rain fall. there's still tons of rain hammering florida and beginning to hammer the panhandle of florida. it's all associated with isaac. the track from the national hurricane center. still takes it west of new orleans by tomorrow. tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night. as a category one, then it jumps to a category two, which is troubling, which means it may intensify a little bit and that would cause a larger storm surge and winds as strong as 110 miles per hour. we will come back and tell you where it's going to go after that. there's a silver lining to that track and we'll show you how to track it along with us on an ipad. all that and more. >> sounds good. meantime, folks from the panhandle of florida to southeast louisiana are gearing up for the arrival of isaac. in fact, in the area just south of new orleans, a lot of folks are boarding up their homes. some packed up and gotten out. the state of louisiana did issue evacuation orders for some of the state's low lying

areas. >> slow moving nature of this storm means there are parts of this state that have heavier winds or rain fall for several hours. >> it worries the heck out of me. >> we went through katrina and had bad experience with that. >> okay. so the governor, louisiana, mississippi, alabama, and florida, they have declared states of emergency. wednesday marks the 7th anniversary of hurricane katrina. which devastated that exact same region. and some gulf residents are seeking refuge in florida. services are being cut off. scott broom is live as the influx continues. why would they be cut off? >> well, derek, if you are joining me live, as i drive around pensacola beach to see how people react. we are talking about turning off the water and sewer for a period of time because there's an evacuation order here.

a lot of evacwees are coming in this direction. so the town isn't emptying out, it's filling up. many people here in pensacola beach are betting isaac will be only a glancing blow. >> more of a vacation than evacuation. >> evacuees in mississippi are coming here to pensacola, thinking conditions will be better. today they learned the local water and sewer activity plans to cut off service at 10:00 p.m. >> that gets residents upset because they like to live here and don't plan on evacuating on a tropical storm. >> elsewhere, pensacola beaches newest landmark pack stripped of its glass gondolas. rough surf warnings are up. >> we expect the surf to get bigger. that's going to be the primary concern is keeping everybody safe. >> swimmers have been the biggest public safety concern as isaac prepares to visit florida's emerald coast.

>> back live now. you're looking at the dash board camera of our mobile newsroom. you can see that there is some traffic here in pensacola beach despite a local evacuation order. people here are expecting tropical storm force winds rather than hurricane forced winds because they do believe -- >> we lost scott and his mobile newsroom there. that is the downside of any technology, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. however, scott is going to keep us up to date on exactly what is happening with isaac. you can do the same thing. follow the track on our website, wusa9.com. >> day one of the republican national convention went off in tampa, florida, but the opening session was short. they are worried about isaac. days ago, organizers were so scared the storm might head straight for tampa, so they cut back on today's opening activities. but now, since isaac moved further west, organizers are not ruling out extending their convention into friday.

>> they are going to track the progress of the storm and will make determinations as necessary. >> during today's recession, the rnc unveiled the debt clock throughout the week's convention that the gop calls unchecked spending. as the gulf coast bats don't hatches and the republican party prepares to nominate mitt romney as their candidate, the new poll numbers are out and all summer long, the race between -- obama is neck and neck. an abc news poll shows governor romney has a 47% of the voters. president obama has 46% within the margin of error. joining me now to talk more about the race for the white house, congress member, s chri van holen. we were joined by maryland governor, bob ehrlich.

governor ehrlich says the fact that these numbers are so close is great for this man because he's the challenger and the incumbent has an advantage. what do you say? >> we have expecting a close race all along. the country has been divided in many ways politically. the purpose of this election, of course, is to present the choice going forward and i think there's going to be a very clear choice here. you mentioned the debt clock there, derek, remember, that when the president was sworn in, he was already facing huge deficits. the issue is not whether we need to address the deficit, how we address the deficit. >> that post abc poll highlights the fact that 3/4 of americans believe the economy is the deciding factor in this election. and they also gave governor romney an edge in handling that economy. does that give you cause? >> not really for this reason. we are continuing to go through a very difficult time. the american people are fair. they recognize that when the president was sworn in, we were

losing 800,000 jobs every month. we had 29 months of positive private sector jobs. the question is, how do we nurture the fragile economy? the president has a plan. they put it before the republican congress. not a vote, if you listen to romney and ryan, what are they saying they are going do? it's a rerun to the bush administration policies and we know how that ended up. >> let's talk about poll numbers. you could argue that a great number of americans, perhaps a majority have figured they are ready to fire president obama. they aren't ready to hire mitt romney. how do you see that playing out and could he convince voters during this convention that his plan is what they need to be looking at? >> i don't think so. if you look at their plan and i encourage everybody to do it, it's nothing more than a failed, trickled down economics that we tried in the bush administration. what happened at the end of the eight years? people were losing their jobs.

