Tracking Hurricane Francine - 2024

wider picture you can actually get some evidence of what's happening in the atmosphere here on satellite I not really well opened right now starting to fill in with some cloud cover but take notice of these some of these higher clouds in the southern Gulf see how they're moving from Southwest to Northeast you can see that motion over here as well that's that southwesterly wind shear it's starting to push on this system and I took note in the National Hurricane Center discussion earlier they said that if you look at the eye vertically at the surface it's farther to the Southwest than it is in the atmosphere it's farther to the Northeast that's pushing on the Storm yep which actually is helping it not become as strong as it potentially could of course this is Peak hurricane season so we fear for strong strengthening or quick strengthening but good news is that the atmosphere is working against it at the moment we talked about the shear there let's go to the other impact now and that would be I'm going to jump one more ahead the dry air I mean there's clearly a lot working on the storm in the western side yeah absolutely all of across Texas that is dry air pushing against the system we even saw some yesterday in the mid levels working against it and it's likely to try to invade into it over the next 12 24 hours quickly deteriorating the system I'll go back to that uh previous graphic because one thing we can point out here too when we're looking at this enhanced satellite image the colors represent the coldest deepest Cloud tops colder deeper Cloud tops and intensifying storm but follow that pink coldest and deepest Cloud tops less of them over the last little while so that's another one of those weakening signs signs that we'll keep an eye on okay zooming in a little bit closer now radar overlaid with the track once again we're kind of thinking our timeline for landfall is maybe 2 three hours delayed from what we expected yesterday I think the message most of the week's been about 2 p.m. we're favoring 45ish now Inland by 7 but look where it is by tomorrow morning yeah very quick moving by 7 a.m. so that's about a 12h hour time span where this system just takes off through Southeast Louisiana and the good news is that once it makes landfall it will lose its energy as it moves Inland we're still going to see those Gusty Winds of course all of the rain right now that's mainly ahead of the system so once it does make landfall and move through not much going on behind it which is great news will begin to dry up by early on Thursday yeah and that's current radar not future radar so you see that position at 7: a.m. tomorrow remember what we were saying about it being a lopsided storm on the North all that rain will be north of that Center as well I don't expect much precipitation left in our area tomorrow morning we'll stay Breezy for a little while because we still have that large open Center moving over our area so we'll continue to handle the winds as well quite a contrast between current conditions in the Capital Area and down south right now I'll let you go through the two yeah absolutely as for 5:00 a.m. on TuneIn winds were fairly calm here now beginning to be Breezy out of the East at about 14 miles an hour obviously we're seeing the first of the rain right now quite moderate here in the capital area but other than that we haven't really seen the impacts just yet but as we move further towards the coast we're starting to see those winds really ramp up yeah so the Morgan City stats are a little bit different yeah the wind still East at about 13 earlier we were seeing pushing 20 and the gust really beginning to pick up there as well um as for the radar still much of that some of the deeper convection and um more moderate even heavy rainfall impacting Morgan City at the moment and like we said with those winds picking up it's pushing the water towards the coastline and we're going to start seeing those Storm surges impact the region yeah we so that's kind of a wrap on our stage Setter here of what we're expecting over the next uh couple of hours here we'll be with you all afternoon long myself and Emma Kate Cowan through about 3:00 we'll tag in Malcolm Byron a little bit later too and uh yeah we're here on the air we've got our mobile app where you can follow you can track the storm on the Storm Station weather app too you can zoom into your neighborhood and see how close the track is to you we are going to be updating our forecast blog every hour on wbrz.com so all of this detailed information we're giving you on the air we've got it in picture and written form online if you want to stay up to date with that we will continue to tweak it and those new advisories that are released once an hour you'll see them on the WBZ weather Facebook and X platforms as well so em K I think they're going to check back in with you in just a couple of minutes here and I'll be rejoining within the hour as well JP and Brandy back to you thank you so much for the storm station team and all of you to work yall are doing thank y'all well we are only hours away from Francine making landfall here in Louisiana stay weather aware with the storm station download the WBZ news and weather apps to stay ahead of the storm now you can stream all of our live team coverage and get up to thee minute updates even if your cable and power goes out this is critical we'll be streaming live on YouTube getting you the important information to help you weather the storm yeah and they just gave us a great picture of where the storm where we stand right now as Dr Josh and Ne just showed us Francine is getting close to making landfall along the Louisiana coast and one of those areas that we'll see the first effects of