the out lying, lower-lying areas, laffit, slidell, manderville, north of lake ponchartrain and braithwaiteas hit especially hardment you can see the video, our photographer, producer went out, by boat, yesterday, in braithwaite which is in placquemines parish, by the way, and you could see you all of the water, suggest 17 feet of water, inundated that community. water levels all the way up to second-story windows. and overtopping situation of a levee there. now, one of the -- not one of the federally built levees, but an earthen, community-built levee and when the storm was hitting, water spilling over, inundating the town with water and listen to what one man had to say, who gave us a ride on one of the boats yesterday. listen: >> they had storm winds, 80 miles an hour, so, there was really no rest to try and get down here and rescue people. >> reporter: now, a lot of the water has gone down there in the community of braithwaite because what they did is intentionally breached a part of the leavee there and punched holes in it, think of a cereal bowl holding water and they punch the holes

in the town of braithwaite. flood waters were to people's second story windows.rews have been working to intentionally breach the levee there cutting big holes in it to drain the water out of the town much faster. >> we are making a lot of progress. we have a lot of work to do still. but the plan we have is working and has been working for the last three days. >> reporter: meantime, president obama will make a stop in the region on monday, labor day, to meet with some local officials and all see some of the damage firsthand. homeland security secretary janet napolitano spent part of her sunday also touring the region. first, up in mississippi and then down with officials in slidell, louisiana. that is the latest from new orleans, casey steigel, fox news. >>> a self-proclimbed messiah -- a self-proclaimed messiah has dried. sun mung moon was powerful voice in the movement. >>> hal davis has died. he teamed up with burt bacharach for dozens of famous songs. he is responsible for a long list of hits that included raindrops keep falling on my head, close to you and t

specifically in the braithwaite community across the river from where we are now we're talking about storm surge that came anywhere from 7 to 15 feet of water that went into this community, that overtopped one of these levees. right now we're on one of the levees, not high enough to deal with the storm surge from this particular situation. right now we know those floodwaters, randi, they are receding. there were several controlled breaches of the different levees, so we're starting to see the waters recede. i also note today this entire parish, we're talking about, again, the slivers of land that rundown the mouth of the mississippi, no one has power in the parish, randi. >> we know about the flooding, certainly. with katrina it was the wind. with this storm it was the flooding. what other kinds of problems are people facing there? >> well, you know, these officials have talked to me about what they are dealing with sort of in the middle of this parish rounding up cattle. there are cows that are out. there are also dead kouchls the dead cows, randi, they are attracting alligators. th

a community built levee, not a federal one, but it overtopped in the town of braithwaite. it send floodwaters up to second story windows, so to alleviate the problem crews have intentionally breached the levee cutting bholes in it to get the water out of the town much faster. >> we're making a lot of progress and have a lot of work to do still, but the plan we have is working and has been working the last three days of. >> reporter: meantime president obama will make a stop in the region monday, labor day, to meet with local officials and also see some of the damage firsthand. homeland security secretary janet napolitano spent part of her sun also touring the region -- sunday also touring the region first in mississippi and then down with officials in slidell, louisiana. that is the latest from new orleans, casey steigel, fox news. >>> we are getting some new video from the district tonight of how bad the flooding was out there. this is the scene along rhode island avenue in northwest earlier tonight where someone had to be rescued from their car. as you can see, cars in t

an eerie sight in braithwaite, uprooted tombs lining the area. a horrible scene, leaving folks lucky to be alive. >> that tree right there fell right behind my r.v. and i was in it. that tree right there would have killed me. >> reporter: we hitched a ride through jean lafitte, louisiana. people here swamped by water and emotion. >> it's horrible to see anything you worked for just gone. >> reporter: and on the east side of the mississippi, plaquemines parish is littered with debris, displaced boats and displaced people. >> i lost my home in oakdale. we rebuilt here. that's strike two. waiting on strike three. >> reporter: officials at one gulf coast power company says isaac is the fourth-largest storm in terms of power outages, ever. the number overnight, still over 400,000. and although hundreds of thousands will spend the weekend in the dark, some are choosing to see the light. >> it's not going to run me off. i love it here. me and i'm sure hundreds and thousands of people feel the same way. >> the mississippi river, right behind me, opened t

floods in all of those years flooded for the first time, many, many subdivisions as well as the braithwaitet's been nationally televised and some areas of st. taminy parish in slidell. there's significant devastation. new orleans and jefferson parish, the metro area, is really experiencing an issue of power. >> yeah. intergy is getting a bit of grief right now for not having power restored. >> sure. and this is one of the challenges that we were facing as a family in terms of trying to get grandparents evacuated and folks in other areas evacuated because every single storm is different. and so people who said oh, we did fine in katrina. sometimes didn't want to leave in this case. >> that's right. and so they found themselves in harm's way, but the good thing is that there were emergency personnel that were ready. the national guard and other fire department and police folks, i mean, and just average citizens put their own lives at risk to go rescue folks. most people are out of harm's way, but there's great devastation. and thank goodness that president obama signed the emergency declarati