the only thing that went up was the deficit. now, the president helped stop the free fall, turn the corner. 29 sector job growth, obviously we need to do better. why is it a solution to do better by going back to the same policies that messed up the economy? >> are you concerned that your base, the thing that made it a cake walk for the president isn't going to turn out this time around because the enthusiasm and excitement is not the same? >> i think people are excited about this election. they recognize the clear choice that is before them. they recognize dealing with the deficit, if you see what romney says, ask the wealthy to pay one more penny, you hit everybody else hard. if you have a deficit and you want to solve it, then you won't ask the wealthy to put in one penny. you are going to hit seniors on medicare. you will raise taxes and cut our kids education. that's what their budget does. i want to invite everybody to take a look at both proposals.

the president's budget proposal and romney, ryan proposal. this should be an election about issues. >> so far, it's been a negative election. >> focus on the facts and the issues. that's what it should be about. >> moving on to police. they say a teenager shot on the first day of school in maryland turned out to be a random target. it happened at perry hall high northeast of baltimore. witnesses tell cbs students in the cafeteria were making fun of another student who then pulled out a gun. and police say several administrators saw the weapon. they rushed to shoot, but managed to get off a couple shots and one hit a 17-year-old who is now in the hospital in critical condition. police believe that shooter fired at random and acted alone. traffic cameras that could have commuters worked up. we'll explain what is likely. but first, a woman taken for the ride of her life when her suv accelerates out of control. how she ended up at over 100 miles an hour.

and how she escaped. that's coming up next.

man, this is really, really scary. this lady out in iowa, the accelerator got stuck and the vehicle went out of control going faster and faster and cannot slow it down. >> i thought i was going to die. i didn't have any doubt. i really thought i was going to die. and no matter what i did, i couldn't slow it down. >> as you can see, lauri did not die, but she was zooming 120 miles an hour on the highway. frightened, she dialed 911. state troopers managed to pull in front of her and get her out of traffic. after terrifying 30 minutes, she was finally able to stop. it's a 2011 kia. technicians are trying to figure out what happened, but

they think it was an isolated incident. and speaking of speed, tomorrow, a group of d.c. lawmakers will determine if the fines should be lowered. wtop that she wants to know if recent increases caused people to slow down. the public can weigh in tomorrow as well. the hearing gets going tomorrow. >> a wonderful day to kick off the week. you have to think this can't last. topper will tell us if it will affect us. hundreds and thousands of kids headed back to school today and for students atone d.c. school, that means learning spanish and chinese. we're talking trilingual. that's up next.

oh man, for hundreds and thousands of kids big and small, it was back to waking up early and heading to school. today marked the first day of classes for charles, allegheny, and frederick and loudoun counties. it was a record setting day. maryland's largest school system kicked off the year with the largest enrollment. that's more than 149,000 kids. >> d.c. public school students were also back in school today and that includes those attending the city's 57 public charter schools. and as bruce johnson tells us, these new international charter schools, i should say new

international charter school has parents willing to wait in line to get their kids in. >> it is easily the most diverse public school in the district. >> i thought this one would be ideal because of the class size. >> i wanted to be part of starting something new, something unique. >> it's the first to offer an international curriculum at the grade school level for children attending a city public school. >> are you excited about being in school? >> yes. >> not that excited. >> it's the creative minds international school in nor west. founded by parents, professionals and educators looking for the kind of choices that would cost thousands of tuition dollars in private schools. >> one size fits off education model. i don't believe works for every child. >> 15 students and two teachers to every classroom. >> we have an administrative

level. this year, i'm the executive director and the principal at the same time. that's how we channel the funding into the classroom. >> right now, the school offers prek through second grade. this movement, arts, music, and languages. >> all kids are getting chinese and spanish. >> the big thing, he will be exposed to people speaking other languages and exposure there are other languages. >> there's a waiting list at the international charter school. they have 105 students. they had 550 applications for those slots. >> most of our budget is based on public funding. i believe you can do it. >> the founder sends her own children here, same for two of the board members, extended classes after school can run until 5:30. just like the private schools. bruce johnson, 9news now. >> i'm like that one kid, i'm not that excited. >> the creative minds international school will serve preschool through the 5th

grade. the charter school will have capacity for 240 students. >> not that excited. normal. >> yeah. back to school, you know, it's a mixed less son. you wouldn't want to not be able to go. >> but that first day is so early. >> you have to come out here for it. >> we showed you before, we had irene go through. if you have an ipad or iphone, hit the information button and just go down the tropical tracks and turn on tropical tracks, hit done, and there you go. now you can see the exact track of the national hurricane center. it's what we show you on the air and you can zoom in, you can zoom out, you can get radar, it's cool stuff. >> when it goes from yellow to red, is that when it becomes a hurricane? >> it's a tropical storm and becomes extra tropical or tropical depression. i'll show you that same track. let's go to the graphics. does this look familiar? a little fancier. right now the storm is going to

