let's check in on the mississippi shore line, there's a lot of it, weather channel meteorologist eric fisher is in gulfport. hey, eric. >> reporter: good evening, brian. we're talking about storm surge tonight in gulfport, mississippi, it was just seven years ago on this night that some of the worst impacts from carekatrina were just rolling ashore. the story here, when you look out into the gulf, it's so shallow here, you can walk out hundreds of yards on a normal day. not the case tonight. when the water is pushed up, it's so easy to get into the living areas that so many people call home here around gulfport. this is low tide. high tide comes around 7:00 tomorrow morning. we're going to add 12 feet on to that high tide. storm surge so deadly, it kills many more people than wind. the wind grabs the headlines, and the low lying areas. there are mandatory evacuations for those low lying areas, we'll be talking about the governor of mississippi riding out the storm keeping a close eye on the situation. brian? >> eric fisher rounding out our coverage, thanks. a reminder to everybody, the weath

the water channel meteorologist eric fisher joins us live from fort meyers beach along the western gulfast of florida. you're really missing the brunt of isaac today. looks like the weather is decent, but windy. >> windy for sure. that's going to stick around. thomas, you're right. the worse case accident near yo not realized in south florida. always got to put the worse out there. when it comes down, a couple days of your life, you prepare, if the worst happens you're ready for it. if it doesn't you breathe a sigh of relief which is what a lot of folks are doing around southwest florida. we had mand foreevacuations -- mandatory evacuations that were lifted last night. the shelters closed up at 11:00 this morning. didn't have to close a lot of the major thoroughways. one thing we will watch for is the surf which is higher than it was yesterday. looks more like the atlantic side of florida than the gulf side. this is going to stay up the next several days. some persistent onshore flow wind means high rip current threat and, of course, the low lying prone areas, there are a lot around flo

in other areas the weather channel's eric fisher says rain and winds took their toll. here several tornadoes were the main threat and one touched down on top of this home. the house, itself, is a total loss. the family had just evacuated. they had come back during the night and woke up to the tornado on the home but, fortunately, all walked out alive. back in louisiana about half the state is still without power including much of new orleans and some 4,000 people are in shelters. early estimates suggest isaac could cost the region as much as $2.5 billion, brian. >> gabe gutierrez after a long day for the folks in slidell. thanks. on over to weather channel meteorologist jim cantore in new orleans. we're coming up tomorrow to see for ourselves but please tell me this gets better soon for these folks. >> reporter: it does in new orleans but not for others. check this out. 48 hours after landfall it is still in louisiana. a marathoner could run faster than this thing has moved but the rain bands still extending well over 500 miles affecting many states. arkansas on friday

thanks eric fisher. >>> ahead here on msnbc, the bronze medal match in men's tennis. that is coming up right after the show ends at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. and of course the networks of nbc universal are the exclusive home of the london olympics. for a complete schedule of the events and to watch the games live online go to nbcolympics.com. >>> now it is time for some other news. sources say thats man accused of shooting former congresswoman gabriel giffords and 18 others wants to plead guilty. jared lee loughner will have a chance to enter that plea in court on tuesday. nbc news correspondent diana alvear was in tucson the day of the shooting reporting on it. good morning to you. let's go right to what's going to happen on tuesday when loughner is in court. >> alex, good morning. the federal judge handling the case has scheduled a status hearing for this coming tuesday to get an update from prison doctors that are treating jared loughner. he's been undergoing treatment in a bureau of prisons hospital since shortly after that shooting. well loughner now wants to plead

