louisiana governor john bell edwards said that time is very quickly running out. >> the window of time is closing. it is rapidly closing. and just like we said yesterday, by the time you go to bed tonight, you need to be where you intend to ride the storm out and you need to be as prepared as you can be. >> to that point, it may be too late. ida may be the strongest storm to hit anywhere in louisiana since the 1850s. ida could hit the state especially hard with life-threatening storm surge and potential catastrophic storm damage and flooding rainfall. all of this comes almost exactly 16 years after hurricane katrina slammed into new orleans, prompting renewed concerns over whether those since improved levee systems will, indeed, hold

against ida. joining me now meteorologist michelle grossman who is, of course, tracking this storm. michelle, good day to you. very busy day. very concerning day. tell me how much more this storm could strengthen before making landfall. yesterday category 1 and we were speaking with you about that and then moves to category 4 in 24 hours. >> i know. hi, alex. i know, it exploded overnight. we saw it go from 80 miles per hour up to 150. we are really seeing it strengthen. it's in that perfect environment and swimming over waters of 90 degrees. some of the warmest waters on the planet. you don't need to be a meteorologist and look at this image and know it is a very dangerous storm and could pea catastrophic. look at that red coloring. the high clouds. the strong thunderstorms of ida also the well defined eye. this is a really crucial time in the next five to six hours before it makes landfall and now sort of a wait and see. as we look at satellite and radar. we're looking at radar and the

darker colors are the heavier bands of rain and already starting to see the outer bands of rain. we saw al roker earlier looking at lightning over to the west and looking at rain even as far over as pensacola. we're seeing the winds picking up and the seas getting rough and some water rises especially right outside of new orleans. so right now this is the latest. 150-mile-per-hour winds and we have hurricane hunters in there and constantly sampling data and we're getting the updates for you. moving northwest at 15 miles per hour. we're expecting that landfall in the next five to six hours. there it is. that was just updated. they're expecting winds of 155 miles per hour. and our top notch meteorologist bill karins sent out a note to our group and said ida is making a run for one of the strongest storms to hit louisiana. it's in the perfect environment for the strengthening. it doesn't have a lot of time, but enough time to see

155-mile-per-hour winds. look what happens. the story doesn't end there. the winds, storm surge and also the rainfall, torrential rainfall. but then it slows down. and then it's really going to become a story of tornadoes, strong thunderstorms, heavy, heavy rainfall. we stop this right around tennessee and remember just a week ago we saw 17 inches in tennessee in one spot and we're going to add to those totals. and then by thursday we're still seeing the impact in the mid atlantic. those grounds are so saturated also. we could have enough oomph to this storm to see thunderstorms and a tornado risk come wednesday and thursday in the mid-atlantic. so, let's talk about the first impact. this is where the levee protection system is going to be tested. all those walls. all the money put in for the protection. and we do believe that these storm surges although high, 16 feet, are still going to be low enough to be protected. so, where you see that hot pink, that's 12 to 16 feet. that includes grand isle, that's a very small, fragile, narrow island. we're really concerned for that

spot. then the eye is going to move over morgan city. we're going to see wind impacts there. let's talk about storm surge i want to back up a bit. when the winds push the ocean water, the salt water on to dry land. it happens fast and it's strong and it's unsurvivable. so, we heard of a lot of people evacuating. that's good news. we hope everyone did because it comes fast and it's hard to go up against storm surge. then you add rainfall. scary totals. up to 20 inches of rain. all these grounds are so saturated. we had a very rainy july. we had a very rainy august. and now we're adding 20 inches in some spots. and we could see torrential downpours. now new orleans is a bull effect. we heard about this with katrina. the rain gets in and can't get out. the pumping systems, 92 are working. alex, we're talking about

destructive winds and also downed trees that could lead to power outages. there is also verbiage out of the national weather service where they're using words like unlivable for weeks and you're on your own. hopefully you heeded the warnings but really key messaging and scary messaging that we have a six, seven, even 24 hours and eventually into thursday with some really rough times ahead. >> michelle, real quickly. 157 miles per hour i believe is the threshold over which ida must go to become a category 5. is there anything that can slow ida down, blunt its force between now and landfall or is it just it's barreling there and that's the way it is going to be? >> it's barreling there. it's in the perfect environment. so, hurricanes like those warm waters and, again, 85 to 90 degrees. that's unbelievable. that's warmer than bath water and it's deep. it's not going to get the upwelling and the wind shear usually cuts off the tops of