the storm St Mary Parish that's right and that's where we find meteorologist B Rogers who's their live now Bal good afternoon tell us what conditions are you seeing where you are well so far in Morgan City we're not seeing too bad of conditions uh it's not that bad right now wind's really only gusting to around 35 milph but we're really awaiting the core of the system making landfall uh over the next several hours uh at the noon advisory National Hurricane Center even saying those tropical storms winds or uh just offshore right now uh actually had an oil rig just offshore uh sustained winds to 85 milph gusting to 100 milph and all those winds are heading this direction in Morgan City as of where I'm standing right now behind me is the aafa river and we're expecting some pretty serious storm surge in this location and uh actually right in front of me we have the flood walls which is going to protect Morgan City from this River Rising expecting to get uh 8 to 10 ft above what you see it right now and if it wasn't for these walls I mean Morgan City would really get inundated with a lot of water so definitely thankful for a lot of that so like I mentioned conditions aren't too bad right now maybe gusting 30 to 35 mph but those tropical storm force winds in excess of 40 mph are just offshore and they are moving this way uh probably going to get the core of the storm as well what's known as the eyewall and it's that ring of most intense storms uh right around the center of Francine that's likely going to come into this area it's going to get really intense really fast probably going to have wi out conditions cannot roll out some wind gust to 100 milph as well that's going to do some damage to trees maybe a few power lines down and uh with that type of winds maybe a little bit of structural damage as well so after that most intense rain does move through might even get into the eye of the storm and that's where we see a complete calm in the Wind before the backside comes through and it gets windy once again so probably going to have to move from this location now cuz uh in a few hours this might actually be underwater but we're going to continue to provide updates all throughout the afternoon and evening here in Morgan City so I'm live in Morgan City meteorologist Balin Rogers WBZ Channel 2 send it about to you in The Newsroom all right Balin stay safe out there and of course Morgan City St Mary Parish uh no stranger to hurricanes and storms STS in fact back in 1992 just about every building in Morgan City suffered some damage courtesy of Hurricane Andrew which swept through that area and as you can see uh pretty good conditions there they standing I thought it' be much worse given that the storm is so very close from making landfall and it looks like looks like Morgan City's in the Bull's Eye yeah Morgan City definitely in the Bull's Eye and of course we're definitely going to be keeping a close eye on it we'll check in with Balin cuz we're seeing the rain come down there but like you said it's not as windy as maybe he had anticipated but he did let us know in a few hours that same location where he is could look totally different and start to see some storm surge yeah and he's going to have to move because that historically and traditionally that floods right there as it's being you know it goes up against that seaw wall that he was talking about so we'll check in with him again and we'll check on conditions coming up but you know utility companies like energy are preparing their Crews to respond to Hurricane Francine and today just a short while ago interview official sharing their message this message with the community we're out here finishing up our preparations for her hurricane Francine we know it is expected to come ashore in just a few more hours could come in as a category 2 storm so we're finishing up those preparations we prepare for storms throughout the year in fact we hold our annual hurricane drills through May to make sure that we're ready for storms such as this now anergy also says to stay away from down power lines and to call them before touching any of them now we've been learning from um the next report that we're going to go to about things that are happening in Ascension Parish and we just got notification if you have the WBZ News app we just pushed this to your phone just about a minute ago that the Lamar Dixon Expo Center will open in about 13 minutes at 12:30 as a shelter it's a one of those lash Resort shelters so if you need to shelter you can go to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center they're going to open up at 12:30 for those in Ascension Parish plenty of room plenty of facilities and I know that a lot of the folks there actually bring food up there to help uh people who stay there and to feed people who stay so Lamar Dixon opening up in just minutes as a shelter of Last Resort you know and officials are urging everyone to stay vigilant and safe this frantin makes its way to Louisiana coast that's right news to's Fallon Brown is live with a message from State Police Fallon good afternoon so what is State Police telling the public well good afternoon Brandy and JP right now I'm here with uh Trooper Shelby Mayfield who is with Louisiana State Police they have been busy getting ready for Hurricane fren scene so tell me what kind of preparations you guys have been taking uh ahead of this bad weather so since yesterday um in preparation for the you know the inclement weather that was coming uh we took the initiative to double sap our shifts and get our Personnel to include some of the supervisors out on the roadway um spread out equally across our troop area just to make sure we're in position and in place uh for some of the uh implications that's going to come