go west of new orleans and that, you know, what the national hurricane center thinks right now. making land fall or getting close to land fall tomorrow evening is a category 1. they kick it up to a category 2 as it goes to the south of new orleans. so that is the case, that could mean winds up to 110 miles per hour. still, just strengthening as it hits land. the silver lining is where it goes after that. it goes into the midwest. this is fantastic. they have not had a good soaking rain in over a year. this may save some of the crops before the first frost. that's good news, a little silver lining. the scale, category 1, 75 to 95. remember. the winds are 70 miles per hour. so it's a high-end tropical storm. category 2, 96 to 110 miles per hour. doesn't mean it's going to be a high-end, but winds could exceed 100 miles per hour.

that's troubling. right now, looking live outside at the live weather cam. 86. dew point 67. it's on the border of being humid. winds out of the south and the pressure is falling at 29.98 inches of mercury. satellite picture, we'll show you isaac. much better circulation, still doesn't have an eye, but a better circulation. you can see all the rain. it's pouring still in florida panhandle and they have big bands of showers and storms. really indirectly related to isaac. even on the east coast of florida. so again, tomorrow night, probably when we'll see land fall. we also have a cold front for us. that's what is going to be in our immediate forecast. that rolls through tomorrow. showers and storms right now through kentucky. we run the risk of a shower or storm with this particular system, but it's not power packed and we are fine tonight, a couple showers could get into the mountains. a couple showers could get in here after midnight. 83 in bethesda. 85 in great falls.

83 also in vienna. 83 in fairfax. 88 in college park. and 81 over in bowie. so the next three days, we're going to keep it code green. 89 tomorrow. isolated storm. fantastic. i mean, fantastic on wednesday. in the wake of the front, low humidity. comfortably warm. 85. nice for the last preseason game. 91, hotter on thursday, but not crazy humid. next seven days, well it gets hotter. it gets into the mid 90s on friday and then this is interesting, derek. you might not think it's interesting. we have showers and thunderstorms on saturday, sunday, and labor day and what is that from? hurricane isaac, perhaps. that would be isaac remnants. we'll get some rain showers. >> i don't find that interesting. labor day weekend is going to be cloudy and rainy. >> uh-huh. >> we'll be back.

in the mail bag tonight, disappointment and some hollywood maryland didn't like the way we handled that story of the presidential candidate, mitt romney's, birth certificate joke in michigan. he did not use president obama's name. he joked about something that had been a headache for obama. hardly below the belt. your reporting needs to be unfair and unbias. do you think it was framed was honest? i do not. i get it, but all we reported that romney made the joke and the democrats are making political hay about it. whether or not it was appropriate was left up to you. my comments regarding lance armstrong. the exbike racer, i said it semid likely from the circumstantial evidence that lance had used performance enhancing drugs. michelle is one of many who find that unfair at best. i think these armstrong doping allegations are just a sour grape effort by jealous teammates to get even because

they lost. i can't take this scandal seriously and i suspect the motives of the u.s. ada when the cycling union appears to give armstrong the benefit of the doubt. wow, we always give you the benefit of the doubt. just drop us a line. the address is mailbag@wusa9.com. that is our broadcast. we'll be right back to tell you more tonight at 11:00. we'll see you then. bye bye. president clinton: this election to me is about which... candidate is more likely to return us to full employment. this is a clear choice. the republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper-income... people and go back to deregulation. that's what got us in trouble in the first place. president obama has a plan to rebuild america from... the ground up, investing in innovation, education... and job training. it only works if there is a strong middle class. that's what happened when i was president. we need to keep going with his plan. president obama: i'm barack obama and... i approve this message.

now, "entertainment tonight," the worldwide leader in entertainment news. >> has prince harry's royal reputation been damaged? is the queen banning him from appearing in public with william and kate? new fallout from the scandal. was he just dumped by his girlfriend? who sold the photos? >> i wonder about people who do that to other people. >> plus, harry sends out a video message. >> unique passion, drama and emotion. >> as reports surface that more naked photos could be released. rihanna on a date with rob kardashian? the new shots of their night out, at the same club as her ex, chris brown. then, pam anderson at 45. bristol palin's new face. but why was kirstie alley is a no-show? the all-stars and their moves. plus, where we caught derek hough drinking beer in a ja sioux can i. michelle obama and ann