hurricanes and slows them down so it doesn't have that and, yeah, it has that perfect environment to keep strengthening. now the good news is it doesn't have that much time. but we certainly could see a cat 5, that's not out of the question. but at this point a cat 4 or cat 5 so strong already and we'll see the impacts whether as a cat 4 or cat 5. >> thank you so much. we're watching this very closely. before we get to our team on the ground, i want to also let you know that the president and first lady jill biden are heading right now to dover air force base. they are going there because they will attend the dignified transfer of the remains of our fallen u.s. soldiers as they come home from afghanistan. of course, in the wake of that horrific bombing, that suicide bombing that took those lives of those 13 brave service members on thursday. there we see the presidential motorcade. we'll, of course, follow that for you and take you live to dover air force base when that ceremony begins and gets under way. as we get back to what is happening in the southern part

of this country, we go now to those on the ground in louisiana. they're tracking hurricane ida. that state bracing big time for impact. hello to both of you. thank you for joining me. tom llamas in new orleans there and sam brock in baton rouge. welcome to you both. tom, let's get to new orleans. they know well what a horrific hurricane means with katrina and the 16th anniversary. >> hurricane ida is getting stronger by the second. they're boarding up up to the last minute. over here we met david who is boarding up all this restaurant over here. this is the corner oyster house in the french quarter. they put up some of these plastic barriers which, i'll be honest, a good effort. but i'm not sure how much they will protect from the hurricane force winds and we have the sandbags in case any water comes down here. but people are trying to do whatever they can because this really is a monster in the gulf.

now, no mandatory evacuation order under way in new orleans. only for a few areas outside the levee system and yet we saw lines of traffic from people trying to leave new orleans yesterday. hours and hours of traffic to be specific. i have an uncle trying to get out of new orleans yesterday to go to mobile about a two and a half hour drive and took him nine hours yesterday. the mayor here saying they didn't have enough time. the storm got too big, too quick. this is all happening too quick. covid hospitals and hospitals all across louisiana are filled with covid patients right now. we were inside of one and i had a chance to speak to a patient who wasn't too nervous and happy she was in the hospital because she felt she was going to be protected there. the big question is will the levees hold. i'm told with the army corps of engineers along with the flood protection authority the new system they have been working on for 16 years since katrina did hold but they think of katrina every single day.

>> oh, you could about imagine. let me ask you quickly. folks are being told to get out. that was the cautious, the prudent thing to do. you talk about your ungal making that nine-hour trek on a normally two and a half hour drive. that was because yesterday, tom, the weather forecasters have this that new orleans could still be right in the eye of things. right smack hitting for landfall. it now seems to have turned to the west. how many people do you think remain there? do you get a sense that everybody is trying to vacate or if a lot of people will say we will hunker down and ride this thing out and stick it out? >> we don't have any estimates. i haven't seen any reports on the exact number of people. they'll never know, right? the airports were completely full yesterday. we were there. we saw the lines that airports. no more flights going in and out. the time to evacuate is over. but the lines of traffic stretched all through the gulf and people going to texas and mississippi, alabama and

florida. and those lines stretched for hours. you know, one of the worst stories i heard was about a ten-hour drive trying to get to parts of florida. it's definitely serious. i can tell you the population in new orleans since katrina went down 50%. almost caught back up in the 16 years and still under 100,000. around the 400,000 mark in new orleans. still a lot of people here driving around. we're not seeing people out but a lot of cars still at home. >> tom llamas, thank you for keeping watch on that. sam brock, please, stand by. we want to take you and there we see on the tarmac air force one and, of course, the president and first lady will be getting out of the presidential motorcade there to board the plane and take off for dover air force base. nbc correspondent heidi. it is a difficult day for and

thursday was perhaps the worst day of his presidency so far with the attack that claimed the lives of the 13 u.s. service men. talk about what he faces today. >> yeah, alex, he is really in the eye of several storms here. and on such a solemn day. we are just now getting the names for instance of the service members and the president is indeed headed to dover air force base with a flank of top aides and the first lady, dr. jill biden. he is getting a briefing this morning before he left from top senior military and national security experts about the situation in afghanistan. he has told officials on the ground there that they should not go to the airport. they're telling the embassy there that the situation there is just too dangerous, alex. we're in this short time frame

