news, new york. >> announcer:hi ernight news." good evening and thanks for joining us. want to get straight to hurricane ida. it made landfall in louisiana today, battering the southeastern gulf coast with an onslaught of water and dangerous winds. it hit exactly the same day as hurricane katrina 16 years ago. ida showed destructive winds up to 150 miles an hour. more than a foot and a half of rain is expected over several sn it's a monster, life-threatening hurricane. millions of people are in its path. today president biden promised to put the country's full weight

behind rescue and recovery operations. we begin with omar villafranca in new orleans. omar, what are congreditions li where you are? >> reporter: we are here on canal street. the wind is starting to pick up, and the rain is really coming down in sheets at this point. the power is still on in the central business district and here in the french quarter, but across the state almost half a million people -- half a million customers are without power as the big storm takes aim at the big easy. ida is slamming southeast louisiana, packing triple digit high winds and torrential rain. of the category 4 hurricane made landfall midday near port fushon. 40 people decided to ride out the storm in grand isle, defying an evacuation order. officials received multiple calls for rescue. >> those folks are going to have to hunker down. >> reporter: this morning hurricane hunters flew their plane into the eye of th s

of i buildupgth. on the streets of new orleans, the last-minute preps came down to the wire. >> i just pray -- >> reporter: 16 years to the day after katrina's devastation, mayor latoya cantrell says her city is ready. >> now is the time, and we have been preparing for. >> reporter: ida is the first stress test of $14 billion in upgrades to the levee system. >> will it be tested? yes.r:he threat fro id signi. >> we're projecting 15 to 20 inches of rain over the period of today and into tomorrow. at times exceeding a rainfall rate of 3 inches per hour. >> reporter: and conditions are expected to worsen with night fall. >> we're going to ride it out. we'll see what happens. >> reporter: once the storm

passes there's one thing to worry about, the pandemic. they are concerned about spreading covid. jericka? >> omar, t. we wan to go now to cbs's mireya villareal where ida is ashore. you lost power before the storm hit. what's happening now? >> reporter: right now this is the moment everybody talks about hunkering down. we obviously are starting to see the northern quarter in the eye of the storm. we expect to be in the eye probably in the next hour or so. as you can see right behind me, there is a lot of wind and definitely a lot of rain hitting us. >> mireya, this is an area that will get hit possibly the hardest when we take a look at all of this. what are officials telling you? >> reporter: officials are mostly concerned about the aftermath. the flooding that will come, the storm surge that is expected, between 10 and 15 feet for this area alone. not to mention all the debris

that will come down with these massive winds. >> mireya, clearly a lot of wind thank you. cbs news meteorologist jeff is tracking the storm. what can you tell us? >> this storm has over achieved with every single step. it came on shore at 150 miles an hour. we have report of 166 mile an hour wind gusts in grand isle. now the system is moving inland. look at it, six hours later, still intact, still a cat-4. the systems moving to the northwest now, the worst of the winds in tahoma. the system will move north, eventually northeast. power outages widespread all across the southeast and it's very hot this time of year. a lot of folks will be without air conditioning at least a week or two. this is the official track as you can see in tennessee. during the day tuesday, we're dealing with it through the end of the week. it heads towards dc, new york and boston with very heavy how much heavy rain? some folks will still see another foot of rain in the southeast. believe it or not, at least 4 to 8 inches will make its way up

the appalachians into pennsylvania and maybe new york city as well. we're not done with the storm quite yet. >> all right, jeff, with what we need to know. thank you. tonight more than 90,000 americans infected with covid are being treated in hospitals. that's the highest number since last winter. nationwide, nearly 70% of i.c.u. beds are filled. it's even worse in the south where at least 90% of beds are occupied. cbs's lilia luciano has more. >> reporter: the pandemic rages across the u.s. tonight. more than a thousand people are dying from covid every day. the u.s. is now averaging 156,000 new daily cases. covid-infected patients have pushed hospitalizations up 624%. t peray thatple have described this as a war zone. >> reporter: in portland, oregon, 300 national guards men stepped in to help medical staff combat the rush of patients. the south is battling the worst

of the delta surge, with i.c.u. beds rapidly running out. florida has the nation's highest case and hospitalization rates. not far behind, alabama and louisiana with some of the lowest rates of vaccination. >> what we're seeing in the south is concerning. an epidemic that coursed its way through the adult population is coursing its way through children. >> reporter: nationwide 180,000 children tested positive. shutting down schools. >> i'm scared it's going to affect my education because it's really important to me. >> reporter: but opposition to masks and vaccines continues. as health officials double down on their pleas to the unvaccinated. >> we really got the overwhelming majority of those 80 million people vaccinated, you would see a dramatic turn around in the dynamics of the outbreak. >> reporter: dr. fauci added that the biden administration is sticking to its plan to start offering booster shots starting on september 20th.