from out you know the storm that's inbound right and I mean even right now you know the storm hasn't gotten bad yet but we are outside we can see the road lots of people out and about right now so what message do you have to the community as far as staying safe goes so since the you know hurricane season begin one of the things that we focused on was getting a message out you know hurricane preparedness disaster preparedness and right now is the time that it's time to execute that plan so this is not a good time to be out on the roadway all the things that you know should have been accomplished you know to prepare for the storm should be done at this point you know one of the reasons that we Tred to put the Troopers in place to get things done and be you know stage to respond was to prevent having to respond to the things that we actually can control one of the things that we can control is reducing the amount of crashes and other responses that our Troopers are going to have to make um prior to the storm so for every incident that we face or that comes up to include roadway crashes and severe uh incidents that's going to take some of those emergency responders off the road roadway so we just ask that our residents hunker down this is the time to be in place wherever that place is that you're going to be during the storm now it's the time to be in that place right and of course you know when it comes to road closures and any down trees any hazards at all out there on those roadways you can also stay connected with Louisiana State Police on social media um and I heard you mentioned something about 511 so there's a 577 which is star uh LSP star 577 and you can call that number in case you uh witness or observe a hazardous uh driving situation and report it so that Troopers can respond but again if there's an emergency situation uh for yourself or your family or something that you observe 911 would be the appropriate number absolutely and of course you know we are also going to do what we can to communicate to the public everything you need to know when it comes to road hazards out there and anything hurricane related so keep in touch with our social media if you have the WBZ app turn those notifications on that way you can stay informed and stay safe out there even if you do lose power we'll go ahead and send things back to the desk now uh Trooper Mayfield thank you so much for being here with me today and for protecting and serving the community as always live in Ascension Parish Fallon Brown wbrz news to all right thanks so much Fallon so lots of important tips there I know a lot of our state officials have been kind of saying that same thing you know 511 get a game plan dialing some of these important numbers so that you can get access to resources and information but of course I think one of the big things you should do download the WBZ news and weather apps we are pushing notifications and push alerts straight to your phone at the minute we're getting them whether that's advisories from the National Hurricane Center that we're getting every hour or like we just told you the Lamar Dixon Expo Center has opened up as a shelter and there are other shelters also in the area yeah Colonel Robert Hodges the head of state police said earlier in the briefing we had from the governor's office that they'll have many more Troopers out on the roadways this afternoon just checking for possible down power lines flooding and that kind of thing but he urged people to stay off the roadways whether it's main arteries interstates look stay home don't head out in the roadways it will be a very hazardous situation that's right and right now we should be wrapping up those preparations because now is the time to stay safe and hunger down from Francine is continu to make the storm's way to the Gulf Coast that's right in news to Alexis mariny reports from assumption Paris this afternoon Alexis good afternoon so set the scene for us where are you and how's it looking out there hey Brandy hey JP we are in Assumption technically in Napoleonville and I'm here with Bri Andress our sports reporter who is wearing a different hat today but we've been driving through the storm we were in Iberville we Iberville Parish rather and we came over here to assumption uh we've been checking out shelters and we've watched the the the rain and the the wind sort of pick up but we really we've both experienced hurricanes our entire lives and it's not been anything just yet but I mean of course Bri what have you seen we've been driving well well since we've been driving it's been a steady kind of shower the rain hasn't been too bad but ever since we got to assumption Parish at this community center the wind has picked up significantly I went out to the car to get some more of our gear and my hat flew off so that was fun but um we in a safe place now the shelter that we're at they are open to the public in Assumption Parish allowing people to come in for a safe place to stay throughout the storm they don't expect it to be that long just about 12 hours but assumption Parish has been through something like this before for so it's not anything that they're new to just like many of us here in south Louisiana actually an aadan ambulance just pulled up to the community center here and that's going to be good to have handy you know if something does happen somebody has a medical emergency obviously can't get to a hospital right now we don't want anyone on the roads so it'll be helpful to have something like that but things should start picking up and it's good time now to stay shelter in place I also want to note something that we haven't really talked about in a lot in these newscasts is there's a lot of mobile homes near us in Assumption parish as we drove