where yesterday we were told that there is an imminent threat to that base and to the airport there over the next 24 to 36 hours. that has not dissipated. we are told there are thousands of these trained isis and al qaeda bombmakers that are now out on the scene trying to blend in with the sea of crowds that are trying to reach the airport to get the last ticket out, alex. and that remains a very, very difficult challenge here. if you can imagine, we're trying to get all of our people out and getting the last person out while there is this imminent threat that is not going to go away until we are gone. the question is, we have gotten so many people out right now. the number is about 111,000 since mid august. however, the numbers as of this morning remain 350 americans who have yet to make their way out who need to make their way out. we don't know yet if the

individuals who we hit in that drone strike are, indeed, the individuals who were behind the airport attack. we do know that they were planners, but there will be questions remaining about that and also whether we also want to do more strikes before we leave on tuesday. so, really, so many complications to this evacuation that the president was hoping would not result in any casualties. at the same time, he's watching the situation very closely getting a briefing from fema director yesterday about the situation in louisiana on the coast there. expecting the strongest storm here since the 1850s potentially to touch down. all at a time, alex, when it's really difficult to execute on the plan, for instance, to evacuate the hospitals because the hospitals that could be impacted can't go to the

hospitals that are now full with covid. at the same time trying to evacuate individuals there and telling them to go to congruigate settings which are exactly the place you would want to avoid in the middle of a pandemic. so, they're doing what they can to hand out supplies, to hand out masks and hand sanitizer. but really hoping this doesn't compound the tragedy down there in the middle of what could be and expected to be potentially lethal storm, alex. >> absolutely. the president is certainly in the middle of a horrific and terrible storm, in fact, on so many fronts. he did make the point yesterday in his news conference he said people in the southern part of the region there in the gulf coast, wear your masks as you are evacuating and dealing with the oncoming hurricane ida. heidi, thank you for that. heidi just mentioned the ongoing threats. let's go to ralph sanchez joining us from dohar, qatar. we got some alerts here at msnbc

news last night about imminent threats in the next 24, 36 hours telling americans leave that airport. of course, the irony is, they need to get to the airport to get out of afghanistan and avoid any of these threats in the first place. talk about what we know about these threats and how likely something could happen. >> yeah, alex, the white house very concerned about a repeat of thursday's attack. the president saying last night it was highly likely there was another attack in the next 24, 36 hours. if you do the gram math on that we are expecting the afghan affiliate of the islamic state to attack some time today at kabul airport. we don't have details on what exactly the white house is expecting. would it be another repeat of the suicide bombing we saw on thursday? could it be a truck bomb aimed at the gates of the airport?

possibly rocket fire targeting those remaining aircrafts that are still making their way out. the evacuation is continuing under the clouds of this threat. we know that 3,000 people were evacuated in the last 12-hour period that we have figures from the white house for. but things are slowing down and the focus increasingly is on getting u.s. forces out of kabul. at its peak, there were 5,800 u.s. troops at harmid karzai airport. we don't know exactly how many troops have left. the pentagon is not saying for security reasons. but american forces holding that airport are increasingly standing alone. our coalition allies who have been along side the united states for 20 years in afghanistan have now wrapped up their evacuations, taken their troops home and ended their two-decade war effort.

prime minister boris johnson of the uk saying this morning this is the culmination of a mission unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. he confirms that all british troops and diplomats are off the grounds now. so the u.s. standing alone under the shadow of this threat as the hours tick by to president biden's tuesday deadline. alex. >> you mentioned president biden, ralph, and i want to tell our viewers. you can figure it out that is joint base andrews the tarmac where air force one is heading to the top of the runway and taking off for dover base. the 13 u.s. military members that were killed on thursday in that suicide attack. ralph, let me ask you about the concerns. have you heard anything from your sources within the pentagon or sources there on the ground in doha that suggest that the u.s. military is nervous. we are the last ones there, as

you so aptly put. everybody else, all of our coalition partners have left. we are ramping down certainly some of our service members have left already afghanistan, which means there are fewer there on the wall for lack of a better description. to protect those that are coming in to the airport to get on that plane. do you have a sense of the mood and the greatest concern that military officials have right now as they keep a very close watch on everything around the hamid karzai airport? >> yeah, alex the white house said last week that the most dangerous days of this complicated mission were going to be the final ones and this is it. the last u.s. soldier or marine on one of those transport planes off the runway at the airport is going to be the one, the most at risk because we are in this surreal situation.