is the storm going to hit, joining us on the phone from atlanta, eric fisher, from weather channel, eric the likely path right now? >> well, things are coming into better agreements, usually, when you look five, six days out there's a long possibility where storms track. we've seen a change. a lot further west it's come east. so right now, it looks like the most likely track takes it south to hispaniola, haiti, the dominican republic. crosses cuba, into the keys and passes gulf of mexico just west of the florida coastline which will bring a lot of heavy winds and strong rains to florida and potential the gulf coast. >> but it may miss, you say, miss the mainland of florida which would be the concerns with regard to the orange crops? >> well, there's a give and take with that. the circulation may pass off to lands but isaac is a huge storm. just across the entire circulation is about a thousand miles which is about the distance from atlanta to boston. so when you talk about the impacts, a lat of the time, it's not the wind that creates a major issue but it's the flooding rain. and that's

eric fisher from the weather channel joins us live from ft. myers beach, florida. have gone this way, too, for the viewing audience. >> we're doing our north-northwest. >> eric, there were some swells all weekend long down in the south, huge swells. i see some behind you, too. >> we've seen the waves come up yesterday, we had the offshore wind all day long, flat gulf of mexico but certainly not the case this morning. florida dodging the worst case scenario. squally weather through the day, chance for isolated tornadoes, gusting winds over 50 miles an hour and tens of thousands of people without power this morning so certainly not unscathed but not taking an eastern gulf of mexico track so the worst off toward the east and we'll be tracking that toward new orleans, gulfport, mississippi, into biloxi and of course as you get more toward the louisiana/mississippi coastline that's where more of the oil platforms are, you talk about more disruption for them compared to three or four days ago with a more eastern gulf track. we'll be watching the storm slowly moving up to

you've got people like eric rosengren in boston and charlie fisher or charlie evans here in chicago whichvish and they really want a lot more quantitative easing. you've got people like minneapolis and fisher in dallas who are the opposite end of that spectrum and the fed has never seen this wide of a divergence -- >> if mr. bernanke really wanted to come up with qe-3, 4, we know he could do it. but what do you think would be the side bar to that if he did? >> i think he could do it tomorrow if he wanted to. he could get a majority opinion. what he doesn't want is four, five, or maybe six fed presidents immediately run to you or to microphones and say this is a mistake. we shouldn't have done it. because it undermines the policy. i think that's what's holding them back. a strong, vocal minority of people that are dead-set against it. >> there's discussion going on these days that many of us were having awhile ago but now it's grown to big numbers. and that discussion is, from the fed's vantage point of these programs, is it synonymous to look at effects on the economy and effects on thing

erik fisher joins us from the weather channel. ericwelcome from wherever you are in the country right now. >> atlanta, georgia, becky. thank you very much. take a look at the forecast there outside of your studios in new york. got a storm on the west side of town. if you're getting into manhattan, about to see heavy rain. metro north from fairfield county in connecticut, have to deal with potential isolated flooding. not a lot going on on the east coast. coastal maryland, coastal delaware, starting off with rain. storms to the outer banks, down toward panama city in florida. for the beachgoers, that's where we have the impact this morning. this afternoon could see bigger storms at i-95 corridor, big es severe threat along the outer banks. looks like major airports could be slowed down, on could be talking about significant delays. minneapolis. also the big story is the heat. denver, st. louis, indianapolis have now officially clocked their hottest julys on record. the big heat, all-time record highs. central southern plains, 112 at okl

fisher joining me now exclusively. thank you for the time. i know you argued against stimulus, did the boston fed president change your mind there? >> well, eric and i have different views, but that's part of the process. you just talked in your last panel about uncertainty and what index indicates and the release of the national federation of independent businesses and what ceos and others were talking about. i don't think any amount of stimulus will deal with this uncertainty and inabout of companies to budget and plan. if you can't budget you can't spend and if you can't spend you can't hire. we put a lot out there. it has not been used. we have a huge build up in reserves, and my question with my colleague social security what good would it do to put more out there because what we have out there does not have much effect in term was of employment. >> it feels like the fed keeping bails out the white house and the white house is giving a free pass to not deal with the fiscal cliff, the same with congress, do you think the federal reserve, if you do opt to do more stimulus, that it looks political? >> i worry about that, but we are studiousl