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Hurricane Gustav Makes Landfall in Cocodrie, Louisiana. New Orleans Battered By Surge, Winds; Waves Splash Over Industrial Canal Levee Short of A Breach

Aired September 01, 2008 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: It's kind of a harbinger of what may come inland, in terms of storm surge. So how much has the water risen on Grand Isle? Do you have a sense of that?
ALI VELSHI, CNN, SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a very good sense of it, because it hasn't penetrated our ground floor yet. We are probably about 60, 70 feet above sea level at the point that we're at. And we are seeing the water at about four or five feet from there. So that looks like probably 12 feet is what we're looking at at this point. It came in very quickly and hasn't risen in probably the last hour and a half or so.

COOPER: But you say it's about four or five feet? Four or five feet from this high point on the island. So it might be, add a few feet to that because other parts of the island would have flooded faster than where we are.

And Chad Myers, I don't know if you're still with us also, but that's significant because that may give a sense of how much or how little storm surge to expect in further inland areas, is that correct?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That is correct except the water that's just going over that barrier island now is ending up in the bayou, in the wetlands to the north of where he is right now. And so the difference is, yes, you're getting five feet over but that five feet continues to pour to the north and you're going to pile that five feet at a time on up into the northern wetlands up to the south of Algiers in what's basically you're talking about the west bank.

I'm going back to my machine here. And this is basically Microsoft Virtual Earth and it's an amazing machine, it can show you - this is Port Fourchon here where 90 percent of the offshore, the deep water oil ends up here. If your gasoline comes out of your car into your tank it probably what they called changed planes here because the water is just pouring up into this area now where we're concerned about Port Fourchon.

I'll slide you further to the north. This is Grand Isle. That's all it is. It's literally a spit of land and all the way down there in the Gulf of Mexico and the water now just pouring right over it and into the wetlands and to the north. Our Rob Marciano is back online again on top of the Omni Hotel. Hi, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN, METEOROLOGIST: Is this Chad?

MYERS: Yes, sir. Go ahead, buddy.

MARCIANO: Chad, where we are right now as far as the center of this thing is because the winds really haven't changed much.

MYERS: Well, we're probably only moving 15 miles per hour and that's going to be our problem. If the winds that you have now is going to be with you for many, many hours on end, and although we're going to move this thing to the south of you by probably 100 miles for the center, it's still going to have the same winds for you for hours and then your winds are eventually going to shift to the north, from the south to the north, and that may make a whole different set of circumstances because after you break down some things, after you break down some carports and some windows, you have the potential of changing the wind speed and tearing the rest of it off.

So you're still a 100 miles, maybe 80 miles from the center of the eye but now you're in between bands and another rain band, a very heavy rain band is headed your way probably in the next half hour or so as the circulation continues well to your south. I mean, what you're seeing now is nothing like they're seeing in Grand Isle or what they're going to get in Houma or what they're going to get in Morgan City or what they're going to get in New Iberia. These areas, you just need to be out of there. There's just no reason to be in here right along the state highway 90. But Rob, you're going to get the same type of winds you're seeing now. I can probably see you in that same wind for six additional hours.

MARCIANO: You know, that's what's concerning, Chad, because, you know, often when you're this far away but close enough to where you're right on the fringe of hurricane force winds, if it's moving ten, 15 miles an hour, no faster, then you know you're going to be in it for a while especially on the right quadrant. And that's really one of the larger concerns here. Let's peel off a little bit and show you the top of the buildings. We're on top of the French Quarter. It's easier. These are centuries old buildings here. We have seen from time to time some debris from some of these buildings. You can also see some debris from some of the modern buildings as well. As you know, any time you get a sustained wind of 50, 60 miles an hour for a number of hours, that's when the structures begin to weaken. That's when they start to buckle at the knees in spots. So we aren't going to see any sort of tremendous structural damage but we'll certainly going to see debris that will take down other things in the city.

All right. Here is downtown. This is kind of surreal sight as well. Winds are blowing pretty much from the east directly. You can see the buildings of downtown there. There's another puff. It's very difficult to even work the camera, even on a truck spot. Jimmy, you're doing a great job trying to get this camera out. Right now, this isn't hurricane force. It's probably gusting maybe to that. But so far, 60 to 70 miles an hour. There's the Mississippi. Jim, can you get that? This is what's been amazing to me all morning long is these white caps flowing up against the current up against the Mississippi. The Mississippi flows from west to east and then around the corner, around the big bend towards the Gulf of Mexico, and these waves continue to push water up against the current. Certainly, if this storm was stronger, if it made more of a direct hit here, we'd be talking about the potential for the levee here near the French Quarter to be over the top but that's certainly not the case. But beyond that, what everybody has been talking about, let me just go back, the west bank which was pretty much not touched too badly during Katrina. That is still a concern even though we're not getting a direct hit from a major category 3 or 4 storm. You just don't know what the man-made - the manipulation that we've done with the channels, with the canals over the years, just how that's going to affect what was a natural buffer as far as the swampland are concerned. But Chad, this is pretty much how it's been for the past couple of hours and there seems to be no letup in sight.

MYERS: Yes, Rob, you're sustained at 55 and your gusts are now 70 there at the Naval Air Station in New Orleans. And something else, you talk about the breadth of this. This is and was now category two, a major hurricane. This major hurricane is now making flooding at Cape Sandblast in Florida. 500, 600 miles away, the wind is still onshore all the way up here into this Gulf region. So we're going to have flooding, coastal flooding from Biloxi all the way over to Mobile and then maybe through Panama City and then believe it or not, keep going, all the way over here down to the south that's where Cape Sandblast is. And this is where the flooding is now. Look how far away it is from the eye. The entire northern Gulf coast being affected.

And if you're in one of these river systems where the water and the wind and the flooding, the coastal flooding, the salt water flooding can push up into your river, you could get flooding as well even though you could be 100 miles away from where the center is. That's why we're so worried about, well, if this is flooding, holy cow. I mean, winds are four times worse here as we push up here into the west bank. So, Rob, can you still hear me?