we are dependent on the taliban. this insurgent group we have been fighting in afghanistan for two decades for our security on the ground. the u.s. military has established this very unusual working relationship with taliban commanders who are now running the city of kabul. they said you need to do more to protect the airport from our joint enemy of isis as we pull out. they have asked the taliban to expand the security perimeter away from the gates of kabul airport to give a little more breathing room for u.s. troops. and to try to avoid whatever it is they think isis are planning, be it another high-powered bomb. be it rocket fire aimed at the airport. now, as you said, the u.s. has carried out a drone strike in the east of afghanistan on friday aimed at isis. it killed two members of that group. we don't know exactly who they

are. and crucially we don't know, are these people who are responsible for thursday's attack or was this an attempt to disrupt a future attack or both potentially? or could it be that this is just the u.s. trying to signal in this fairly desperate situation fighting a shadowy terrorist group that neither the u.s. or the taliban has a firm grip on just trying to make some sort of signal that we can strike out. the president said this was the first strike and it will not be the last one and it will be very interesting to see in the coming days and weeks the extent to which the u.s. and the taliban coordinate, cooperate against isis in afghanistan. alex. >> and to which the extent the taliban is recognized as a legitimate government, as well, given its history and the process by which it took over the presidential palace there. all right.

raf, thank you for standing by with the latest and we'll come back to you. for all of you who just watched air force one taking off there from joint base andrews. for anyone that flies off and you will not go past noting that the fact that air force one it gets on the runway and takes priority over everything and it just goes. there is no stopping and waiting. it is now wheels up on its way to dover air force base. i'm joined right now by an american citizen previously amad worked as translator for the u.s. army and working his way up would eventually help the u.s. build cases against terrorist organizations. he has worked for the u.s. state department, as well as the doj and joins me right now. i'm awfully glad to have you here. tell me what it is like for you as you watch everything unfold right flow working as a translator, working side by side with the u.s. military and then some as you see what happened to your homeland. and you watch those who worked probably alongside you, as well,

still stuck in kabul. >> i feel like i'm having a nightmare and i'm going to wake up and it's going to go away. i'm shocked and heartbroken and prayers to all the families of the victims and thousands. i never imagined this could happen throughout my analysis and the work i've done, never expected we would leave in this situation and all the 20 years of the gains and achievements, all the trainings, the building of the strong afghan national army and giving the equipment to the taliban right now. never imagined this. look at what is happening. i'm just really shocked to be honest. it's been ten days and i'm still trying to say that am i dreaming or is this a reality? but it happened. there are people dying. there are people losing life. there are people outside the gates hoping that they can get outside. when i started working as a 16-year-old, our whole hope. i left school and i left my mom and i left my family because i saw a great mission.

my dad in early 2001 started a special forces and my brother and my sister, the entire family. we hired afghan judges to put taliban behind the bars. right now we're bailing on them. we hired interpreters and contractors and there are thousands. as of last night, i received six greencard holders requesting immediate support and i have a list of 475 people total. so, i just never imagined this would happen and what's happening is crisis. >> that is a tremendous burden on you. you received the six visas and another 400 plus waiting to get out there and get help from you, how are you being communicated with and what can you do, what kind of channels are you working? what kind of doors are you opening and if you could address that first. >> when i saw the whole challenge of myself getting my

family to the airport and even though they had the proper documentations. i saw this was a problem. i had to go public and go on facebook, twitter, instagram and said u.s. citizens, americans, if you're stuck in afghanistan and need help, please let me know. i grew up near the airport and i know the neighborhood and the routes and, plus, thanks to former and active service women and men who we were all at the beginning working individually and now all working together. so what we do is i collect the data and i have including my brother and many other volunteers right now. we have a team of 24 people. we collect all their applications and we see which one is eligible and vet them and verify them and i send the list to the contacts to the marines. and be the one coordinating and calling to the go to the airport. yesterday two of the families stuck by the airport, i want to make this announcement. the taliban, when i spoke to their commander yesterday. they're letting people in, but they're not letting people in because those families whose

names were on the list, the taliban did not let them in after 17 hours of waiting at the gate. i want to repeat this because the taliban and u.s. forces made a deal at the airport that we will give you the list. when u.s. citizen green card holders walks in, we'll give you the list. taliban did not let them in. save us money and we're talking about thousands of people right now. the priority was u.s. citizen green card holders but u.s. citizens we have few citizens but did not receive any applications. but we did receive that i send the list immediately. >> i just want to be very clear, amad, the taliban said we'll let these people back in and they went back on their word? >> while i was at cnn yesterday i called the person and i said, look, i have four families, their names on that list. what is the problem? they said, no, we are waiting for the list. their names are not on the list yet. the people said their names are on the list.