through there was a bunch of them and I think it's important for those folks to also know that you should be taking shelter um I think we've heard in Hurricane preps our entire lives that you want to make sure you are in a building that is safe to the ground um you are in a building with four walls that's not going to be able to pick up um and we've seen a lot of folks who've come in here and it seems to be the folks who are who are coming from those mobile homes to this um to this facility I also want to knowe we spoke to Leroy Blanchard he's with the police jury um and he told me like Brie said that this area has has been through Hurricane Katrina they've been through Ida they've been through Gusto and they've seen um damage from those storms but they're usually pretty quick to to pick things up afterwards but they want to not to stay off the roads After the Storm even once the rain's gone and you can drive through safely if you think you can drive through safely it is not safe to drive on those roads just yet yeah absolutely he said wait about 24 hours after the storm passes and then they'll open the roads back up and get and start cleaning up debris they said with hurricane Ida it took about 7 days to clean up all the debris and that was a really bad storm that impacted assumption Parish especially the east side of assumption Parish very significantly I know it affected my hometown in Theo Parish very very heavily so we don't know what this storm can bring yes it's it's a category one hurricane but it can bring a lot more damage to certain areas than others so it's always better to be safe than sorry in these type of situations just make sure to stay shelter in place make sure you have everything you need and if you don't find a shelter near you that is open that if you're not already there get there ASAP because we don't want you on the roads but um the the storm hopefully won't be as bad as others in the past sure and we are in Assumption right now but we were also in eille about an hour ago and there is a shelter on in White Castle um along buoy street so get there be safe um there's food and water at that shelter also um but we're going to send it back to you guys in the studio live in Assumption Parish Alexis Mary and Bri andras WBZ news2 great job Alexis and Brie thanks for that report and don't let the scene behind them fool you as you can see it's kind of calm there trees are not really blowing in any direction a little bit of rain that's only going to get much worse throughout the afternoon yeah Governor Jeff Landry actually talked about that same thing in his 11 o'clock press conference about the fact that even though it's a category one possibly a category 2 doesn't mean that we should turn our nose at it and think little of it because the impacts can still be real it can still spin tornadoes and wind damage and all of those good things so we want to make sure that we're prepared and staying safe throughout this entire weather event well last minute preparations are are also under way in St Gabriel that's right that's where we find Destiny Beasley she's live in St Gabriel in abille Parish with the very latest hello everyone I'm out here in St Gabriel near the fire district Iberville Paris Fire District number one and as you can see it's starting to come down a little bit harder just a few minutes ago it really wasn't coming down that much but it just decided to pour down a little harder and we have a puddle it's it's not that high but you can tell it's starting to build up just a tad bit but it's not everywhere it's just in different parts of the area and they also have sandbags we have people coming in and out of the area grabbing sandbags just for those last minute preparations and also they have a last resort shelter at the St Gabriel Community Center and I have with me Cal Grace and Captain snelson and they're going to tell us a little bit about the last Resort shelter so tell me a little bit about that sure so uh hille Parish president Chris in conjunction with city of St Gabriel officials uh uh Red Cross as well we have stood up a l a shelter of Last Resort at the uh St Gabriel Community Center here on Garden Simon LeBlanc uh and that's for folks that uh housing may not be adequate to withstand the storm we're asking if you come Iberville Parish residents to bring your IDs any medications and uh sleeping uh accessories for the ride of the storm for the rest of the night here in St Gabriel and we have Captain snelson here representing the Iberville Parish Sheriff's Department he and his guys are here they're they're Manning uh the area here we commandeered the uh first five district one and that has become our East Iberville uh emergency Operation Center so we double duty here today with the fire district one located here on 30 to actually be our uh EOC for the east side so the east side is well covered with appreciate Sheriff stassy we appreciate Captain snelson for providing us with the manpow so that we can monitor this storm actively and respond accordingly all right and I know it is coming down just a little bit harder than before you know just a couple of minutes ago it was just lightly you know coming down and I know we were talking earlier that if it does start to get to those levels of where it is a flood you all have an aquad Dam so just talk to me a little bit about that yeah the world famous aquadam well we are here monitoring the condition um we're taking guidance from our Parish president our staff Engineers are in the building right here behind us and if the conditions present themselves we are ready and uh able to deploy the aquadam as you can see it's here in the back and uh we'll be looking that and we'll get guidance from uh National Weather Service GOP as well as