MARCIANO: Yes. I'm still here, Chad.

MYERS: Tell me what you think about 500 miles away flooding. Remember how we had St. Marks' flooding from Dennis, that was, I don't know maybe 300 miles farther to the west. The breadth of this is still going to spread out and could still affect Texas with an awful lot of flash flooding as the storm slows down and your wind speeds don't stop for maybe six to ten hours.

MARCIANO: Well, it certainly is a concern and obviously the rainfall here in the city, you know, when it rains heavily they get the pumps cracking. When the power goes out you got to have backup. I mean, you're talking about the southeast coast in southwest Louisiana. (inaudible) You got Rita and most recently (inaudible) It's the last thing they need. I don't know if you talked much about it, Chad, but this season we're not even at primetime yet and it's been incredibly active and it doesn't bode well for the next month and a half.

MYERS: No. And if you really want to get scared go to www.nhc.nnoa.gov and look at where the potential areas of new development are. There are five new areas in the Atlantic Ocean with potential tropical development and we haven't even talked about Hanna yet this morning that may get to the Carolinas or maybe the Georgia coast by this Friday. Rob, I'll let you get inside, get a little dried off and get that water out of your IFP so we can talk to you again a little bit later.

Our Ali Velshi has been in the middle of it, in the thick, if you will, in the eye wall for a while. Way down here, I mean, Port Fourchon, right there. Our Ali Velshi, Grand Isle, right there, a spit of land. That's all it is. It's a spit of sand that happens to get in the way of the Gulf of Mexico and Ali Velshi, what are you seeing now?

ALI VELSHI, CNN, SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're right. It's not a mile wide at its widest point. I'm looking out the window of the property next to where we're standing and it has a FEMA trailer that's been there since Katrina. It is now off its blocks. And we're hoping nothing bad happens to it but it looks like it's ready to float away. We have about six feet of water and we're on the high part of the land. Very heavy winds in fact, they're coming now directly south at us, south and a little southeast. They were blowing east the whole time. This island, Chad, is covered. It is covered with water. There's no land to be seen at any point. In fact, for precaution, we took our vehicles to a high point of land. There is no chance that they are sitting there intact. The person whose house we're staying at has a van. It's virtually submerged at this point.

MYERS: Keep going, Ali.

VELSHI: And we've got the fire captain with us. We happen to have the fire truck in front of the property here and it's got water well up past the wheel wells. We do seem to think these - this gusting, now, we do seem to see less of the sustained wind at the moment but these gusts are stronger than we've been seeing in earlier periods.

So, you know, we don't have a measurement of the wind here but they're very high. We are in a fortified house. A house that was built to sustain a category 5 hurricane. Not much damage to this house at all but it's shaking. We're definitely feeling it. We just pulled in. That's why I'm talking to you on the phone. You might be able to see our shot. It's still up. The camera is standing on its own now because it's just looking a little dicey for us to be outside at the moment. So we're indoors. It's still looking very serious here, Chad.

MYERS: Ali, your wind was 105 measured. 105 miles per hour measured and I'm a little bit confused at why all those buildings behind you are still standing. Were they all built to this same specification?

VELSHI: Yes, we were just talking to the folks here in the house that we're staying at. There are seven of us in this house. What it is, is everybody has reinforced their roofs and as you know, one of the biggest points of damage to a house during a hurricane is when the roof blows off and the house gets flooded. So these roofs in many cases have those ties, those hurricane ties that keep the roof attached to the building and they also, in some cases, are screwed as opposed to nailed down. These are improvements many people learned about after Katrina and there have been many, many code changes down here on this coastal area.

So what you're looking at is roofs that are staying intact and that is by and large helping these houses stay intact. They're all raised. Everything in this town is raised at least 20 feet off the ground.

MYERS: Ali, I can't hear you anymore, sir. But I tell you what. We've had all of these problems in Andrew and we're talking about how the homes were not reinforced but the lessons we learned in Andrew I'm sure are now basically saving these homes down in Grand Isle and, in fact, in my opinion probably saving your life at this point in time. Let's go to this reporter. This looks like we have a levee that is maybe being a little bit overtop. Doesn't look like breached but we'll see what he's saying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Mike is with us in the studio now.

MYERS: As soon as we go there, we lost him.

That did not look like a levee breach to me. That looked like levee that was right up to the top with water splashing over and that's OK. You just don't want that levee, that wall to get washed away and then all of a sudden all that water begins to pour away. Also, the tornado warnings still in effect from Pensacola just to the north of Mobile. If you're in it you're going to hear the sirens. If you don't have basic electricity you need one of those weather radios, battery operated that General Honore has been talking about for about six weeks here on CNN. Sean Callebs, you're still in the middle of it and we still have a live shot from you. Tell me, what are you seeing now?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're seeing the wind pick up. This rain comes in, just whips in sideways at times. And then at times it goes completely away. So all we have is the wind. I have no idea why that happens from a weather perspective but it's one of those things every time we have a significant weather event like this you have to deal with. There are a few things that come to mind after listening to the discussion come down. One, where Ali is, Port Fourchon, I did a story for Ali's show "Issue Number 1" on Port Fourchon to kick off hurricane season week. We talked with a director down there who told me if they have a significant hurricane that shuts that facility down, gas prices could go up instantly - we're talking instantly as much as 10 percent. And that's not coming from him, that's coming from a study by a financial group.

So it's going to be a major concern. And secondly about 30 miles offshore from Port Fourchon is something called the loop, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Production. What happens is these giant super tankers that come in from overseas that are so large they can't get into ports in southern Louisiana, they dock out there. They unload their oil there and then pump it in through a pipeline. So it doesn't even have to have physical damage on ground. It's just being out there 30 miles, the winds can cause significant problems out there. So keep your eye on gas prices in the coming days. That will be a big concern.