you are going against when to say it. >> all right, ahmad, we'll keep a close eye on things with you. thank you for illuminating the way things are at this very moment there in a very precarious state in kabul. best of luck to you. thank you for your service to our country. i hope your family gets out safely. thank you so much. 25 past the hour. we're certainly staying on top of hurricane ida's very movements and we'll bring you updates throughout the next two hours. coming up, i'll talk with a doctor in louisiana how his covid overwhelmed hospital is preparing for another health emergency. later madeleine dean joins us in the investigation into january 6th. y 6th. so you can focus on what matters most. whether it's ensuring food arrives as fresh as when it departs. being first on the scene, when every second counts. or teaching biology without a lab. we are the leader in 5g. #1 in customer satisfaction.

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rounding the bottom of the hour, we're tracking hurricane ida which is now a powerful category 4 hurricane before it

makes landfall in louisiana. we'll take you to baton rouge where we find nbc sam brock with the latest from there. sam, welcome to you. the waters behind you look calm at this point, but it may be deceiving from our camera angle. give us a sense of how things are there. >> rain is just starting to pick up a little bit. it's light right now, alex. it is calm by and large. there is this monster storm on our doorstep right now. ida is expected to make landfall in the next five or six hours at 100 miles per hour sustained winds. if it hits 157 or more, that makes it a cat 5. for historical context here, there are only four hurricanes that made landfall as a cat 5 in the united states. it never happened in louisiana. michael in florida and andrew, as well. you're looking right now at extremely rare situation and i would also add this. not just the intensity of the winds, alex. this storm is expanding.

it's getting larger. now 40 miles out from the core of the storm is where you're going to find hurricane force winds. alex, 140 miles out, tropical storm force winds. that's according to our weather folks. that is a massive figure. keeping that in mind i'm on the baton rouge lsu campus, the largest university in the state of louisiana. some 35,000 students. i've been standing out here all morning and i've seen people running and biking and no mandatory evacuations here. although certainly top of mind for baton rouge what happened in 2016 an unnamed storm that dumped somewhere in the area of 30 inches of rain over the course of several days. you saw 100,000 plus homes flooded and $21 billion worth of damage. since that point in time i spoke with the mayor yesterday and she told me they have taken precautionary measures including $21 million for addressing the canals and the drainage systems here and they created two feet of space for flood water in the

capital lake, should it be necessary. the question becomes right now, alex, should this storm hit landfall and then sit there pouring more rain. 8 to 16 inches projected or the 20 inches in new orleans, is that even accurate? i would add one other thing. the storm's track is just west of new orleans. i'm two hours west in baton rouge. if it were to wobble any closer at that wind punch catastrophic in the city center not just in the rural areas and swampy areas of louisiana. we're all watching that track so closely. the students on campus right now are being told by the administration to shelter in place. everything at lsu canceled through at least monday. that could change. the football team has already moved to houston. they have their first game of the season coming up next weekend. they're going to be flying out directly from houston to los angeles for that game. no one is coming back here. we're hearing pa announcements

all of this playing into effect as we're waiting a serious situation in baton rouge and certainly into texas or i should say the other direction to mississippi and alabama. the last thing i would leave you with, alex. if you want to get out of town, i was lucky enough to find a gas station that i could find gas to fill up and top off. gas stations are all out of fuel. you can't fly out of here. no more flights that are going out this morning after 10:00 in the morning. that's it. you're stuck here. prepare and hunker down and potential for potential disruption. >> talk about a report from you there, sam brock. the parents of students of lsu will be making phone calls and telling their kids to heed the warnings and hunker down. a lot of nerves in homes across this country. sam, thank you for that. joining me now is rob the founder and director of the

cajun navy foundation a group that assists with relief eforts in the wake of national disasters. you guys are truly heroes, rob. give me a sense of where things stand right now and what you have done to prepare right there in the cajun navy? >> sure. i'm stationed out of lafayette. that's where our headquarters are located. we're about an hour and a half from houma which is one of the small towns in the path of this thing. and we have our volunteers here with us. we have spent the last, actually, we've been on phone calls talking about this since wednesday morning seeing it and getting alerts that there was a big storm coming. and we have a partnership with several other nonprofits including salvation army and operation barbecue relief and operation air drop and many others that we're coordinating with just volunteer groups to respond and our plan is to take

