i hope not. >> reporter: omar villafranca, cbs news, san antonio. >> o'donnell: we turn now overseas tonight, there are fears the situation in the control. protesters have taken to the streets against the longtime president. u.s. allies are worried that russian forces could move in as tonight from the capital. >> reporter: after 10 nights of public outrage and police brutality, an ominous warning from the president of belarus, nsctmathco oedf ideun aspe t, hl protesters say rigged an election. "the unrest must end," ordered sparking fears of more savage parking fears of crackdowns. protesters are standing off with police. the president has clearly lost the people, but the question is, is he ready to give up power? >> i'm afraid of police violence. i'm afraid that i won't come home this day. >> reporter: the are fears among america's european allies that russian president vladimir ditin could move in to prop up his former soviet ally. as lukashenko desperately clings to power at all costs. >> our government treats us like animals, but i hope that everything will stop when he leaves us

cbs' omar villafranca is going to lead off our coverage tonight from lake charles, louisiana, which could soon be under water. good evening, omar. >> reporter: that's right, norah. when this storm makes landfall, the surge is expected to be well above my head. the louisiana national guard has been active eighted. there's a curfew in place that starts at 7:00 p.m., and that's because meteorologists say more than half of lake charles could be under water. more than 30 million people are in the path of the giant storm. along the texas and louisiana gulf coast, many are still preparing for laura's punch, while others opt to get out of the way. lake charles mayor nic hunter says people who refuse to evacuate are in great danger. >> but i can guarantee you, there's going to be a large portion of the city that's going to see some pretty significant storm surge, so if you are here, you're going to have to hunker down. >> reporter: the storm surge is expected to be as high as 20 feet with flooding as far as 40 miles inland. fema administrator pete gaynor told cbs news the surge will be unsurvivabl

cbs' omar villafranca is going to lead off our coverage tonight, after flying over some of the worst storm damage in lake charles, louisiana. good evening, omar. f> reporter: norah, this is what several hours of 150-mile-an- hour winds can do to a building. at this aviation school, these hangars are now just piles of twisted metal. and farther down here, you can see that big airplane. parts of it were just ripped off. we decided to survey the damage from the air, and we saw that parts of southwestern louisiana are unrecognizable. this is where the hurricane slammed into the coast with winds up to 150 miles per hour, and from the air, it looks like roofs were ripped off of homes and walls were collapsed. the buildings that are still standing are submerged. it's hard to find a place that has not been affected in lake charles. hurricane laura rammed the gulf coast early this morning as a category 4 hurricane, bringing heavy rains and winds powerful enough to knock over an r.v. winds up to 150 miles per hour shook high-rise buildings and ripped down power lines. nearly a million household

norah. >> o'donnell: all right, omar villafranca, thank you.resident trump will visit both louisiana and texas saturday to get a firsthand look at the damage wrought by hurricane laura. tonight, the president is campaigning in new hampshire, trying to build political momentum after his speech to almost 2,000, mostly maskless supporters last night on the white house lawn. cbs' weijia jiang is traveling with the president. >> reporter: president trump is stumping in new hampshire tonight, where he trails joe biden by a significant margin. in washington, as social justice protesters marched just blocks from the white house, the president called reporters to the oval office to witness his pardon of alice johnson, whose life sentence he had commuted two years ago after lobbying from kim kardashian. kardashian. he ign >> reporter: he ignored questions about the protesters outside. meanwhile, his campaign said today that four people who were part of the republican convention events in north carolina on mo ivr cod- plause )nigh nearly 000 audien member

