judy: the president of lafourche parish, we wish you the very best. glad there was not the casualties were not worse, but you haveour work cut out. thank you for joining us and all the best. mr. chaisson: thank you so much. judy: congressman troy carter represents louisiana's second district, which include some of the areas hardest hit by hurricane ida including portions of jefferson parish and most of new orleans. he joins us now on the phone. congressman, we heard the parish president of lafourche parish say it sounds like they have been hit by a mack truck. what is your impression? mr. carter: i think i would double down on that. he's probably quite right. throughout the state, it has been pretty hard hit. some places not as hards others. some have incredibly been devastated. judy: what are you seeing? i know your district, it is the second district. how are people doing? what is the situation there? mr. carter: it is dire. you have people that are -- some have been significantly damaged with property damage to their homes and their businesses. nea

first of all, tell us how padly was lafourche parish hit? got hit by a mac truck over the last 16 hours. it was ever bit the strong category 4 they told us it would be. two-thirds of our parish, and the top third has probably some moderate damage to homes and businesses. two of our local hospitals, both of those facilities are comprised, and we're working on getting patients out of there. our water system to the bottom third of our parish is compromised, and we will try to figure out why that system is leaking, whether we lost a water tower somewhere alone the way or we have a mainline breach somewhere. it is picking up the pieces. communications are tough. most of the cell phone towers were hard hit. so trying to communicate on radios, dispatch with our sheriff's office is a little difficult at the moment. >> woodruff: it sounds like just about everything was affected. what about peple? injuries? >> so luckily no reported fatalities. we had some minor injuries we were able to deal with with our first responders. there are still some search-

the last thing i want to say is the very first rescues occurred at a hospital in lafourche parish. by the u.s. coast guard. they were able to fly before any other assets could. they were able to move about seven patients from a hospital down there, you probably saw the hospital that had the roof completely taken off yesterday. your coast guard rescued and relocated those patients first thing this morning and we are appreciative of that. pres. biden: thank you. we worked really hard with you to get the search and rescue teams in place, but you say they have been able to respond? >> yes sir. i can't tell you they are everywhere we want them but they started responding first thing this morning. those teams do not include the national guard or the officers here. i've got all my -- national guardsmen activated. we are going to end up with about 5000 more through the vac requests. one of the reasons this is important is we forgot 2400 soldiers and our combat team, they are deploying to the middle east. we are going to have requests as early as tomorrow. we're going to have additional sol

lafourche is one of nearly ten parishs to call for evacuations. i'm joined by the parish president archie chassen. tell us how you're preparing. you have shelters, i know. i watched one of your videos that you posted on facebook yesterday really telling people what to do. you guys have two shelters set up at two local high schools. last resort shelters. you say this is going to be like the hilton, you need to bring food, water, something to sleep on. have you seen a lot of people entering the last resort shelters? >> good morning. we have. we have about 200 people in both of those shelters combined and we saw a lot of them. we are getting calls from people figuring out if there's still time to get there. our mandatory curfew went into effect 6 p.m. last night. we have buttoned up our flood gates, closing the last set late last night in anticipation of the storm arriving. we're starting to feel the effects in lafourche and the weather will deteriorate as the day goes on. >> the forecast for flooding right now in port lafourche is 12 to 16 feet. tel

i grew up in lafourche parish, right where this storm is coming up, bia lafourche.etimes it's just hard to get them to move. they love their houses. they love their livelihood. if something is going to happen, they want to be there. i will say it's been a long time since we've seen a storm of this magnitude hit this area in southeast louisiana, betsy back in 1965. so, no one has seen a storm quite like this. and i think they may have underestimated it. >> sreenivasan: and this is a city that is in some ways still recovering from the damage that katrina did 16 years ago to the day. >> yeah, so, keep in mind, new orleans is about 50 miles from the coast, but we will get some hurricane force winds. you know, hurricane katrina, this is the 16th anniversary of it, there's a lot of anxiety with folks about this approaching storm-- p.t.s.d., if you will-- worried that this will be catastrophic as well. during katrina, as you remember, the levees failed. since katrina they've spent some $40 billion to repair the levees. this wilbe the first big test to see whether or not th

let me bring on daniel lorain from lafourche parish. can you hear me? >> yes, ma'am.in the path of this storm. mandatory evacuation orders for your parish with the last two shelters open, right, at a last resort. >> yes, ma'am. hurricane ida is knocking on the door. we had a mandatory evacuation for the entire parish at 5:00 a.m. this morning. we have shelters at central lafourche high school and thibodaux high school. at 6:00 p.m. they went into a curfew and in point lafourche we have a system and floodgates and locks and as of 6:00 p.m. tonight on the southern end of the parish headed towards pouchon, the gates are closed, so nobody can go in and out. they shut down. it's just a waiting period. i'm sure in the morning we'll probably have some outer bands and i -- >> can you -- did enough people leave? >> there's a lot of people that left but i wouldn't tell you that everybody left, because like i said earlier, that to leave, it takes money and not everybody has the funding for it. not everybody, you know, the proper weeks to take often. i didn't leave my wife and da

