nungesser: thank you so much. ♪ stephanie: i'm stephanie sy.urn to judy and the rest of the show after these headlines. secretary of state antony blinken announced this evening that the united states has suspended his diplomatic presence in afghanistan and operations will be run out of doha, qatar. he said the bin administration would engage with the taliban-led government only when it is driven by interests vital to the u.s. and humanitarian aid would flow through independent organizations. the u.s. is now averaging 100,000 cobit hospitalizations per day, a level not seen since last winter. hawaii reported nearly 1700 new infections sunday, the most that has seen during the entire pandemic. and west virginia recorded its highest number of weekly cases and seven months. the head of the world health organization's european branch warned infections are also rising across europe. >> this high transmission is deeply worrying, particularly in light of low vaccination uptick in priority populations in a number of countries. several countries are star

. >>> joining us now, atlanta governor of louisiana, billy nungesser. thank you for joining us. we know you're in baton rouge right now. what are things looking like where you are? >> we've gotten through the worst of it here. the wind has died down. where the levees have seemed to f have failed, we're working to get people as the water is rushing up highway 23, another area heavily impacted. as the sun comes up we'll see widespread destruction from the winds and the water. >> at this point, is it unknown? do you have a sense of what the damage may be, of what the human toll may be? we know that st. john the baptist parish has been inundated with 911 calls for rescues because of flooding and yet we know rescuers haven't been able to go to the folks who need help. >> we've gotten calls overnight of people that were stranded because of the safety issue, they couldn't go out till this morning. i'm sure we're going to find many people in their attics, on r rooftops that rode this thing out. hopefully, we're hopeful that we can find everyone alive. but looking at the videos and the p

. >> reporter: as we were interviewing louisiana's lieutenant governor billy nungesser, i got a callrom shrimper dean blanchard. >> the seafood business is gone. >> it's pretty much gone. it's another katrina but i think it's worse than katrina really. >> reporter: earlier hurricane hunters flying into ida's 17-mile-wide eye. brent weathered the storm in laplace and no flooding in his neighborhood but the wind unlike anything he had ever seen or heard before. >> i'm 53 years old and been through a few small ones like isaac but never this much wind. >> reporter: outside his window gray as far as the eye can see. >> you can see the wind is bad. it's deteriorating. i'm prepared but nothing for this. nothing for this. it's just unprecedend ty of i cae wat i >> reporter: first responders are formulating plans of action right now. they're telling them they're going to take time. roads here remain treacherous and impassable with fallen trees and power lines lines lines lins they've been telling people who hunker down in their homes and try to seek shelter in their attics to bring axes with

we appreciate you taking time to spend with us here louisiana lieutenant governor nungesser. thank you very much. for more on the impact of hurricane ida that's go to make children in new orleans. reporter: no question we have seen an increase of the intensity of the wind clocking in and above 80 miles per hour and one of the things you will notice is the sheet of rain there is plenty of water coming in one guy driving by we see a little that for most part it is a ghost town. i billboard we have been watching over the last hour that was intact one hour ago. little by little it was rattling and now the sheets of metal have all peeled away. look at the tops of the buildings. you can see shingles are flattering with the force of the wind and the water just standing off of the top of the small buildings. there so many storms up to this point. but mostly a lot of water coming in right now. the reports of damage was a membrane of the roof. we know the barge is now drifting up the river on its own, unmanned. and a lot of sporadic damage so with all of this water coming in right now,

we will talk live to louisiana's lieutenant governor billy nungesser in just a bit.l is standing by in new orleans. but we begin with sam brock, in hard-hit laplace about 25 miles west of new orleans. sam, good morning. >> reporter: hoda, craig, good morning. a little more than 24 hours after ida ripped through this part of louisiana, we are getting a look on the ground and in the air of the footprint of this disaster. governor edwards telling hoda he expects the death toll to rise after catastrophic damage. not far from where i'm standing, people were hiding in attics and leaping on to beds holding out hope they would be rescued. this morning, a sobering look at ida's devastation, homes submerged in water as far as the eyes could see, nearby roads completely washed out. >> it will ceilings in every room caved in. it was unbelievable. >> reporter: with families waiting for rescue. >> it was bad. worst thing ever. >> reporter: the louisiana national guard already rescuing 282 people, 32 pets. >> just progressively got worse. and it was ankles, knees, almost chest leve

i heard your interview with lieutenant governor of the state billy nungesser, he said he too was here0 miles per hour, the bulk is still coming our way. as this monstrous system continues jogging to the north, really making a crawl as we have been saying, but it is going to be raining on and off again in the overnight hours. that is really when it is most dangerous, trace, once the sun goes down. hopefully people are inside. as it makes that crawl it dropped a lot of water. >> case i thank you so much. >> to adam klotz, casey was talking about dirty side of the storm, people don't understand what that means, what is the dirty side of the storm. reporter: it is where most of the action is, it is on the eastern side. you can see where this is rotating, picking up that moisture off of the ocean, there is more to the east as that rain and the storm activity hits land. you can spin up tornadoes, there is more that could happen on the eastern side of a storm. we did get you an date, winds 120 miles per hour down to 115 miles per hour, it slowed down, at 9 miles per hour. -- dirty side of th

. >> lieutenant governor billy nungesser, best of luck to you. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you for your time. >>> nearly 300,000 customers without power in louisiana right now. that number is going to go up, no doubt about that. and the storm is nowhere near over. we can see from our crews who are all across the storm area as hurricane ida is coming ashore there. just sending us devastating pictures of the damage and destruction. our special coverage continues. you're live in the cnn newsroom. growing up in a little red house, on the edge of a forest in norway, there were three things my family encouraged: kindness, honesty and hard work. over time, i've come to add a fourth: be curious. be curious about the world around us, and then go. go with an open heart, and you will find inspiration anew. viking. exploring the world in comfort. we're here! they're finally here. this year, "here" means getting back to everything they've missed. here! achoo! ...here! look over here! join lysol here for healthy schools in keeping "here" heal

lieutenant governor billy nungesser is in plaquemines parish and he joins us now on the phone. mr.t-governor, remind everyone where backaman is? and what is the situation? >> it is that little finger that sticks 100 miles to the south of mexico, on both sides of the mississippi river, and was devastated... [audio lost] >> it is still many miles that are under water. it looks like a war zone. >> woodruff: well, tell us what you have seen and what people are saying? to what extent are people in distress, their homes, other buildings and people's lives turned upside down. >> last night, when everyone went to bed, there were frantic calls to evacuate people from the jezuwit bend area, where they were flood-fighting. those efforts failed. luckily it didn't get into all of tose homes, but people were frantically leaving their homes in the middle of the night. and today highway 23 is continually submerged in water. the back levee, the water turned around, and pumping it down will begin. but most of the parish is out of power. it is gointo be a long recovery, as all of coastal louisiana an

louisiana lieutenant governor billy nungesser thank you for joining us and bringing us the latest from your state. we wish you the best of luck. >> thank you, my friend. >> cnn's jason carroll is in houma, louisiana not far from where the storm made landfall. what is the situation there? what kind of damage have you seen? >> reporter: i wanted to give you a first look. we are at the houma power station out here. you can see part of the sides of the building have already come off. part of the roof has come off as well. the reason we know that is we spoke to some of the workers here during the worst of ida. they decided it was no longer safe for them to be here seeing that part of the building was coming off so they made their way to the civic center about a half mile from where we were doing live reports before so they hunkered down there but then once they got there part of the roof, the two buildings there, part of the roof on both of those buildings started to give way as well. so that gives you a sense already to see some of the damage we're seeing, even at this point. we've only be