Secondly, everybody knows about this. The FEMA trailers. The metaphor for misery here in Louisiana. There are still 14,000 trailers being used. 10,000 here in Louisiana. 4,000 in Mississippi. I talked to the FEMA director David Paulison a couple of days ago at the FEMA office here on the west bank and FEMA was actually making phone calls to people who live in those trailers saying, get out of the trailer now. This was long before the mandatory evacuation.

And the concern is with these kind of winds, Chad, those trailers become projectiles. They become missiles so FEMA admits, look, it was a nightmare. A huge mistake using travel trailers. We're never going to do it again. But once the genie is out of the bottle there's no way to undo that. That has just been a colossal nightmare -- Chad.

MYERS: Well, we know that there's 99 point something percent of getting out of those FEMA trailers because they sure are - they are just not available. They just cannot take this kind of wind. Let's go back and join our affiliate coverage here from WWL in New Orleans, Louisiana and see what they're saying right now about what I think is the Industrial Canal.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...of being overtop.

Certainly, because I think, the surge is there. I don't think, I mean, the wall is the same height on both sides.

Right. It is the same height. It's just stronger on the western side. But you're right, we don't - at this point you don't need anymore surge to possibly have a whole lot more flooding when that wind switches around and we're not done, we're not to the bottom of Gustav yet. So certainly when it switches around if the surge raises another foot in the next two, three, four hours and now all of that water is there and that water gets pushed from west to east, Then yes, certainly, you're going to have a problem.

MIKE HOSS, WWL ANCHOR: All right. We have a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. Major Tim Kurgan is back with us. And Major, were you able to see this video that we've just shown of the Industrial Canal?

VOICE OF MAJ. TIM KURGAN, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEER: Yes, Mike. I'm watching it right now.

HOSS: All right. What is your reaction to this and your impression? What can you tell us about it?

KURGAN: Well, certainly, we've been in touch with our team at the agency lockers as well. You know, they have a gauge reading of about 11 feet at the agency canal and of course we are concerned about that level of water in there. But again, most of those walls were tested to the top during Katrina. The other thing you need to note is on those walls there you have scour protection on the back side of them so you won't have the erosion or the scouring on the back side that we had during Katrina.

HOSS: And major, Mike Hoss again.

KURGAN: Yes.

HOSS: The same scour protection is available on the west side and those are the eyewalls are they not?

KURGAN: That's right. The same scour protection is on both sides of the canal. That's correct. East side and west side.

HOSS: Tell me as we're looking and we're standing on the Claiborne Avenue Bridge and looking towards Lake Pontchartrain what kind of concern do you have for the area that you guys came out and were trying to shore up a part of that western flood wall with the sand bags and the baskets?

KURGAN: Well, certainly we are --

MYERS: We're going to break away from our affiliate coverage, WWL. They do a fantastic job but we want to get to our Anderson Cooper on the ground live on the other side of the river. Anderson.

COOPER: Chad, thanks very much. Again, conditions here are, you know, they're bad but nowhere near as bad as we had anticipated. We want to talk to CNN's Gary Tuchman who has actually been driving around for the last hour or so to look on conditions. What did you see out there?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of damage but not the kind we were scared about. Suffice it to say it's very easy to get around the city right now. No one is out whatsoever. During Katrina we saw a lot of people driving around, a lot of sightseers as serious as it was. What we've seen on Bourbon Street, over the French Quarter, are shutters broken, signs down, windows smashed, doors to some businesses we're actually shut some of the doors for the people. We went on the Mississippi River banks where they have rock levees. The levees are holding fine. The water is coming pretty close to come above the levees but so far no problem.

COOPER: You're talking about the levees near the French Quarter.

TUCHMAN: The levees near the French Quarter. The French Quarter, we should emphasize was not flooded during Katrina. But Canal Street just behind us, much of Canal street, a major thoroughfare just to the west of the French Quarter was flooded and so far no flooding there.

COOPER: But in terms of trees down during Katrina there were often a lot of streets that were simply cut off.

TUCHMAN: Right. That we haven't seen so far. I will tell you, during Hurricane Dolly which was 100 miles per hour when it got to San Padre Island, Texas - we hear loud noises we look very carefully. But during Hurricane Dolly, a hundred miles per hour, much more damage and much heavier more rain. Now, we're certainly not done with this event here in New Orleans but because the eye is so far to the west of here, New Orleans may, let's emphasize, may escape relatively unscathed.

COOPER: You know, the real concern is in the west bank of New Orleans, the Harvey Canal and we may not even know about the surge inland in those areas until later this afternoon.

TUCHMAN: That's the thing. In Houma, Louisiana, the city of Houma to the southwest of here, who knows what's going to happen there? So there may be tremendous damage to more rural populations but here in the city of New Orleans where it appears almost 90,000 people have evacuated, so far they're doing fairly well.

COOPER: The evacuations were amazing. They were again 90 to 95 percent of the people out not just of New Orleans but all of southeastern Louisiana.

TUCHMAN: If people don't think America can be efficient they haven't seen this operation. It was incredible just how organized it was, with how little complaints. The city, a major American metropolis, almost completely evacuated before the disaster struck.

COOPER: Right. A huge different story than it was in Katrina. This time around we saw buses provided by the state, buses provided by the local officials as well as drivers. I mean, before they had some buses for Katrina but they didn't have drivers. And the area was flooded.

TUCHMAN: Remember the days, Anderson, we were both here in the days after Katrina where we got all these devastation and the city under water and it was empty like this too. And it was empty it was so depressing. This emptiness is a bit inspiring because people got out. We know they're safe.

COOPER: I'm sure a lot of those folks are watching this coverage, their watching their local TV, trying to figure out when it is that they can come back. We won't have that answer for quite sometime.

TUCHMAN: I tell you, the politicians here with all due respect like to talk and will make it real clear when they want people to come back.