our equipment and our teams and go into houma which is about an hour outside of new orleans, a little less than an hour outside of new orleans in the south, southwest corner and then we can head towards new orleans and the communities from there. so, we're based out of houma with what we call safe camp, swift action force emergency camp. what we do is provide supplemental services. we were talking about gas a minute ago on your station here and one of the things we can do is help provide gas to people coming in that might have not realized there is no gas available to get out. as well as obvious things like food and water and supplies like diapers. we try to support people coming back to the community. hopefully, you know, there's no way to know for sure that everybody has evacuated and our plan is to help the people who

are coming back to assess after it is safe for us to get in. >> sounds to me like you guys live in the area and you know what can happen. you're very practical in your approach. and when i said heroes, you're bringing the things that people will need and be grateful for. are you among those guys. do you, for instance, have the boats that can go in shallow waters and go from door to door and, yes, instinct is very important with how you go about this process to keep those in the cajun navy safe, but do you have any special training or what are the risks that you're willing to incur? >> you know, the cajun navy was really started as guys in boats doing rescue. we, our focus is not going to be search and rescue this time. ours is going to be helping people clearing roads, move trees. there will be a lot of flooding here. and the people in those flood zones for the most part have

evacuated. we are working with authorities and what they have asked us and what we have agreed to do is let them do the rescues. if we do have guys with boats and they will be here and we are very capable of doing the boat-type rescues. but that's not a majority of what we do any more. you know, the flooding is when you're in need and you need those rescues, it happens. certainly hurricane harvey, our group rescued over 4,000 people during the 2016 flooding where we really got rolling. and we rescued tens of thousands. just countless people just helping out in boats. but people didn't evacuate for harvey. they didn't really evacuate for the 2016 flooding and it caught people off guard. we had a couple day's notice and most of the people had the need for rescue have hopefully evacuated. they're certainly going to be some who stayed behind and are going to need help and we are

prepared to do that. those individuals will reach out to us directly through our social platforms and ask us for rescue and we have our dispatch teams that work from their homes and worked every one of these storms including hurricane laura last year to provide those dispatch and rescue services. so, it works a lot like police and fire and search and rescue where, you know, police officers don't drive around looking for a crime. they're dispatched. we do the same thing. so our teams on the ground are dispatched and we're prepared to do that. we are ramping up to assist the greater community with regaining a sense of control over their life. because that's what happens in this. you really lose a sense of control over your life. >> i'm sure there are so many who are grateful to you, rob gaudet. i'm grateful for your time, as well. i know you have a busy couple days ahead of you. thank you so much and best of luck. stay with us, everybody. and for all of you, do stay with us we have more hurricane coverage after a very quick

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if any of you are wondering where ali velshi is, it is because he is on hurricane duty, of course. ali is joining us by phone right now. ali just made it to new orleans. welcome, my friend. i'm honored to be sitting in for you, but tell me where you are specifically and what you're

doing and what it's like where you are. oh, goodness. do we not have the phone hook up for ali? okay. we're going to hook that up. he may be, you know, with storms. there's always difficulty with the cell service certainly. we're going to go back to ali in just a moment. let's talk about hurricane ida barreling towards the gulf coast and making landfall in just hours from now. you have the residents of plaquemanes parish. joining me now is the president kirk lepine. let's talk about where things stand with your residents and how many have heeded warnings to evacuate. were those mandatory warnings and are people complying? >> good morning and thank you

for having me. yes, we have issued, if you notice our parish is 65 miles long from the top and to the foot and venice, louisiana, that goes right into the gulf. if you look at louisiana at the boot, we're at the end of the boot. we are out there in no man's land, if you want to say. but we have issued evacuation order on friday at 3:00 p.m. we upped it a little bit further up north on saturday. and now we have seen a good deal of people heed our warning and move on. and we, you know, encourage our people if they have opportunity to get out to get out. the window's closing now. i'm on right now and it looks pretty desolate. >> kirk, it was noted by the sheriff in the parish that some levees are likely to breach as this storm is moving in and brings so much water and storm

surge with it. what are you guys able to do at this point? >> the river levees which is the mississippi river, but we also have what is called back levees that protect our marsh. those are the ones we are concerned about. the real levees we're not as concerned as about the back levees. i always get this grave concern because some of those areas are low. we are working with the corps to build up those levees as we speak but some of those levees are vulnerable and in a small section of them are lower than what we want them to be. so, we are. that's our biggest problem. if they breach the levee and the wind keeps coming from the south, it will cross our highway 23 and the west bank of our parish and cut us off from the lower end of the parish. that is the main thoroughway through the whole parish.