Parish president Chris deel so we're we're standing at the ready to be able to deploy that in the time that it if it presents itself and Captain SN son just as far as those safety precautions that people should think about as it is you know hurricane Francine she is coming a little closer just some hours away what should think some things that people should keep in mind stay at home stay off of the roads the road there's there's going to be some debris in the roads and they are going to be impassible and it makes everybody's job harder to get the roads cleared if there's a bunch of traffic out in the area all right so y'all all heard that just make sure you stay safe and also if you are coming across any type of flooded areas as they say turn around don't drown make sure you stay dry and go to those last Last Resort shelter places as well in Iberville Parish Destiny Beasley WBZ News 2 all right Destiny thanks for that please stay safe out there and as you can see the condition is starting to deteriorate there in Iberville parish and it was interesting that the police were talking about that aquadam the was a bone of contention between Iberville and East R Parish because there was a lot of flooding going on there that's right and of course if we see that come out we'll show you some video of that in the past but um we're watching the water or at least the rain start to build up there in Iberville Parish when we were down in St Mary Paris checking in with meteorologist B Rogers you can see he was getting some heavy rain where he was so very interesting to see that as we get further into the noon hour We're watching those conditions deteriorate just like Emma Cade has been telling us all morning long that afternoon the governor said that at 11 o'clock that now is the time to hunker down the time for preparing is over and we are now in the time where the storm is right up on our back door yeah from St Mary to St Gabriel New Roads to Napoleonville we've got your cover we are your source for important information to help you weather Francine stay with us we're going to take a short break back with much more of our continuing coverage right after this here's our new store every mattress you see is on sale now we have Queen starting at 249 and this Queen's only $4.99 and remember don't pay too much for your mattress get the BR mattress outlet today this is your city these are your streets injured in a car crash this is your lawyer cashio injury attorneys it's L's and the summer sale right now get $100 off each L window or shutter plus free installation L products are beautiful best-in-class and made to withstand the elements of the Gulf South for over 65 years LS has manufactured installed and warranted our own product no 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few things don't you think we should be selling some mattresses first well we have all these mattresses Queen started at $249 miss caffy your deliveries here from Town Center really the storm station is tracking Francine good afternoon welcome back to our special coverage of tracking Francine I'm John past and I'm brand be Harris the storm has been making its way to the Louisiana coast all morning long all now through the afternoon let's go to storm station meteorologist and mate Cowen for the very latest on Francine's track emay good afternoon so any shifts in the track or any strengthening not seeing much changes of the track over the past couple of hours you guys Francine still moving mainly Northeast at about 10 miles an hour now up to 13 miles an hour getting closer to the Louisiana coast impact about a little over 80 miles from the coastline a bit further towards Morgan City and we're already beginning to see those impacts as the winds pick up pushing some of that water towards the coast raising the issue for of course those Storm surges this is where the warnings are and that's where we can see up to 10 ft of storm surge build into the region we actually had an um alert put out by the National Hurricane Center saying that that was beginning about an hour ago so all those individuals down there are beginning to see the impacts already in fact Morgan City right now that's look at the current conditions seeing some of the more moderate even heavier downpours the winds are beginning to ramp up that way and they will be the first to see those hurricane force winds in fact taking a look over the next several hours by 300 p.m. sustained winds up near 30 mph gust near 50 and then completely um soaring p in as Francine does make landfall right in that St Mary Parish region 42 mph winds expected gusts up to 70 miles hour by 6 pm. up near 80 M an hour by later on tonight and then you can see that significant drop in the wind speeds overnight that's a look at midnight tonight as that system continues to move northwards now not as high of wind gust here in the Baton Rouge area in fact as we take a look we probably will stay a little Breezy through the rest of the afternoon by around 6: p.m. we'll see some of the highest gusts exceeding the 50 m hour mark by later on tonight as that system moves throughout the region but then you can see not as sharp as the drop off we'll see those Breezy conditions into the overnight hours this is the latest look at the radar and Francine's track you can see still expected to be at Hurricane strength when it does make landfall later on this afternoon the latest data suggests anywhere between those later afternoon hours 4: 5:00 p.m. could be when we see the system make landfall still at 90 mph those maximum winds should stay very similar by the time it reaches that St Mary Parish region and moves northward the good news is that once this system makes landfall it will begin to deteriorate lose some of its energy and