lilia luciano, cbs news, los angeles. a nasa spacex launch lit up the say over cape canaveral. the falcon 9 carried nearly 5,000 pounds of cargo to the international space station including avocados and ants. in case you're wondering, the insects are for experiments, food. in the sports world, the only black driver to win a race at nascar's top level was honored this weekend. wendell scott won the jacksonville 200 in 1963. last night at daytona international speed way, his family finally received a trophy commemorating that historic victory. scott did not receive the credit back then. instead it went to buck baker. but a review of the scoring determined scott had won the event by two laps, with baker finishing second. scott's grandson said scott built a bridge for diversity. today would have been his 100th birthday. there's a lot more news

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>> announcer: this is the "cbs overnight news." i'm jericka duncan in new york. thanks for staying with us. the end of america's longest war is now only hours away. it's been nearly 20 years since u.s. special forces landed in afghanistan to hunt down osama bin lauden and destroyed al qaeda. today the last american troops are on their way out. president biden set a deadline of tomorrow for a full withdrawal. mass evacuations are wrapping up at the kabul airport. afghanistan, though, now back in the hands of the taliban. what comes next has some fearing for their lives, especially the

afghan women. holly williams reports. >> reporter: the talibans already erasing women. these images a their ultra conservative form of islam. after seizing power of kabul, they said they would respect women's rights. punishment for unislamic behavior, and stoning them to death for adultery. >> the stoning and lashing is already happening. what they are saying, it's much different than what they are doing on the ground. >> reporter: she is a politician who told us she was in kabul when the taliban took over and spoke to us over weak internet from an undisclosed location. she said she was lashed by the taliban in 1999 the last timey r being on the street without a male relative. now they are back and women have already been sent home from their jobs and universities. >> we cannot come together and talk and discuss because we

don't want to be identified. meanwhile, we don't want to be a soft target in the hands of taliban. >> there's a ton of people being left behind. >> reporter: rebecca served in afghanistan and has helped raise $7 million in chartered flights to get 4,000 afghanistans out of kabul, many of them women and girls. but like so many others, they can't get into the airport. >> i get emails every day of these women who are trying to get out. yes, it is very frustrating. >> reporter: holly williams, cbs news, london. more than 100,000 people, the vast majority of them afghans, have been evacuated through the kabul airport. for many their journey has only begun. lee cowan has a story of one afghan who fought alongside the u.s. forces. he made it to america, started a new life, and still needed the help of his neighbors just to stay in the country. >> reporter: at first glance,

iowa falls, iowa, might be an po forle, forbid enin muslim. islam, is pretty big business here. and there isn't a mosque for miles. >> where is the horn on this? that works. >> reporter: and yet, for an afghan who goes simply by z, iowa falls has been the answer to his prayers. do you feel that iowa falls is your home? >> iowa falls is home. >> reporter: he came to the u.s. after serving as an interpreter for both u.s. and allied forces in eastern afghanistan. every mission made him a target of the taliban. >> i have seen a lot of my very good friends have been killed and we've been given body bags to just fix something for the family. >> reporter: did your hum-v ever get hit? >> plenty times. >> reporter: he had a bullet taken out of his arm. he nearly lost an eye to

shrapnel. and when the bus he was riding in drove over a road side bomb, he nearly lost a leg. when folks in iowa falls heard of his service -- >> it's not just his personality. it's his character. >> reporter: people like dewayne and emily didn't just welcome him. they practically saluted him. >> he would do anything for anybody, and he showed that with the service he did for us. >> he's probably more of an american than some people that are born here. >> reporter: what few people knew, however, was how he got here in the first place. in 2014, the u.s. contractors he had been working for in kabul flew him to washington, d.c. for business. z was thrilled. but he had no intention of leaving afghanistan for good. >> everybody leaves afghan is going to fix it. >> reporter: hours after he landed, his parents found a warning, one of several they have received from the taliban, nailed to their front door.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: in short, it said if z went home, he would be dead, and so would his family. the taliban had already made good on past threats. he says they murdered his uncle and forced his parents into hiding. >> it was the hardest decision of my life that what am i going to do. i just didn't want any more pain. just didn't want my family to live like immigrants in their own country any more. >> reporter: z had no choice but to apply for political asylum. >> you don't keep your car clean, papa. >> reporter: he had nothing but the clothes on his back when he arrived in iowa falls. one of the first to help him -- >> so, you've got quite a bit of work? >> yeah. >> reporter: was a giant of a man, both in stature and in spirit. >> i don't let him speak his foreign language around me because i think he's talking t ik reverer