and we have some back levees that are not, you know, not as high as we'd love to see them. >> all right. well, you are very busy. plaquemines parish president. good luck, sir. everyone, back to ali velshi, we have a connection with our good friend. ali, tell us where you are in new orleans. i understand you just landed and got to a place where you can communicate and give us your perspective on what you have got on the ground. >> alex, thank you for being there so i can be here. this is reminiscent of 16 years ago when i moved, i drove from houston into new orleans ahead of katrina and that's what happened tonight. i actually landed in houston about 1:00 a.m. and i drove all the way through and passed through plaquemine parish and most of the way, about a five-hour drive normally and

six-hour drive overnight. most of the way, the i-10 westbound people going west from louisiana to texas was completely filled. gas stations were out of gas as sam brock was talking about. i stopped at one gas station and they allowed me to put ten dollars worth of gas into the car. people are still evacuating around plaquemine parish and baton rouge i saw more evacuation. once i got past that into the suburbs of new orleans, a trickle of people. so, it does seem like what sam said. most people who have left or were planning to leave. i will tell you the rain is not terribly heavy this morning. rainy, overcast morning this morning in new orleans. typical in what you would have in the hours before a hurricane. those bands come in pretty fiercely. the thing about this storm that

is different than katrina, it's fast. the speed of the storm is fast. 15 miles an hour. katrina was in the low single digits, which is problematic because it spends more time over all of these places creating damage and dumping rain. the disadvantage of the storm is the power of the storm. the speed of the storm. 145 miles per hour sustained winds which is hard to imagine for anybody who does sustained winds. 25-mile-per-hour wind feels like a lot, imagine 145 miles at the same time. the situation in new orleans is different from a lot of other areas because new orleans biggest problem is below sea level it has lake pontchartrain and mississippi river. it floods easily. there have been billions of dollars spent since katrina, since 16 years ago today. 64 or $74 billion spent on pumps and levees and making the levees higher and things like that. but it's not all done. as you just heard from the gentleman, there are things they have been studying and trying to

do and some won't get done until 2024. if the storm is big, if the storm surge is big, if the flooding is high, it could over top some levees. some are designed. i mean, this is a lot in the weeds engineering, but a lot of them are designed protects the area that's are most vulnerable and overtops into other areas. so new orleans is not safe, regardless of the fact that the storm moved a little westward, this storm is -- this place is going to be hit by a lot of water and that is what the problem is. we've been saying that for years. water is the risk in hurricanes. i will say, and bill karins can confirm this in the weather folks, when you have wind of 125 miles an hour, it's really dangerous. that can uproot anything. trees, signs, anything off roofs. so wind is also a real, real danger here. but in new orleans right now, the issue is going to be will the things they spent money

fixing since katrina hold and will will they hold off this storm and not cause the sort of damage we saw 16 years ago. >> i appreciate your perspective from your experience on the ground with katrina and where you are now doing all that research, thank you so much for that. i will welcome you on my show again later today. it starts at noon. do stay safe, my friend. we'll check in shortly. when we do have breaking news to share, we're just getting word from an nbc freelance producer that there has been an explosion in kabul. this freelance producer is reporting that it has been heard resonating there in the city. we have no further details than that. we do not know where this explosion is, whether it is near the karzai international airport. but we've been told intelligence sources notified the president and we have all been warned here in the news media that there is preparation and concern about any kind of a terrorist attack between now and the complete

evacuation of the u.s. military, u.s. citizens, military and afghan citizens able to get onboard. we are waiting to see what happens in these next 48 hours or so. wh the completion of the evacuation happens on tuesday, august 31st. this is very concerning. i'm joined right now by democratic congressman madeline dean of pennsylvania. so you are probably just getting word about this explosion. and again, we don't have context to offer to you. but it is precisely, i'm presuming, the exact kind of thing you feared would happen between now and when that last c-17 takes off from kabul. >> we suffered a heartbreaking loss of life. 13 service members lost, 18 more wounded. scores of afghans dead and