COOPER: The coordination that we saw from the state, federal, and local officials was clearly a lot better this time. But as General Honore said and Chad Myers who I think is still with us can echo, you know, the evacuations, the preparation that was stage one. The storm is just stage two. What really matters is what happens after the storm in terms of whatever the damage is and the reaction to that damage.

TUCHMAN: The other thing is there's going to be substantial damage. I mean, we've seen it in the major tourist center around Bourbon Street. There's a lot of damage right now. Certainly at this point it's not as bad as it could have been and I don't think - I mean, you're hearing from Chad - I'd love to hear more from Chad about this but I don't think New Orleans will get much worse than they're getting right now.

COOPER: Chad, what are the worst or what are anticipated to be the worst hit areas? You know, for the next, as soon as the storm kind of dies down even more we'll probably start going out, sending crews out. Where do you think we should be looking to where this story now develops? Where the storm has hit the hardest?

MYERS: Well, it's south of you, probably 60 miles south and southwest of you, although they're right in it right now. You're 51 miles per hour but the eye is still to your south, maybe 60 to 75 miles, just a very big rain band with a well defined eye coming onshore here in southern Louisiana, to southeastern Louisiana, 60 miles from New Orleans.

And then you have Houma, you have New Iberia, you have Morgan City, then all the way back up to Lafayette. This eye, this category 2, 105, 110-mile eye is going to travel right up that highway 90 corridor and that's where they make Tabasco sauce. This isn't just an unpopulated bayou. This is a very populated area right through here from Houma all the way to Morgan City and then all the way back up into Lafayette and that's the area that is going to see the most damage. That's where we'll be sending crews tomorrow as this wind - right there that is right over Golden Meadow.

There's Grand Isle. That's right where Ali Velshi is. And then a fairly unpopulated area, completely unpopulated, kind of maybe a fish camp or two but other than that we're going to have to move this storm another 30 miles to the north before we get to Houma, before we get to Morgan City, before we get to New Iberia, and I believe we'll have what I would consider to be devastation in those towns at 105 to 110 miles per hour, Anderson.

COOPER: And Chad, when do you think it would be safe for us to start driving, you know, to go to Houma or to go to some of those areas.

MYERS: Not until tomorrow because the water is still going to be pushed up into this area and then it's going to slosh out tomorrow. Many roads, every road basically in this area will be under water. You won't be able to get there today. You may not be able to even start driving until tomorrow afternoon.

COOPER: Chad, I understand we want to go back to Ali Velshi. I understand he has some flooding to talk about. Ali, what are you seeing on Grand Isle?

VELSHI: Anderson, in the last 10 minutes since I last spoke to Chard, our situation at Grand Isle has changed quite substantially. The winds have been coming in from the east. They are now coming in from the north. I'm sorry. They are coming in and blowing from the south to the north so it looks like we're at a different point in the hurricane. The basement of the house we've been in, the ground floor had not flooded because the water level had stayed at about six feet or seven feet for some hours. It is now changed. The ground floor of our house that we are staying, it's a fortified house, is flooding. We are seeing much, much greater wind strength here.

In fact, Anderson, the viewers will notice we no longer have the shot that we've had for several hours now. We've pulled in our crew and we are now indoors and we're trying to reposition to get you a view of what's going on but definitely the water level is rising here again. We are getting hit by rain again which we weren't getting for a little while. And the winds are substantially stronger than they've been for the last couple of hours.

COOPER: Ali, how much water is in the house at this point and where is it coming in? I mean, is it coming in through windows, doors, what?

VELSHI: It's coming in through both doors and windows. For some time it had settled literally with about three inches to spare before coming into the house and all of a sudden it is coming in so I'm just walking now to the ground floor. I'd say we probably got about three inches, two or three inches. That's a change. We hadn't seen this before. There's great force hitting the house from the south at this point which we hadn't seen. It was coming in from the east earlier so we've got a really different feeling to the storm now than we've had and it is much more intense. Looks like it's coming in right off the ocean now. This started to flood from the back end, from the bay that is towards you, from the north end. It is now changed and it is very clear that this water is coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. There's no land to be seen on Grand Isle at all. We are all under water here. We are in a house about 20 feet above ground at the second level and the house we're in has a third level that would be beyond 30 feet above ground. So we are safe. But we have pulled our crews in because the wind is much, much heavier than we can even leave our camera out for. We were not staffing the camera for a while, we were just taking the shots but we're now even bringing in all of our equipment and we're going to reposition from inside the house.

COOPER: All right. Ali, we have to go to Sean Callebs. Just very briefly, I just want you to confirm Grand Isle, you say, you do not see any land left on Grand Isle. You say it's all under water?

VELSHI: I have a very good view of a large portion of the island from where I am. It's not a very big island, it's a mile wide at the widest point. There is no land to be seen here.

COOPER: All right. We're going to check in with you. Let's go to Sean Callebs. Sean, explain where you are and what's happening there.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're here in Jefferson Parish at the emergency operations center and we're really monitoring here and also the west bank which is a big concern about flooding. We have some new information about that Industrial Canal and the overtopping down there. We just got off the phone with the Army Corps of Engineers. And what they're telling us, and it's just what we talked about, Anderson, in the last hour. It's a new section of the flood wall and it's not the lower ninth where the water is overtopping, it's on the upper ninth on the other side and instead of an area where the steel plate is driven straight into the ground, it's one of the new T-bar sections where it goes down and then goes out like that. so it has more - has a much better ability to keep its integrity in times like this when there is going to be scouring.

Secondly, there was a fire. The assistant fire chief just called us a short while ago. Not terribly far from where you guys are at Esplanade in (inaudible). They had four units or a four-alarm fire trying to get that under control. Who knows what caused that? But we've seen gas lines rupture in times like this so we know that crews are out there in the middle of this trying to get that under control as well. Also, we know how critically important pumps are to New Orleans. This is a city where some of it is below sea level. Well, the pumping stations have lost power from Entergy, the company that supplies power. However, they do have their own backup power. Everything is working fine. We got to point out that those stations lost power during Katrina but that was only because the levees gave way and the entire city was swamped.

