Hurricane Francine team coverage: Storm continues on path toward Louisiana

Turning now to our coverage of hurricane Francine as it makes its way toward Louisiana. Good afternoon. I'm Sherr Min Chow. Right now, the category one storm will spare most of Texas. We've got a look right now from South Padre Island where surfers are enjoying the waves this morning. Meanwhile, a live picture from New Orleans people there are bracing for the heart of the storm. We do have live team coverage with crews in Baton Rouge and on Galveston Island. But first, we want to send it over to meteorologist Kim Castro, she's trying Francine and has the latest updates on the storm. Kim. Yeah. Now that Francine is just a couple of hours away from making landfall, we have hourly updates from the National Hurricane Center. Now, hurricane hunters flew into Francine late last night into the overnight hours and early this morning, they detected 90 mile an hour maximum sustained winds. So this is a strong category one hurricane and then wind gusts are getting up and over 100 miles an hour. Some recording stations like oil rigs are picking up on that as well. So this is going to be a storm that has some major impacts for Louisiana right now, it's tracking to the northeast at 13 miles an hour. So at this pace, it's expected to reach the central Louisiana coastline near Huma by around 5 to 7 o'clock this evening and then pushing into New Orleans on the dirty side just a few hours after that, as a tropical storm, once it gets cut off from its energy source, it is going to lose steam. But before having this kind of a wind field around it, 102 mile an hour, wind gusts expected for New Orleans as it's packing through here. It could reach up to 70 mile an hour. So a very strong tropical storm as it continues up the Louisiana uh coastline and into inland areas too for our coastline. Very, very common comparison. I mean, a couple of taller waves. Yes, no issues right now though, with tides or with any coastal concern, 81 degrees, the north breeze 16 miles an hour sustained, some gusts are gonna get to around 20 to 30 miles an hour. We're still gonna be on guard for this afternoon in case some of those winds do pick up and start shifting more in a north easterly direction. Maybe we do see some issues along the coastline. That's gonna be our primary concern, the coast because here in Houston it's just gonna be a couple of showers, the wind you'll feel throughout the day, but it's not gonna be enough to cause two. Any concerns here locally, Sherman, we are far enough west. The storm is really setting its sights on Louisiana right now, which is why we have crew stationed out there. All right. Thank you, Kim. And some brand new information and video from New Orleans this morning. This shows the wind and rough water on lake shore drive that area under a hurricane watch. Right now. Our Matt Doherty is about an hour west of New Orleans. He joins us from Baton Rouge, live in the weather tracker. So how are things looking where you are Matt Sherman? We've been driving around downtown Baton Rouge for a little over an hour now and I can tell you that, you know, things are pretty quiet. It's just drizzling outside right now. But if you take a look outdoors, I can tell you the capital of the state of Louisiana is a ghost town today. Take a look. All of the city and state offices and services are closed today, all of the schools in the parish are closed, businesses are closed and nobody is out on the streets today. Nearly all of the vehicles that we are seeing out on the roads right now belong to emergency services and law enforcement. Last night, we were in Lafayette and the residents there were relieved that the storm seemed to be tracking a little bit further east. It's good for them, but it's not good for the others who now find themselves in the past path. As of last update, Hurricane Francine is expected to intensify becoming a category two hurricane before it makes landfall. That is expected to happen today sometime between three and five o'clock. Now, what exactly that means for the residents that live here in Baton Rouge and those surrounding areas around the parish is yet to be seen. Of course, we're going to continue to follow this storm. We're going to bring you some more updates in our later newscast. Sure, man. All right. Thanks Matt for the moment. The calm before the storm. Thank you. All right, let's move closer to home right now. Francine kicking up the surf in Galveston. We have a live look there in that larger center box on your screen that is from the island and where we find our Maria Aguilera who joins us, joins us now live. Maria. Yeah. Sure, man. Well, this is exactly what we had hoped for. That friend scene would miss us. And right now I can tell you it's overall a nice day. It's freezing. Not too hot right now, but let me show you the water over here is still rough for actually standing where the sea wall ends on 88 street. And if you take a look this way, you see there's really no beach right now, that's because of the unusually high tide for this time of day, which is expected anytime there's activity in the gulf and that is all along the island. Now, I want you to take a look at this video that we actually received earlier from this morning. That video shows us the west end in Sea Isle. You can see most of the boat docks there are underwater because of the storm surge and the higher than normal tide. Now earlier, we were at one of the most popular beaches in front of the San Louis resort there. The water was coming right up to the sea wall. So definitely not a time for sunbathing on the sand right now. Our coast was just miss as ran, kept moving further east expected to hit Louisiana today. But still you can see the effects of a storm like this turning in our golf. Now just yesterday, we were actually on the ball of our peninsula where there was concerns of highway 87 flooding. The good news is we learned just about an hour ago, that road is good this morning. Now, the other thing that we're talking about today, we're actually going to be speaking with an expert about erosion and he tells us that actually near misses like Fran still have a serious impact on the island over time. We'll have that story later today for now. Live in Galveston, Maria, Aguilera Khou 11 News. All right erosion. A big issue for the coastal residents. Thank you Maria. And although we are being mostly spared from this storm, you need to remain weather smart because hurricane season is not over. Download our free Khou 11 mobile app to follow this forecast and others get information sent straight to your phone. We will have more weather coverage ahead.