ inaudible ] -- we lost power for good.

>> we are having a hard time hearing you, adrian, but i know that one of the things that has happened is that you have lost power, and that one of the homes in that neighborhood actually partially collapsed, because of the strong winds. i know that there are strong winds happen ing ing in that neighborhood and taking a look at the picture there, and the wind is very, very powerful, and it is still blustery. i know that the rain is quite light,hat you have been out of power, and that it has been a difficult situation. we will bring you back and check with you tomorrow and hopefully a better signal. we will be bringing in, of course, bobby jindal, the governor of louisiana, for an update on the preparations. you are looking there at the screen that is the podium that has been set up for him. he'll be coming out very shortly, and this is out of baton rouge, louisiana. he will be making remarks about the various places and how the parishes are holding up, and how new orleans is holding up and cle clearly some of the rescue efforts and the precautions that the state is taking place now as they prepare to continue to be

pounded by hurricane issac. we will have more after the quick break.

we are awaiting louisiana governor bobby jindal to give us an update on what is taking place out of his state, and some of the precautions and the rescue efforts as well. we are also take a look at the affiliate, and this is rescue that is taking place, a boat, and i understand that we just lost that picture, but we're

going to actually get back to that as soon as we can. we have real damage. there's been also some pretty amazing rescues here. i want you to take a look. is is a rescue, talked about coming from a boat, and that a family was actually lifted from their attic. watch. >> how high is it back there? how gh ishe water? >> well, maybe 16 feet. >> how many people back there? >> not many. this is it. the eye where we are. >> we will talk about that in a minute. >> are you okay? >> i'm fine. >> what is it like back there? >> it is horrible. everybody's house is gone. nobody got a house in breakway. >> how high is the water? >> the water is almost over my head. it is over 20 feet. >> at first we were going to try to leave, but we didn't, because

we didn't have nowhere to go. and then they came on the tv and said that the house is full up and there is a breach in the levee, so w were tryg to e, but trying to drive in the car, and you could not see the hand in front of your face. and with me being a stroke. we were in the house. stay in a traer. what's it like back there now? >> bad. water is overg tf the roof. we had to break through the ceiling and come through the attic. >> oh, it is heartbreaking when you ar thestories, because it is s reminiscent of what we heard from hurricane katrina and except for cerinly not the kind of devastation and to the degree that we saw, but we d know that there are 25 other who e ill reportedly in need of help who need to be rescued.

there are 75 who have already been plucked from their homes as you saw that woman tell her story. we will have more about hurricane issac, and some of the heroics and as well as some of the tragedy that is occurring as the storm unfolds up next. (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. exclusive to the military, and commitment is not limited to one's military oath. the same set of values that drive our nation's military are the ones we used to build usaa bank. with our award winning apps that allow you to transfer funds, pay bills or manage your finances anywhere, anytime.

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