So right now the public stations aren't getting any water, any power from Entergy, they are running on their own power so somewhat of a fluid situation out there. A lot of things could go wrong but right now everything is holding up OK.

COOPER: Sean, where was the fire? You said it was Esplanade and what?

CALLEBS: Esplanade and Broad. It's - if you head out of the quarter and you cross over ram part and keep going toward mid city, toward where the fair grounds are for jazz fest.

Yes, can you hear me? Hello.

COOPER: Let's take a short break of our coverage from New Orleans, trying to bear the brunt of Hurricane Gustav. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We are back here at the Weather Center. The eyewall now coming onshore south of New Orleans very close to our Ali Velshi in Grand Isle. Also, right there we talked about Port Fourchon. That's where we talked about that big oil processing unit, bringing all the oil in from the offshore, the deep water wells in the Gulf of Mexico. That's right where we are right now.

To set the stage, New Orleans, you're in a little bit of a lull with rain, but not a lull with wind; 60 to 70 miles per hour there. And then back up to the north in these brighter spots we've had at least a dozen, maybe more tornado warnings today alone already.

That's going to be the story. On the perimeter, on the fringe, tornadoes. In the middle, lots of damage. At least right now we don't have cities in the way of the Category 2, Category 3 gusting hurricane, but we will get Houma and New Iberia and Morgan City and all the way up the I-90 corridor, the highway 90 corridor, that is going to be the area that receives the most damage today. And then we have to worry about the wind blowing in surge from the opposite direction that we had it with Katrina. Remember Katrina moved over here. The wind came in Lake Pontchartrain and then blew that water through Lake Pontchartrain and down in here to the north shore, here, in New Orleans. This is going to be the exact opposite storm. This looks nothing like Katrina, the winds up from the south blowing the water through the wetlands and then south into South Algiers and all the way through here, trying to keep these canals - and there are levees through here as well -- that weren't so reinforced after Katrina because they did all their work up here trying to reinforce the canals that did so badly up there on the north side of the city.

We're going now to our Reynolds Wolf. He's down on our magic board. He's going to take you into the eye of the storm, take you three dimensionally into it, and what it looked like just a few minutes ago with our three dimensional board - Reynolds.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi guys.

We wanted to give you another perspective on this storm, the storm that happens to be the strongest storm on the planet. Using our magic screen here and GR Levelex.com (ph), you can see the rotation moving just to the southwest of Grand Isle at this time. Looking at it from the top down its very impressive, you can see it stretches all the way over from parts of Alabama as far north as portions of Mississippi and into Lafayette, Louisiana. And, of course, much of it is on the coast.

The top-down perspective is only one way to view the storm. There's another way to see it. Take a look at this. We'll take this 3- D. Tilt this back a little bit. It gives you a little bit of that texture. Gives you and idea of some of these cloud tops; some of these in excess of 50,000 feet. As you view down you can see the center is pretty well defined at this time. Also, you can see right below some of the heaviest cloud tops and where the heaviest rain's located. You can actually see Grand Isle just below the clouds, right here in this area.

Ali Velshi has been reporting there live much of the morning. They have been dealing with the incredible winds, at the same time the heavy rainfall and storm surge that has actually covered much of this island. A bit farther to the north, in New Orleans, they're getting a little bit of a break. You'll see that feeder band now beginning to pass through -- a little bit of the clearing. But you'll notice farther to the south another band is going to be coming through and then more of the storm making its way around, counterclockwise, around the center of circulation. So, New Orleans certainly not out of the woods yet.

We've got so much to share with you. Not only some of this imagery but we'll also be taking a look at some of the contributions from some teams we have in the field, compliments of hurricanetrack.com. That's all moments away.

MYERS: We have four, maybe more boxes out there, just basically set with cameras and said, go. Here you are on battery backup. They are going to go for all day long. They'll go for as long as the cameras will go before they either get washed away or battered down. We're also going to get data from hurricanetrack.com. Those guys were here in town the other day. We did a bunch of pictures with them. We tried to figure out what they're going to do. They have set boxes out there basically to get destroyed and we'll watch it.

Sanjay Gupta, is with us right now.

Sanjay, what do you have, sir -- and Anderson. Anderson, go ahead.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chad, I'm sorry.

The situation here, you know, pretty much the same as it was just a couple minutes ago. We heard about a four-alarm fire not too far from here. We'll try to send some crews out there to see what the situation is with that. See what firefighters are doing. I can't imagine trying to battle a fire in the midst of a hurricane.

Let's check in with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who again, has been monitoring situations and hospitals for us.

You know, Sanjay, you've been covering the story of hospitals in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. It has been a real problem with the lack of medical facilities in this town, the lack of mental health facilities in this town. What's the situation now? How many hospitals have remained here and did not evacuate? Do we know?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There are at least a few hospitals that are staying open in the area, Anderson. It is a double-edged sword for sure, a tough decision for these hospitals. Some had the protocol of trying to get the sickest patients out of here as quickly as possible and trying to stay closed. Other hospitals say, you know what, we're going to let the people who are well enough leave, but we're going to keep the sick patients here and stay open.

We are at one of those hospitals that is staying open, East Jefferson General Hospital. They have over 200 patients here now. Many of them are critically ill. They also have about 60 physicians, as well, who are just planning on spending the night.

You're absolutely right, Anderson. One thing I think they've learned more than anything else is this idea of early evacuations versus late evacuations. Probably nowhere is that more important than in hospitals. During Katrina, you'll remember, at Charity Hospital, they sort of banked on those late evacuations. Well, that bet did not pay off. They had more than 200 patients with no way of evacuating them for several days after that flooding became so terrible. And we saw those patients on those parking decks waiting to be evacuated in any way possible.