in lafourche parish, the best leverage system in the state of louisiana.e've not have a levy break. this is a very dangerous storm, 140-mile-per-hour wind ida, she means business. i hope nobody gets killed and everything turns out to be the best but we'll put it in god's hands and take it from there. >> when you say there are mandatory evacuations, what has the parish done to keep people out of the way? >> we've done everything, we've evacuated nursing homes and people that are sick, you know. we've got a lot of people in this area that know each other. almost everybody knows each other. and everybody helps out at the par parishes, you know, staying on top of things and we're doing the best we can. >> i understand you are from the area. your wife and daughter have evacuated. but you are not going to do so. what is your reason for that? >> this is the first time i will not evacuate. my wife and daughter and my two grandkids are heading up tomorrow. i've decided me and my son and i decided to stay ten miles where i am more to the north. we'll be staying ther

of damage in lafourche paris and louisiana. that's right and the gulf coast. the state, it was in lafourche that hurricane ida first made landfall, earlier this afternoon, and you can just see some of the destruction that has been left behind. reports of extensive damage there, but just to sort of summarize what we have, learned over the last hour or so, more than 1 million people in louisiana without power. everybody in new orleans, there's been two levy breaches, not in new orleans, and even though it has been downgraded to a category one hurricane, warnings from the national weather service about the potential for damage ahead, and almost wherever you are in the country, there's a good chance on the east coast, through the central part of the country, that some weather related to hurricane ida could be coming your way, in the days ahead, that's going to do right now for me. our courage, our coverage of hurricane ida continues next. keep it here throughout all night, and tomorrow, i'm an msnbc. stay safe out there. stay safe out there. your car insurance, so

. >> reporter: ida's powerful winds blew the roof off this hospital as it made landfall in lafourche parish, louisiana, sunday. the storm came ashore as a category-four hurricane.acy 16r katrina hit the region. packing winds of up to 150 miles per hour, it's tied as the fifth strongest hurricane to hit the u.s. >> the storm was total devastation to our area. >> reporter: jean lafitte mayor tim kerner told wwl they're trying to get boats to reach people trapped in their homes now that the eye of the storm has passed. >> you can't -- you can't look left, right, back or front without seeing high water. >> reporter: further south in and is, 40 people defied a mandatory evacon and rode out the storm. >> first responders cannot get to you. so those folks are just going to have to hunker down. >> reporter: here in new orleans, the entire city lost power after all transmission lines were down. still, officials remain confident that the changes they made since katrina could prevent a repeat of the disastrous results we saw 16 years ago. >> now is the time that we have been preparing for. >> r

that will happen between terrebonne and lafourche parishes in southeast louisiana.o do between now and then. storm surge will be up to 15 feet which will test all of our protection systems down along the coast, which is why we're evacuating people from those coastal areas, the ones that you were just referring to is the ones that will be uninhabitable for some period of time to come. >> governor, i just want to follow up on something you were just saying a few moments ago. it sounds as though you're saying that people who live in this area, in the storm zone where hurricane ida is going to hit, that they really just have hours if they're going to evacuate to make that decision, pack up and go. >> but the good news is those parish leaders made decisions yesterday around evacuation orders. we have been watching the traffic flow on the interstate system and u.s. highway system out of that area all day. people are heeding that guidance and leaving and they're moving to points north, east and west out of the central area. this is going to be a very large storm so there w

this happened at the lady of sea general hospital in lafourche parish but many hospitals in that region. a survey during the pandemic found that 62% of intensive care nurses are burned out. now we're seeing the wrong-term impact of that burnout. dr. tara narula spoke to nurses who have left their front line jobs or dropped out of the profession entirely. tara, good morning. >> good morning. the nurses we spoke to said both the number of hours they work and the number of patients they're responsible for have them feeling depleted and underresourced. for many it's about preserving quality of life and maintaining a workplace environment where they can give patients the attention they need. spending early mornings at home is a new part of paulette rangle's workday routine. for seven years she worked overnights as an icu nurse at a level-one trauma center in phoenix. when covid came calling last year, rangle and her co-workers stepped up. >> some nurses were working four, five, six days a week, 12-hour shifts. you felt guilty for wantin youw were goi to leave your co-workeehy wop thslack. >>

most of the levees south in lafourche even have held up very well. you mentioned an isolated area down in plaquemine's parish on the east bank. that area that happens quite frequently with storms. so that one was not unexpected and that area had been under mandatory evacuation order since thursday. this is a very serious storm. i'm not sure where the president was referring to in terms of where the house with water up to someone's chest, but i'll try to call her and figure that out after i get off this program. >> yeah, and on that note, i mean, what about rescue operations? you have residents calling in. what's going on on that front? >> well, quite frankly, when you are at the hieeight of a hurricane, you can't get first responders out because it's just simply too dangerous. the wind speeds don't allow for that and the other hazards associated with the hurricane was just as soon as we possibly can, we will be engaged in a very robust search and rescue operation. you know, the entire national guard is activated. we've got search and rescue assets st