with dozens more still stranded in the plaquemines parish. officials say new orleans' flood protection system is holding up but the army corps of engineers will be on high alert for the next 12 to 24 hours. many people are still having flashbacks of katrina. we'll go live to new orleans. he has been covering it sense the latest and will bring us up to date. >> reporter: good evening. isaac has been downgraded from a category one hurricane to a tropical storm but people already note damage this storm has caused. there was no relief today for residents of the gulf coast.

isaac is moving slowly pounding the region. in louisiana nearly 24 hours of unrelenting rain and strong storm surges. >> this storm is a slow moving storm. we'll be dealing with the storm through early friday morning. >> reporter: in plaquemines parish where isaac first made landfall, a devastating path of destruction. >> it's horrible. the water is almost over my head. >> reporter: 12-foot high waves over the top of the levees causing severe flooding. downed power lines left thousands in the dark. >> we had to break through the ceiling and come through the attic and they took us out of the attic into the boat. >> reporter: in mississippi wind gusts up to 80 miles an hour with a tornado watch in effect for parts of the state, roads

and bridges have been closed. >> reporter: the city of new orleans is soaked. >> when the power goes out, it's always a pain. we lucked out and had a generator. >> reporter: officials say the levee is working fine.. >> obviously, some difficulty with that. wyatt, you have more. >> this ultimately will be nonfor the flooding it produces. this part of the louisiana coast is very susceptible to storm surge. all the nooks, extremely low lying land at or below sea level. so that's why they're having to pump out what is a six to

18-inch rain total. winds to 70. that's almost still category one hurricane. again, look at the big picture, large powerful storms still causing of a vk and power outage and e -- havoc and power outages. we'll have more coming up. enjoy it. back to you. searchers were searching the river trying to find the body of a fisherman. sherman wall jumpedn trying to rescue two women who were struggling yesterday. roosevelt leftwich has more. >> reporter: the police and county search teams were still searching for signs of sherman walden. walden and two companions went out about four.

the two women started drifting away from the boat and were in trouble. walden went in to save them. another boater managed to pull them out but walden was missed. search crews searched for hours. family members said walden was an expert swimmer and -- expert boater and strong swimmer. >> they counted their blessings yesterday. >> reporter: garcia said walden was a stickler for safety, carried a half dozen life jackets and was always careful. roosevelt leftwich, abc2 news. now to an update to a story that was covered last month. we showed you a jetty considered dangerous boy local boaters

because you can't see it at night. following david wit low's death, his friends made it their -- >> reporter: the south jetty is a huge concrete wall. it's easy to see in the day. in the dark of night this fades into the water. some believe it needs light. an investigation turned up several accidents at the jetty, including one that killed david whitt low and injured two of his friends badly. our investigation discovered ownership of the jetty is unclear. at least one local leader doesn't want to argue. he just wants a solution. queen anne's commissioner said he is looking into securing a waterway improvement grant from

the department of natural resources. he contacted the coast guard and other agencies. the letter said the coast guard has clearly marked safe wart within the narrows and that the owner of the jetty decides to mark the break water, they would gladly assist. joce sterman, abc2 fumes investigators. >> all right. thank has lot. now to our continuing coverage of the perry hall high school shooting. a bail review was postponed for the teenager accused of shooting a classmate on monday. the hearing for 15-year-old robert gladden was postponed because he is still at a state hospital where he is being evaluated. in the meantime there is a huge effort to get thehooting victim help from lady gaga. those who know daniel said he is a major fan of hers.

they have even take ton twitter to get lady gaga to visit. >> the number one trending story in baltimore -- this is a worldwide easted. his classmates are working to get the star to visit him. they are trying to make a video to get lady gaga to come to perry hall. daniel's classmates believe a visit from ga ga would really list his spirits. >> daniel -- we're trying to get lady gaga to go to the hospital to see him. that would be cool. >> that would be cool. students have started this facebook page called lady gaga

please visit daniel. it says daniel loves lady gaga. he keep as suitcase packed so he clan go to california and marry her. it would mean so much for her to vest. they have 13,444 likes. lady gaga is over in finland, sweden and russia until the end of december. there is an update on daniel real quick. they just said he sat up in bed and is doing much, much better, but still in shock trauma. >> all of our thoughts and prayers. tomorrow university of virginia la crosse player george huguely will be sentenced. he beat his girlfriend yeardley love to death in 2010. love is from cockeysville.