It doesn't seem like that's going to be a problem this year. Besides the early evacuations they've also moved generators, for example, into water tight areas; moved them higher off the ground. So at this hospital, which is now on emergency power, is still up and running. Very different, so far, here.

As far as the weather goes intermittently getting rain here. We're just west of New Orleans, intermittent gusts of wind. But nothing, nothing as bad as we saw just a few years ago, Anderson.

COOPER: Certainly good news on that. Sanjay, we'll check in with you throughout this day. Let's go back to tony in Atlanta.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Anderson, with such a successful evacuation of the area we're able to focus on a couple other concerns with this storm. And as you take a look at our interactive board here we'll focus for a minute on the oil and gas infrastructure that is so centrally located here along the Gulf Coast.

Take a look. As we go closer in here you can take a look at anywhere from six to eight major refineries, ExxonMobil, Motiva Enterprises, Murphy Oil, Fife (ph) Oil Company, and more and more as we take a look at the storm and its impact on the southern coast of Louisiana, we have to keep an eye on the potential damage that could be caused to all of this infrastructure.

Now, Michelle, let's take a look at Port Fourchon. You heard Ali talk about it. You've heard Chad mention it as well, as essentially the Gulf's energy connection. What do we mean by that? So much of the petroleum industry traffic actually flows through here. Port Fourchon, anywhere from 16 to 18 percent of the U.S. oil supply flowing through the Gulf and through Port Fourchon. So keep your fingers crossed as we take a look at this situation over the next day or so in the aftermath of this storm so we can gauge what kind of damage has been done to the infrastructure, the oil and gas infrastructure in this country. We will take a look at it and we certainly will focus on what's happening here in southern Louisiana - Anderson.

COOPER: Tony, the situation here in the French Quarter, we're starting to see a lot more movement of people walking around. Actually saw a lady walking her dog. Let's go back to Tony. I'm told to go back to Tony.

Tony, is that right? Is something --

HARRIS: No, no, I just wanted to make sure that I think we got everything communicated to you that we were just sort of keeping an eye, in addition to what you're doing out there, and following the story of the storm as it rolls in. Again, talking about the evacuation and what a tremendous effort that was at getting 2 million people out of that area, the southern coast of Louisiana. It gives us just that opportunity to take a look at another story that is developing. And, again, that is the oil and gas situation so key to what we're reporting on and have been for the last couple of months, obviously.

And we understand from Ali Velshi that the price of oil is actually down today. Apparently there is some of the potential impacts of this storm on this oil producing region, the pipelines and everything else. It's already been baked in, already been discounted into the price of oil right now. But we are absolutely, because the storm is churning now, perhaps even the eastern eyewall of the storm is working now, engaged into Port Fourchon. We're absolutely going to keep an eye on that situation and find out in the next day or so what kind of an impact this storm will have on the price of oil and the infrastructure here -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Tony, thanks for that.

HARRIS: Sure thing.

COOPER: Sorry for the confusion.

We're going to be breaking down our position here again with the winds possibly shifting and we want to - need to move to a different location to make sure that our satellite truck is safe. Basically, the satellite trucks can really be influenced by the wind, can be knocked over when the wind shifts. So it's critical that we identify the time when the wind is going to shift. We sense that's going to be happening after what we hear from Chad Meyers and others so we'll probably break down our equipment and you won't see us for a while.

Let's go back to Heidi in Atlanta -- Heidi.

HIEDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Anderson. Thanks so much for all of that. Stay safe and we'll check back in with you when you get the new shot set up. Trying to get a good idea of what's going on all across this area. Because let's face it, folks, it's a hurricane and very difficult to predict with any precise exactness.

That being said, we do know of people that have stayed in the New Orleans area even though there have been mandatory evacuations. In fact, Jack Bosma is on the phone with us, right now, and he is one of those people who decided to stay.

Jack, tell us about your decision. Was this something that was difficult for you to decide on, or have you just known all along no matter what happens, you're going to stay?

JACK BOSMA, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: Clearly, it was a difficult decision to make. But, you know, I've monitored everything for the last few days and it really didn't look as vicious as obviously Katrina did. For Katrina I evacuated the day before and was gone for six weeks and really didn't want to deal with that again this time.

In fact, this is really a great little pocket of people right in my neighborhood, probably about 15 to 20 people that have stayed within about a half block.

COLLINGS: So, what are you seeing around you now?

BOSMA: Right now the wind is definitely picking up. My back gate, you know - when I woke up this morning, my gate is smashed and scattered all over my backyard. I stepped out front to take a couple of pictures for Janel (ph) who works for you, I guess, in the newsroom.

COLLINS: Yes. BOSMA: And e-mailed some of those pictures showing how the wind has definitely picked up. But as of now there is still power, my air conditioning is running. My refrigerator is working. Had a great dinner across the street at my friend's house last night. And my porch was open for everybody as a bar yesterday afternoon. And just I guess we're doing it New Orleans style, you know, just riding it out. It's really quite honestly, basically just like a bad storm. It doesn't seem that drastic at all.

COLLINS: And so you're not worried that the situation could change quickly and then you would be in harm's way?

BOSMA: No, not really. My car is out front and gassed up and unless it gets really bad I can jump in and go.

COLLINS: OK. We certainly hope that you are going to be OK. I know one of the reasons why you're staying is you've got quite a few animals to watch out for.

BOSMA: Yes, exactly. I have a rental unit on my house on one side. And my renter is in West Virginia for a wedding and she called me Friday because they called her from the pet boarding house that they had to get the cats out of there. So, her cats are in her unit and my cats, you know.

COLLINS: All right, well, Jack, we sure do appreciate the story and we wish you the best of luck and certainly hope that the situation, right where you are, and where the rest of the small group of people you mentioned are, stays very safe.

That being said, let's head back over to Chad Myers now at the Weather Center to tell us the very latest.

Hey, Chad.