omar villafranca is in storm ravaged lake charles. >> reporter: in lake charles, crews are still cleaning up mountains of debris four days after hurricane laura crashed into the louisiana coast. 150-mile-per-hour winds splintered trees and shattered power polls leaving homes damaged and thousands without power or running water. >> they need places to stay. preferably right now those plays need outside of lake charles. >> what you're seaing today is we've got about 16,000 folks in noncon gra gat shelters, nonhotels, less than a thousand in the big con gra gat shelters, the gymnasiums, those that we have to put into the gymnasiums, we're making sure they're social distancing. >> reporter: some people are struggling for the basics. cbs news cameras were there on saturday when residents of the golden arms assisted living center finally got help. they had been without power or water for three days. volunteers from houston-based crowd sorceress cue helped relocate 19 stranded residents. the storm damaged just about every mahinmi and business in its path. the city of all of calcasieu parish are

cbs' omar villafranca is in lake charles, louisiana. the wind has already picked up there. tell us the very latest about what is called a monster storm. >> reporter: it is a monster storm, norah. and hurricane laura is about 100 miles south of us here from lake charles. at last check, the winds sustained were about 150 miles per hour. but the big concern with this category 4 storm is the storm surge. the wind gets all the attention. you can see plant whipping around me right now, but a 15-20-foot storm surge, that is going to be deadly across this area. as a matter of fact, some people are saying it could be unsurvivable in some areas, and that storm surge could go 30 to 40 miles inland. the louisiana national guard has been activated. there is a curfew here in lake charles. in fact the mayor of lake charles told me for the residents that decided to hunker down and ride this out here in lake charles arct some point during the night, if they need help, first responders will not be able to get to them because it will just be too dangerous

i want to go to omar villafranca looking at a different location. omar, good morning to you.eporter: well, tony, we've seen some of the damage in the business areas. we're now in the neighborhood and having to get around this. 40 to 50-foot pine trees that were pushed over by that 150-foot wind from hurricane laura. you can see this one was pushed over. this is the root ball here on the backside. here's what's interesting. we're starting to see this, trees that were snapped in half. and, of course, when they're snapped, they end up falling on all these homes here. they're also blocking a lot of streets. so these people here, some of them have chain saws trying to cut their way through so they can get in and out of the area and have first responder crews try to come in and assess the situation here. but we talked to one woman here. she spent, her and her husband and another man, cut another tree so they could cut a path through. they rode it out. they have minimal damage to their place. we saw roofs caved in because trees fell in on them, homes cut in half. this is going to ta

omar villafranca is in hard-hit lake charles, louisiana. what are you seeing there now?> well, good morning. hurricane laura destroyed this building. and the only reason that you're able to see it is because we're using generators to use our lights to light it up because all the power in lake charles is out. and despite an army of line crews working nonstop, we're seeing some pass by right now, it could take weeks, possibly even months before power is restored after hurricane laura. for southwestern louisiana, removing downed trees and debris is just the beginning of the cleanup. hurricane laura's 150-mile-per-hour winds knocked down thousands of utility poles. people here are now facing 90-degree temperatures and high humidity with noty electricity running water. >> it's terrible. it's catastrophic. >> reporter: nick hunter is the mayor of lake charles. >> have you heard any estimates of when you'll get power back? >> weeks. 100% of the city is without power right now. i would say definitely over a month in many parts of lake charles. >> reporter: over the weekend, pres

omar villafranca is in hard-hit lake charles, louisiana, where some who fled the storm are returning to see what's left of their homes. omar, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. laura hit louisiana with 150 mile-per-hour winds, and this is just a sample. some of the damage. you can see the second story was just thrown off and it now over here. now, there were several tornadoes in this area caused by the hurricane, and the homeowners think it was the combination of hurricane and tornado that did all of this damage. what was above here? >> attic. >> reporter: attic. so what -- >> the second story and attic. the second story's pretty much gone. >> reporter: eric and michele trahan home was torn in two. the family is safe as were the animals they rescue. but they're more than shaken. >> we're used to being the ones that help people. when you're the one that needs help and you're unsafe, i don't know what to do. >> reporter: the winds so powerful they sucked the kurtons out of the closed windows. another sign of how strong it was, hundreds of windows in this highrise were blown out. b