in february a jury recommended that he get 26 years in press son. in democracy 2012, tonight will be a big night at the republican national convention. the man hoping to be the country's next vice-president, paul ryan will address the crowd. mitt romney's wife ann talked up the ticket. >> paul brings intelligence, energy, extraordinary knowledge and probably knows it inside and out better than anyone in this country. so we are honored to have him by our side and we'll be thrilled when they take office and start really getng this country back on track. >> mitt romney left tampa today. he's giving a speech in indianapolis. we'll have much more on the gop convention at 5:45. tropical storm isaac is pounding the gulf coast right

now. how the storm is impacting new orleans on this seventh anniversary of hurricane katrina. he was a beloved baltimore business man killed in a bic -- bicycle accident. >> and a fire in harford county uncovers dozens of dead animals. what neighbors said was going on inside the house when we come back.

new video out of louisiana. a 70-year-old man is back on solid ground after he was rescued from a rooftop. isaac dumped heavy rain on the state causing flooding. more than 750,000 people are without power throughout louisiana, mississippi, texas and alabama. right in our own backyard, the american red cross of

central maryland is pitching. in. local volunteers are joining the 2700 people deployed to a lap and -- louisiana and florida. >> for the people that are impacted, it's serious. there's no question whether it's widespread or local. to those people who have lost their homes or asked to evacuate, the service is as important as life and death to many people. >> volunteers will also do damage assessments, deliver food and water. at this hour hurricane isaac is now a tropical storm. it's packing a punch on this seventh anniversary of katrina. officials are trying to decide whether to bust a hole in a levee that's spilling water. some of the pictures i saw earlier today just amazing for a

lot of folks, frightening, scary. >> reporter: absolutely. i think the video you're talking about is in plaquemines parish. it's important to that that particular part of the cities with not protected by the $14 billion that was given to reinvigorate the levee system. the parish owns that particular levee. even though there are federal dollars that were allocated, construction has not happened. you're seeing a lot of the flooding, a lot of the rescues in plaquemines parish. here in new orleans state officials are very excited because the levees are holding up. the onings are ripped. mike if you want to swing around and show trees down over here. this one isn't as bad. in the neighborhood we're hearing about huge oak trees

uprooted and falling on top of three or four houses at a time. you wouldn't think that fire and wart would mex but we're learning that a fire that happened is an electrical fire. they had to bust through a window to put that out. in the meantime, again, isaac is hovering over us right now. we're seeing a little bit of rain, much stronger earlier in the day. the winds are still very, very strong as you saw here, the mississippi river looking more like the atlantic ocean. we're expecting conditions just like this over the next several hours into tonight and probably into tomorrow morning. then we'll be able to get out of this and kind of go into the outlying areas and see what kind of damage isaac can produce. we've been stuck in our hotel room and we're hearing about a curfew to keep the reporters inside. we'll get more information about that. in the meantime terrible

conditions as we're experiencing this hail of hurricane isaac. >> looking at some of the earlier reports, some of the rescues, evacuations had to be suspended because the weather is so bad, isn't that correct? >> reporter: that's absolutely right. the coast guard had to get out to many of the people in plaquemines parish and it was too much. the winds were too much. that's something important to remember. in katrina we remember the images of people stuck on the rooftop. hurricane katrina had passed by. this one is still hovering in the area. people are stuck in their roofs, trying to be rescued. that's some of the reasons some people are saying this is much worse than hurricane katrina for that particular area, especially when it comes to the rescue. >> stay safe. >> thank you.