in the armedforces. at 6'10", he was too tall. but offering kindness, he says, doesn't have a height restriction. why did you do that? why did you give him a chance? >> oh, you get a kid that's, let's say, 10,000 miles way from home, three-time wounded veteran, and he says, can you help me? you don't turn him down. you do the right thing. >> i told him that i'm buying this house. he looked at me. said, are you stupid? >> reporter: mike loaned z money money to buy an old house that was practically falling down and helped him turn it into a home. z's pretty handy that way. so much so he started his own business. z handyman services. he quickly got a reputation as the contractor the town could count on. just ask those working at the local optometry shop where zee was installing a new ceiling. how important is he to the

community as a whole, do you think? >> everybody here knows him. everybody knows that he would do everything he could for anybody here >> always willtoelt .eporev ptt asylum. but when his interview with u.s. immigration officials finally came around, something didn't seem quite right. >> my interview was almost seven hours. >> reporter: seven hours? zee had to account for everything, including his childhood and one day in particular. when zee says he was forced to give the taliban a piece of bread at gunpoint. or, they warned -- >> we will kill your parents or we will burn your house. i was a 9 years old kid, not even 9. i was scared. i didn't knew what else to do to protect my family. that's what they wanted.

this is the letter that i got from the government. >> reporter: three months ago, zee got a letter from u.s. citizenship and immigration services that suggested that that more sell of bread he gave the taliban all those years ago could be viewed as aiding an enemy. an allegation which could get him deported. you have engaged in terrorist activity. did you feel betrayed? >> i did. i got stabbed in the back. >> reporter: as afghanistan fell to the taliban over the past few weeks, the questn everyone's mind was, if the u.s. is risking life and limb to evacuate people fearing for their lives, why on earth would they send someone like zee back? >> we're supposed to be reasonable people. and to me, we're better than this. >> i won't let it happen. >> reporter: the residents of iowa falls, quickly went to action, including mike's wife

linda. >> i mean, everybody in iowa falls would >> reporter: in a matter of weeks, the town raised more than $40,000 to hire zee the best immigration lawyers they could find. but as the scenes outside kabul airport became more and more desperate, zee was getting more and more anxious. not only for himself, but for his family. but then a bit of potential good news. u.s. immigration officials won't comment on why or what, if anything's really changed pertaining to zee's case. but zee's attorney was notified two weeks ago that the u.s. has now agreed to re-examine his application for asylum. in iowa falls, it doesn't really matter the why. all that matters is that zee just might have a chance to stay where they think he belongs. >>o ie zee that he forever

stays in iowa falls. >> woo-hoo! >> i promise i will. [ laughter ] >> it takes a lot to make a community make a country great, and i did it. and i did it. i will do it (ringing) - hey kaleb, what's up? how you doing? - hey, i'm good, guess what, i just had my 13th surgery. - really? i just had my 17th surgery. - well, you beat me. - well, i am a little bit older than you. - yeah it's true. how are you doing? - i'm doing good. i'm encouraged by seeing how people are coming together to help each other during times like these. - kind of like how shriners hospitals for children is there for us. imagine if i couldn't get my surgery. who knows what would have happened. - same for me. i know my shriners hospitals family will continue to take care kids like us who need them most all because of caring people like you. - like me? - no, the people watching us right now at home.

- oh, those people. hi people. - kaleb and i know not everyone can help right now, but for those of you who can, we hope you'll this special number on your screen right now. - you'll be making sure our amazing doctors who need them now and in the days to come. - your gift will make a huge difference for kids like us. - ooh, ooh, show them them the thank you gift. - okay, okay, hold on a second. with your gift of $19 a month we'll send you this adorable, love to the rescue blanket as a thank you and a reminder of the kids you're helping with your monthly support. - so what are you waiting for? you can use your phone and call, or go to loveshriners.org to give and join with thousands of other generous people who change lives with their gifts every day. - i think that's about it buddy, good job. - my pleasure captain.