by the time it makes it to Baton Rouge not as likely to see hurricane force winds and then also something to point out by 700 a.m. on Thursday this system will well above our region into Mississippi back down to tropical storms dring so taking a bit closer in I want to point out that this eyewall that we've been tracking it is a bit east of the natural Hurricane's track that might implied that it's taking a bit of a jog to the east not enough to really make an impact on the forecast but it's something that we will watch closely here in the storm station of course with tropical storms hurricanes we all know that on the east side of the system is where we see the strongest impacts this is a look at where it's expected to make landfall you can see that track hasn't changed much and right around that region is where we could see those hurricane strength winds outside of that a wider area of those tropical storm strength winds so much of Southeast Louisiana still feeling those impacts in fact as we take this system Northeast through Southeast Louisiana nearing the Baton Rouge area still likely to see those tropical storm strength winds later on this evening but Baton Rouge does sit just to the west of the system so we do anticipate places like Livingston Parish Tang beo down in both Ascension assumption St James seeing some of these stronger impacts the heavier rains the possibility for some severe weather impact taking a look at the latest severe weather risk Capital Area cannot be rolled out from some spin up um tornadoes but better chance the further east you go the east of that center of the storm so that's something to keep in mind make sure your weather alerts turned on now as for that track you notice right where the track is expected to travel that's where we could see the highest rainfall amounts around the region right now anticipating 3 to 6 in right along that track can't roll out some higher amounts as well with those heavier downpours that does of course raise the concern for some localized flash flooding and is why we are under a flood watch through the remainder of the day but system not yet making landfall means that we can still see some minor changes in that track which would make big shifts and impact so keep up to date with the latest um advisories that will come out each hour on the hour as we near landfall later on this afternoon tropical alerts still remain the same Baton Rouge area remaining under a hurricane warning as well as many parishes to the south and east up further north still under that tropical storm warning as we await brand scene make sure to stay up to date like I mentioned new advisories from the National Hurricane each hour we should have one shortly with the latest you can always check up on the blog or better yet download the storm Station app where you will be notified when we get more information Brandy JP thanks so much Emma K we are only hours from prancing making landfall less than that stay wether aware with the storm station we're going to get you through this download the WB news and weather apps to stay ahead of the storm we will continue to stream live coverage team coverage and get you up to date up to the minute updates even if your cable or your power goes out that's critical we'll also be streaming live on YouTube to make sure you're getting that important life-saving information to help you weather the storm well as Emma just showed us Francine is getting closer and closer to making landfall along the Louisiana coast and one of those areas that's already seen the effects of the storm St Mary Parish which is where we find meteorologist Bal Rogers he's there live Balin good afternoon set the scene for us we saw you earlier and the conditions were deteriorating what are you seeing now well I tell you what Brandy conditions have definitely gotten worse over the past 5 to 10 minutes the rain rates are increasing winds are increasing as well U probably still not the tropical storm Force just yet but uh we're really getting close to that 35 to 40 mph range and have some power lines right above me and they're starting to make that humming noise and that generally happens once you start seeing those winds around 40 to potentially even 50 mph so winds are picking up rain is picking up and likely uh going to be going downhill from this point forward uh based on latest radar it looks like the core of the system the strongest winds even the eye is actually going to come right over our location here so we're likely going to get the brunt of Francine here in Morgan City uh expecting wins potentially gusting to 100 mph that's going to be a problem for trees a few power lines and uh maybe even some light structural damage as well uh with some of those winds another concern we have is storm surge this area is very prone to storm surge flooding and right behind me we actually have the aaala river which is actually expected to reverse flow as the winds push water inland normally flows north to south going to start flowing south to North and we're going to start to see some water Rises actually in a few hours might not even be able to stand right here as this will be completely underwater and that would be a big problem for Morgan City thankfully we're on the other side of a flood wall and that completely blocks any water rises from inundating the city so definitely good news for Morgan City you're not going to have to worry about storm surge flooding if you are behind those walls it's really just going to be Heavy Rain that could provide some freeze moments of flash flooding maybe some standing water on roadways but I really think the main concern with this system especially here in the city is going to be the winds as we're likely going to get the brunt of the storm as