appreciate it. you have to think, this is still a large hurricane hitting a highly populated, in fact a metro hear in new orleans. so this will always be very serious, always the significance for flooding, large storm structures, even a center circulation. it's a strong as tropical storm as you will get. tropical storms, you think back to isabelle, tropical storms can produce incredible flooding. flooding is the biggest damaging effect out of these systems, so new orleans in the center. as we take a look at the statistics, 70-mile-an-hour winds. once you go one, two stories up, you can add 20 to 30 miles an hour. so this is still a very serious weather situation for the gulf coast, in particular, for southeastern new orleans. this is such a slow moving system producing incredible rain

totals, in excess of a foo. today alone receiving more than seven and a half inches in new orleans itself. that's on top of the tremendous rain yesterday. let's talk about where isaac is headed next. yes. it will continue to slowly crawl through louisiana producing more flooding. as we look beyond that, we look for essentially a move to the north and some of the rains off of isaac likely to eventually impact not just the midwest here. there could be flooding illinois south and showers as the system disperses. models all curving now. this will mean eventually into monday and tuesday, scattered showers for maryland. again, has you look at new orleans right now seven and a half inches of rain have fallen and we have very few cameras operating on the gulf coast, lost of power widespread. look at the heavy rain coming in

to southern alabama. this is the alabama gulf coast. orange beach not too far away. this is not even the heart of the storm but you get an idea how wild the weather s8 csh-- is. 85 now mat bwi. as bad as it's been in parts of the united states, it's been as good as it gets. the sunshine's out. the dew point is low. the humidity is dry. all that humidity is south of us in virginia. you see the widespread spiraling rains reaching into south carolina nea. watch as we go forward in time a slow moving system. the heavy rains will be slow to leave louisiana. oklahoma and arkansas would be happy to get the rain. they've had record drought. that moisture will drift into the upper midwest and into the mid-atlantic for monday and tuesday in particular.

all right. tonight, 60, low humidity. gorgeous weather. 86 tomorrow, still dry, still pleasant. we still won't have the humidity. on friday it will get hotter, 92. 90 saturday. saturday you could see cloud cover and sunday a day where we could see some showers plate in the evening. best chances of rain labor day monday into the day on tuesday. wednesday looks like we'll begin to see dry weather returning, so, again, it's one of those scenarios where we have a changing seven-day forecast and it all depends on the movement of what's left of isaac, so again, keep an eye on the forecast here at abc2. we'll continue to update it. dried out saturday. most of sunday would be dry. >> okay. we'll keep an eye on this. coming up, topics like college students, living at

home, caring for aging parents, these are the kind of topics you'll hear on the katy show. we are the station for katy's new show. you can catch katy starting september 10th at 4:00 every weekday. we'll have more as we get ready for her big debut in baltimore. we'll check out some of the stories that katy is working on right now at abc2news.com/katie. >> losing weight for women after menopause can be an uphill battle. there may be a key and, men, listen up. if you love chocolate, why eating chocolate may lower a man's risk of stroke.

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in tonight's health alert, it's a fact that women have a harder time losing weight after menopause, but new research may help make it easier. post-menopausal see a decrease in their metabolic rate and cutting calories doesn't seem to cut the pounds. instead, cutting down on desserts and sugary foods leads to a longer term weight loss. a new study sug sessions aspirin could lower the risk of dying from rock profnlgt those who took aspirin after receiving treatment for prostate cancer had a higher survival rate. the study can be found in this month's journal of clinical oncology. we have good news.

turns out chocolate can help lower the risk of stroke in men. men who eat a moderate amount of chocolate every week are less likely to have a stroke. doctors say the antioxidants in chocolate are the most important ingredient. >> in general chocolate is a very good source of flavonoids, which help protect the lining of the arteries, less likely to build plaque. >> in order to get it from chocolate doctors recommend dark chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 78. for your health news log on and you'll find the health news from today and other information to make sure you get all the health news you need. coming up, a fire exload -- exploded and what neighbors saw.

>> baltimore says good-bye to the mayor of canton. how people remembered the baltimore business man. >> what time of the day do you buy gas? it may affect the prices at the pump. we'll be right back. ♪ i dare you to dare me what's today's dare? erase the damage of 100 blow-drys [ female announcer ] with daily moisture renewal from pantene. the pro-v system nourishes to lock in moisture erasing the damage of 100 blow drys for a silky, soft touch. think only salon brands can do that? i took the dare...will you?

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