MYERS: You know that's always a risk, Heidi. I talk to so many people that have stayed during hurricanes and they stayed through Charlie and they were sorry that they did - down in Punta Gorda, because they're afraid they're going to lose their stuff. And obviously this guy has pets and concerns. But they're afraid they are just not going to be able to get back and somebody else will take and loot their stuff by the time they get there. It's just a concern. You just take care of yourself. You can buy other stuff.

Look at this. This is Gulfport, right there, that's a new tornado warning for Gulfport, Mississippi. This storm is traveling to the northwest away from Gulfport right now. That's going to be the problem. The periphery of the storm, the eastern side from Biloxi back over to Pensacola, that's going to be the area that's going to have the tornadoes and tornado warnings. And that one there, for Gulfport, is until 10:00 Central Time. So many more minutes on that one just yet.

Back over to the east, Pensacola, every one of these cells could spin at one time. Whether it's a water spout offshore or through your town, if it does come onshore with the spin. We're not talking about F-4s and 5 tornadoes, but we are talking about tornadoes that still could make some damage somewhere in the 1, 2 range, 100 miles per hour, 120 miles per hour. That'll pretty much take down a home. And although they're small and not very wide they still have some potential.

The storm is very close to making landfall. Here's Grand Isle right there; that's where our Ali Velshi is. And, in fact, here's where the storm is. There's New Orleans. Here's the river all the way back up. We know right there - a the beach there, that's 7.8 storm surge, now up to eight feet for a storm surge there as the water pushes over Grand Isle and into the bay there to the north. Right there is our Ali Velshi, in that home right there. He says that the distance between him and the water to the bottom of the home was about ten feet. Now the bottom of the home is actually touching water. So water washing completely over this island. Heidi, it's been an ugly day for people there.

COLLINS: Yes, no question about it. Do you have something else you need to get to, Chad?

MYERS: A new tropical depression forms halfway between Africa and the Leeward Islands and could become a tropical storm late other than today. That is tropical depression No. 9 and they'll be issuing advisories like they don't have enough work the way it is.

COLLINS: Exactly.

MEYERS: We have Gustav and we have Hanna. And Hanna will affect the East Coast. I'll try to get that in the next hour when we get a little bit of a lull, I'll try to get to Hanna and tell the East Coast residents what's going on there.

COLLINS: OK, yes, a lot of folks already know that name and they are watching out for it, certainly. All right, Chad, thank you. We'll get back to you shortly. For now a very quick break and we'll be back in a moment, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: We want to get you back out to some of our correspondents who are all over the area covering, of course, Hurricane Gustav. Sean Callebs is in Jefferson Parish, that's just west of New Orleans, with the very latest from there.

Hi, there, Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi.

Really just kind of taking a look at the big picture thing. Living here the past three years, getting to know a number of the officers and the way things unfolded three years ago compared to now. If you remember how many police officers were basically blistered for allegedly leaving their posts in the aftermath - that's some big noise back there - in the aftermath of the storm? Well, this time, several days ahead of Gustav making landfall, Superintendent Riley gave officers paid time off so they could take care of their families, secure their homes, make sure everything was buttoned up. Then yesterday 4:00 p.m. Central Time, every officer had to report on duty.

I think we've been pretty clear about how harsh the city says it will be on looters. Not going to jail, to Angola. This is a maximum security prison, usually the sentence required to go to Angola is 50 years or more. So if that isn't enough to keep people from looting, then they got bigger problems than looting.

Right now, this is what we've seen, Heidi, over the last I'd say half hour or so. It'll come pouring down, very windy, and then will change dramatically, almost no rain, and that was about the least amount of wind we've had in several hours here. So I don't know what kind of area we are in these bands but certainly the weather picture here is somewhat fluid.

We talked about a fire that is down at street called Esplanade and Broad, not terribly far from the French Quarter. The assistant chief called and told us about it. We're at the EOC here in Jefferson Parish and a number of fire officials left right after that to go down check it out as well. Hopefully we'll have some information back on how bad that is. But it's one of those things that happens, a fire in the heart of a hurricane. Nothing is out of the question here in New Orleans -- Heidi.

COLLINS: No question. And you mix that in with some of the tornadoes we've heard about, in different areas from where you are, of course and, boy, it's one thing after another it seems. Sean Callebs, we sure do appreciate that, coming to us live from Jefferson Parish. Stick around, Sean, and we'll get back you to.

For now, we want to get to Rob Marciano. He's standing by in the French Quarter now with an update from there.

Last time we checked in with you, Rob, you were all over the place. Are you still on top of the hotel?

MARCIANO: We are, Heidi. Check this out. Hey, guys, we're up.

Winds, as Sean has pointed out, they've been coming and going but mostly coming and very difficult to stand up. We've taken the camera off the sticks. Both Jeff and Jim holding on for dear life.

Give you an idea of where we are. See this cabana here? That's obviously been broken down but, katty-corner from that, by the light pole, just beyond the pool, there used to be the same thing. But within that last hour that was taken up like a kite and flown up and over the top of this hotel and I have no idea where that landed. You can believe that scenes like that are certainly echoed across this city.

We haven't seen sustained hurricane force winds here, at least at this vantage point, but certainly gusting up and over hurricane-force winds and across the French Quarter, these rooftops, we have seen pieces of debris flying across. These - wow, look at that - these clouds are just racing from east to west.

There's the Mississippi River. Check it out. Just beyond Jackson Square. Those white caps continue to roll this way, that's against the current. That river wants to flow down and around that corner to the Gulf of Mexico, but that is the type of surge we're seeing here. Not damaging here but on the east side, which we've been saying all along is probably going to see less damage than the west side. Well, they keep getting these strong east winds. And even at the Industrial Canal we've had reports where we're seeing some of the waves; the waves over the top of the canal. Not a breach, not complete overtopping, but some of the waves are high enough to where they're getting over the top of that levee.

Until this thing gets parallel to us, past Lafayette, and dies out, we'll continue to see the strong east winds and when they continue to be in from the same direction for this strength, Heidi, that's a problem because at some point structures, be it a building or a levee, have a hard time sustaining that sort of continual punishment.