far as wind it's going to get here uh National Hurricane Center has noted in the past 30 minutes uh the tropical storm force winds are just offshore maybe slightly starting to move onshore at this moment so it's not going to be long now till Morgan City till we're seeing those gusts 40 50 even 60 MPH and then once the core the system moved through known as the eyewall that's the ring of storms right around the center of circulation that's when we're going to start to see those 80 90 and then on the higher end 100 mph gusts definitely not going to ride that out here we're too exposed we can see water rises here we got power lines above us so we're likely going to relocate pretty soon go to a lot safer location uh preferably behind a building so we're blocked from those really strong winds and any potential flying de breeze but uh we're going to continue to provide updates all afternoon and evening long and show you how these conditions are in Morgan City City but I'm live in Morgan City meteorologist WBZ Channel 2 all right thanks so much for that reporting please stay safe Balin and of course we heard from the governor's office a short while ago and like they've been reminding us of some of the important things about how to stay safe he was joined by his state and federal emergency officials for a briefing before noon yeah they say the state is prepared for what Francine will bring I I wanted to take a moment um to really thank uh the goep team here and our goep director Jac tibo who I'm going to bring up next uh for the work that they've done um and of course we stand ready uh to answer whatever Francine delivers to us uh tomorrow I want to remind all of the citizens that now is the time to begin to stay off of the roadways stay home and stay put it's also the time to take ADV Vantage of the power that you have currently and make sure that you charge all of your devices uh so that you can keep the maximum amount of charge on those devices um as possible make sure that if you have external batteries you want to charge those as well if the conditions are not too rough in your area then now could be the last opportunity for you to take uh photos of your property uh to assess the damage once the storm has past make sure that you have your important documents secure and in a safe place preferably in a waterproof bag or container such as birth certificate social security cards insurance policies and Etc so we want you to make your preparations and stay informed and goep will continue to provide updates as we monitor the storm's progress again if you can go to your app store if you have not yet and downloaded the um the get aame plan.org app uh we encourage you to do so as well at this time I'd like to bring up our goep director jacqu Tio uh good morning everyone okay uh real quick for everyone the time to evacuate has now passed it is a time to go to ground and hunker down we are now no longer in the prepare for a hurricane we are now in the respond for a hurricane or to a hurricane so what I'd like to do is to take a quick moment and highlight the fact that we've we've been uh uh working in a partnership with FEMA for the past three days we have our region six director Tony Robinson is here uh and he's going to say a few words and then we're going to turn it over to Jay Grimes to give you a quick weather update and we're going to talk about how you respond to the initial effects of a storm so Tony thank you Jac thank you Governor uh Jac said we were working very closely with gosp for the last several days we've got teams on site we've got Commodities here like water meals ready to eat generators that are ready to deploy out uh working with gup we really like you to do what the governor said uh take this storm seriously it is a serious storm your final action should be complete and now is the time to hunker down and ride the Storm Out follow the instructions of your local officials the president did declare an emergency yesterday based on the governor's request that provides the assistance that the locals and States may need for Commodities resources and some reimbursement so just want everybody to know that really is for the governments right now to be able to help them make sure that we're taking life sustaining life supporting actions we continue to work closely with the state and gosip on being prepared for the storm whatever resources are need at post storm and do some assessments to be able to determine what other federal assistance may be needed all right well we just heard from them there they gave us a lot of good information earlier they've definitely been reminding people stay off the roads that time for preparations and cleaning up that may have passed us it's time to start hunkering down I do want to note cuz they talked about um later in that press conference they talked to DOD about roadways that were closed and there's not a lot but transportation wise all but one flight out of BTR canceled all of the flights coming out of Louis Armstrong International in kener all canceled for today yeah and and Governor Landry made a good point now is the time before the storm makes landfill and maybe knocks out power use the power that you have to do everything you need to do whether it's charging batteries charging phones cooking doing everything you need to get rid ready in case the power goes out cuz let's face it power is going to go out in some places because we're we're expecting to see winds uh anywhere from 60 to 100 m hour gust you know when you're talking about a category one almost a category 2 hurricane it's going to carry those very powerful winds and JP I just keep checking all over to check some of those um cameras that we had been checking earlier we're still seeing the conditions outside are