please call now. if operators are busy with all the other caring people, please wait patiently, or you can go to loveshriners.org to give right away. - [alec] big or small, your gift helps us all. - [both] thank you. (giggling) don't settle for products that give you a sort of white smile. try new crest whitening emulsions - [both] thank you. for 100% whiter teeth. its highly active peroxide droplets swipe on in seconds. better. faster. 100% whiter teeth. crestwhitesmile.com new klondike cones. experience the chocolate tip. examine the full sauce core. bask in a downpour of peanuts. ♪ some of the most popular songs are the ones that tell you how to do a certain dance.

well, steve hartman has more on how an old song gained some new nsd. inay , phyll kans s's n too oldci a bt.b as in the neighborhood is obsessed with one dance song in particular. >> it's just a fun joyous song. ♪ you put your right arm in ♪ >> reporter: the hokey pokey. you know how you love a song, you want your friends to love it, too? that's why mrs. b gave her friend melanie a hokey pokey cd and started talking about the song constantly. >> i can see her name pop up on my phone and i just thought, oh, it's the hokey pokey. >> hi, this is phyllis. >> reporter: mrs. b left dozens of messages. >> i really do need to talk to you. >> reporter: urgently pleading

her case. >> are you hooked on it yet? >> i would always say, not quite yet. >> reporter: melanie's reluctance baffled mrs. b. you know, most people don't care really at all for the hokey pokey. >> really? >> reporter: really. >> i find that very amazing. >> reporter: do you? still, shew h crusade was all but lost. then one day, mrs. b. happened to mention her birthday was coming up, her 93rd. when melanie heard that, she decided to embrace what she'd been resisting. or to put it in hokey pokey parlance, she put her whole self in. >> we took copies of the invitation, rolled them into scrolls, put ribbons and took them down the street. >> reporter: it was a hokey pokey flash mob. >> the smile on her face was so big. it doesn't take that much to

make someone's day. and i think we could all do a little more of it. >> reporter: because that's what it's all about. ♪

for any parent, nothing can be more painful than losing a child. but a mom in georgia is finding comfort in carrying out her daughter's final wish to help others. janet shamlian has her story. >> reporter: when vici bunke is getting ready for an open water swim, it doesn't come natural. >> i'm a little bit claustrophobic, mayb lot claustrophobic because i don't like to put my face in the water. >> reporter: until recently the georgia mom never swam a full lap. making this all the more remarkable. her daughter grace was the family athlete. but a cruel diagnosis at age 11 of oeormbo caer mnthe autation of her leg. grace could still swim and

joined the cancer fund-raising group, swim across america, until her condition worsened. did you ever imagine it would be terminal? >> oh, absolutely not. we knew it was treatable and we just thought she would be one that would make it. >> reporter: when it was clear to the family she had little time left, grace asked her mom to swim in her place. >> it was touching, but at the same time it was a bit terrifying. >> reporter: she took lessons and just finished her 8th open water swim on the way to 14. grace's age when she died. raising thousands for research that might save others. not doing it alone. >> when i'm in the water, i do have a sense of peace. i think of grace and i feel her presence. >> reporter: a life cut short as a legacy lives on. janet shamlian, cbs news, marietta, georgia. that's the overnight news for this monday. for some of you, the news continues. for others check back with us later for "cbs this morning" and for the very latest on ida,

follow us any time on cbsnews.com. reporting from the broadcast center in new york city, i'm jericka duncan. good morning. this is cbs news flash. i'm elise preston in new york. ida is to blame for at least one death this morning. officials say a fallen tree may have killed the victim sunday. as the weaker but still powerful storm continues to wreak havoc along the gulf coast, nearly 1 million customers in louisiana and mississippi are in the dark dealing with dangerous h winds and flooding. ida made landfall sunday afternoon on the 16th anniversary of hurricane katrina. u.s. military officials are investigating if civilians may have been killed in the u.s. drone strike that killed two isis-k militant members saturday. officials say they would be deeply saddened if innocent

lives were lost. for more news, download the cbs news app on your cell phone or connected tv. i'm elise reston, cbs news, new it's monday, august 30th, 2021. this is the "cbs breaking overnight, ida's fury. the extensive damage from the deadly hurricane after it made landfall on the gulf coast as a category four. more than a million customers are without power in louisiana. we're tracking where ida is heading next. al afghanistan, rockets strike a neighborhood outside kabul's international airport. how the white house is responding with just over 24 hours left before the u.s. military leaves the war-torn military leaves the war-torn country. captioning funded by cbs