COLLINS: Exactly. They can really only take so much. We've seen those white caps you mentioned going in the opposite direction, boy, that is really something to see because it gives you an idea of the strength. Rob Marciano, thanks so much for that. Also want to bring in Chad Myers now with the very latest from over in the Severe Weather Center.

Hey, Chad.

MYERS: Hi, Heidi.

A little wider view here. We'll take our pictures all the way over to Florida. Amazingly, Gulfport, Mississippi just had a wind gust to 74 miles-per-hour. So that's right at hurricane strength. Look how far that is away from the center of the eye of this, right now, still category 2 hurricane, although the latest update just printed off five minutes early but we'll get to it.

Santa Rosa, Florida, way over here, Walton County, all beaches are closed. The water is three feet high. Higher than normal high tide. All beaches are closed right now. Indian Pass, Florida, the pass is closed. Water rushing through there right now.

So even though we're hundreds of miles away, Florida being affected quite a bit here because it's almost like a catcher's mitt right here with all of this water pushing into these bays and any land here that's below sea level, or even about five feet above sea level, may very well be surged even though it's so far away from what we consider to be, what we think of to be a storm surging storm.

There is the eye right there. There's Grand Isle, that's where Ali Velshi is. I do believe now we're into this bayou, into these island areas here, very much a marshy area, not very many homes in here and then eventually over toward Houma and up into New Iberia.

Sean Callebs, you've been in some easy weather for a while. What do you have now?

He can't hear me. OK. There you go. Somebody else is rushing over here with a report. Thank you, Sean. This is going to be right off the cuff. So I'm going to just go ahead read it to you here.

The center of Gustav makes landfall -- in Cocodrie, Louisiana. It's onshore right now. Hurricane warnings remain in effect, though, and that's probably to be expected. Winds are still sustained at 110 miles per hour. So, I mean, they're at that point right there, would be Port Fourchon and so we were kind of moving on up here. And then when we get to Houma this is the populated area I'm really concerned about. You can fish through here and there are fish camps and such. And there are some homes that, basically, when they built them they knew they were temporary structures. At least at some point in time they would become temporary; but all of your really big structures and all of your expensive homes and development up through here.

As we talked about this, there are also a lot of refineries through that same area. We may see this refinery issue come out. We know from Ali that refineries were operating at 85 to 95 percent capacity at times, and when you get that 85 percent and you lose 20 percent of that capacity you may lose some gas pumps - I'll tell you what, I live in Atlanta but I gassed up all my cars yesterday for fear there may be some type of disruption in the gasoline supply. I don't know that that could happen, but you just might.

Our Susan Candiotti, now, because I was just talking about your 74-mile-per-hour gusts right in the middle of it, Susan Candiotti, I know you're up, so go ahead and start talking.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I heard what you said earlier about hurricane force winds. We're right on the edge of that. We've been getting tropical storm force winds throughout the morning. This is pretty much the strongest it has been here. (AUDIO GAP)

We're right on the gulf. You can see the waves again coming in from the southeast. Looks like it's going to the southwest right now as of course the outer bands are turning.

MEYERS: Susan, we're kind of in and out of your shot there. That's going to be a tough one because I assume now that satellite dish being picked up by - OK. I see you. You're back. Go ahead and see if we can hear you. Go ahead.

CANDIOTTI: Highway 90 is that roadway that is on this side of the Gulf. eastbound lanes have been covered by the Gulf of Mexico. They're flooded out. The westbound lanes are a little bit higher up. They're still OK. We are about 20 feet above sea level right now but Hurricane Katrina, at the place where we're standing, was under water.

We can tell you that they've had about upwards of -- it feels right now as I'm talking to you -- like a shower of needles hitting me in the face. We're trying to keep looking in this direction -- but behind me and I don't even know if you can make it out anymore -- you've got a pier out there. You can't see it anymore. (AUDIO GAP) Some cranes (AUDIO GAP) out of the water, had about 3,000 power outages reported. (AUDIO GAP) people have sought shelter. We are standing back (AUDIO GAP).

MEYERS: All right, Susan. I'm going to cut you off. I'm going to allow you to get out of the wind and we'll get your satellite truck in just a slightly better place because obviously that shaking there of the truck is not available -- can't stay on the satellite, the satellite is so far away. We'll probably move her around because the winds have shifted for her as well. That's what Anderson Cooper is doing right now. He's moving his location because the winds were coming in from the east most of the day. Now they're beginning to shift a little bit and as they begin to shift, where you park your truck in a place you think it's safe when the winds begin to move, Heidi, then you don't get the safeness anymore and then the truck starts to shake and we can't keep it on the satellite. We've seen that many times. And we knew when we walked into this show today that we were going to have some transmission problems all day long.

COLLINS: Yes, no question about that. When they move again, now - I mean, they might have to move again later.

MEYERS: That's absolutely right.

COLLINS: There's just no way to know exactly where it's going to go obviously. That's why we have you, Chad. We'll check back with you a little later on.

For now, we want to go ahead and check in with Chris Lawrence. We've been telling you a little earlier that he is doing what we call an embed with the New Orleans Police Department. He filed this report a little while ago. Let's look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We are standing in the northern part of New Orleans by the Industrial Canal up near Lake Pontchartrain. Take a look at the amount of water that is just pouring into the northern part of the city here. Look at that sign that says do not pass. The railroad crossing, the speed limit signs. You can see that the water is flowing like a river, completely over it.

As we walk over here, you can see where this office is, and it looks like the water is probably halfway to the roof of that shed right there. And as we take you further out here, it's going to be hard with the water here, but you can see that a lot of the equipment (AUDIO GAP) submerged. Just a tremendous amount of water (INAUDIBLE). We think the industrial canal and Lake Pontchartrain.

Reporting from the northern tip of New Orleans, Chris Lawrence, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)