wounded. i condemn these terrorist acts. and i hope and pray we can continue our mission. i have to say, i'm so proud of our military. as of yesterday, i read that we have evacuated, airlifted more than 113,000 people out of afghanistan since the fall of afghanistan. that is extraordinary. 5400 of them are americans. and, of course, now we'll be watching shortly as the president needs -- meets the fallen service members. it is the president's worst and solemn duty. but i honor the president for doing what he has to do in recognizing and honoring the extraordinary sacrifice our service members make every single day in order to save lives. >> amen to that. and we do know the president is en route now on air force 1. he took off from andrews heading

for dover base and that is where the dignified transfer will happen of the 13 fallen u.s. military members. so it is a very solemn day for this president. let's talk about the concerns that you have and when you look at this withdraw overall, are there questions that you feel still need to be answered? if so, what are they? are they around intelligence? are they around military action? are they around diplomatic correspondence? the rapid pace they fell to the taliban? >> i think there are many questions. at this point, my questions are on how many more americans need to be evacuated. how many more of our allied partners need to be evacuated. can we and i've expressed this to the administration directly to the secretary of state directly to secretary of defense directly isn't there a way we

can go beyond august 31st? and continue the evacuation? and maybe it is a different kind of evacuation. in the meantime, those are my immediate questions. who else do we need to help? i'm so proud, philadelphia is the second city in the nation beginning to receive afghan refugees. but if our mission is truly what it is, get everyone out who was our partner, you know, my own office is tracking 43 people, refugees who are seeking to be evacuated. so those are my primary questions. as you reported, now we are there alone doing this. france and britain have completed their full evacuation. but that's my number one question. the second set of questions will be around the extraordinary speed with which afghanistan

collapsed. the military unable to sustain the fight and kabul falling so quickly. we regaund control of the airport. as i said, it's extraordinary. we have to think of under the daufrpg us are circumstances, 113,000 people have been airlifted. and that number continues to rise. >> we had wanted to talk to you about a number of subjects right now to include your response to lieutenant bird of the capital police as you listen to him. it was very difficult to listen to him as he talked about that first conversation he's had relative to the incident on january 6th. i know that was hard for you. he -- in your mind, he saved your life by protecting the capitol and the congress people that were gathered. >> never apologize that is hard. joy did that also. it's important that we remember what happened on january 6th and that we lift up those who did

such valiant work to keep people alive. >> indeed. >> don't ever worry that it's a bad place to take me. it's absolutely where i know this nation needs to go. to recognize that this could happen again. our democracy was under attack. so it's emotional. but we must continue the fight to make sure it never happens again. >> congressman madeline dean, i appreciate you. we again go, everyone, to the breaking news that we're hearing again from an nbc news freelance producer that there has been some sort of an explosion there in kabul. we don't know where. we do not know the context. perhaps we can get more right now from ralph sanchez who is joining us from qatar. >> what do you know? have you heard nug about this explosion? >> alex, here's what we know. it is nearly 5:30 p.m. in kabul. the sun is going down.

and our producer confirmed there has been an explosion. we're seeing smoke over the city. of course the fear is that this is the terrorist attack that president biden warned about yesterday was highly likely to come in kabul, in the next 24 to 36 hours. we don't know right now if the explosion that has been heard in kabul is an attack. i should tell our viewers, there is a myriad of possibilities here. this could be some kind of controlled explosion. either getting rid of equipment, it could be destruction of some kind of suspicious item near the airport. but, of course, the fear is this is a repeat of thursday's

attack. en that could come in many different forms. we could be facing another suicide bomber at the gates of the hotel. that is what we saw on thursday. but u.s. officials have floated other possibilities. they are concerned about the possibility of someone driving a massively laden truck full of explosives to the gates of kabul airport. there is also real worry about someone trying to shoot rockets over the airport perimeter. targeting aircraft either as they're taking off, targeting u.s. troops on the runway or just generally trying to create havoc. alex, the sun is going down in kabul. we know there has been an explosion. we know that the u.s. military was poised for an attack by isis-k, the afghan affiliate of the islamic state. the group, the u.s. military believes carried out thursday's

attack. right now, we don't have much more detail than that. alex? >> you make a very good point. i should say, we reported yesterday on the broadcast that the cia, there was some sort of an outpost. and in order to prevent any information from falling into the hands of the taliban or any other terrorist group, like isis-k, they actually detonated a charge there and destroyed anything that could have been left behind. do you know of any specific plans to do something similar to date? you said that was a possibility. was that certainly in it the works? >> alex, when we think about it, the u.s. military withdrawing from afghanistan left an enormous amount of military hardware rangi