starting to deteriorate kind of like what we saw with B Rogers Who's down there in St Mary Parish in Morgan City but of course the condition will affect the linemen the utility companies when I when they get out there to respond post storm and as you know utility companies like energy are preparing for their Crews to respond to Hurricane Francine yeah we heard from them earlier list take a listen we're out here finishing up our preparations for Hurricane Francine we know it is expected to come ashore in just a few more hours could come in as a category 2 storm so we're finishing up those preparations we prepare for storms throughout the year in fact we hold our annual hurricane drills through May to make sure that we're ready for storms such as this now energy also says to stay away from down power lines and to call before touching them and speaking of those down power lines that's one of those things that people need to be aware of that all of our emergency officials have been reminding the community that after the storm the post storm is often times when it's the most dangerous whether that's generator safety and Generator usage or down power lines yeah energy in fact we were talking about it earlier you know I got a text from energy that was telling me that I'm going to read it to you because it's very interesting uh they say that energy Crews will respond quickly when there's a power outage uh but uh and safely once winds are below 30 miles per hour so until those winds are 30 m hour or lower they can't really get out there and start making repair so uh the good news is as Dr Josh and emate were showing us is this storm is going to move through pretty fast so uh that's going to give chance for those winds to die down quickly and perhaps let the crews get in quickly to make repairs and we're going to check in with our next crew in just a second I do want to mention to folks though Rouse's Market in Baton Rouge Zachary Denim Springs Gonzalez praireville will be open till 4: so there are definitely still some um outlets and places where people can get those last minute super last minute um things if you need them and I know some other grocery stores a little bit further east from I started to close and put stuff up in their stores so that things aren't blowing around but there are some stores still open but obviously we want everyone to stay home and stay safe we even have a list of shelters that have opened up shelters of L Resort like Lamar Dixon and Gonzalez but there's shelters also in Iberville parish and the preparations continue There ahead of the storm over in White Castle we're at the White Castle Community Center we're gearing up for whatever Francine brings our way and I just want to show you some of the supplies that they have here um for any residents who need it so we've got cots behind us you can see they're from the American Red Cross they have an entire sta back against this wall um it's basically a big open gym they're going to have food blankets whatever resources folks here in the parish need um you can come by and get it or if you feel unsafe in your home best to just ride it out here with Parish officials I spoke to Steve galat with the parish about what they've got going on here today we have about five Parish workers including myself we have water we have blankets we have cots from the Red Cross in the parish and uh we'll have some food later on so uh I think we'll be ready to go we have a backup generate also like you said there's tons of resources food water beds whatever you need whether you feel unsafe in home or you just need a place to get away for the night um they'll be open through the storm um but come on by whatever you need they've got it in a rville parish Alexis mariny WBZ news2 all right Alexis thanks for that well last minute preparations are also underway in St Gabriel that's where we find Destiny Beasley live in Iberville Paris destiny good afternoon hey good afternoon JP and Brandy now the last time you all saw me it was pouring down just a tad bit but it lined up but there's still a few puddles out here that you can see they're getting a little bit higher and there's still a pile of sandbags still available for everyone now St Gabriel Community Center they still have their last resort shelter open for everyone it was open this morning at 10:00 this morning now it's for anyone who has unstable homes like mobile homes or older Built Homes anyone that can come there for those last minute shelter now since it is last minute you should bring your own blanket food snacks also your medications anything else and I also have the um the aquadam as well I know Cal Grace he told us that the aquadam it will come out only when it gets very severe out here so make sure if you do see those standing out there make sure you turn around don't drown and as you all were saying with those uh poles out there in the lines make sure you stay away from them as well make sure you're always inside and don't go out unless you have to but still stay inside in St Gabriel Destiny Beasley WBZ News 2 all right Destiny thanks for that and as you can see behind her they still have plenty of sandbags and sand available at the St Gabriel City Hall there they have a city hall complex you know it's right off the highway right off the River Road so you can go by there you get your sand you can check in with the officials there and then they have open that uh that shelter of Last Resort and we do have lists of some of those sandbag locations right here on our W on the WBZ website of where you can get sandbags there are other places that also have those prepacked sandbags for you in some places but obviously we are going to encourage you to stay home it is time to start hunkering down as the storm approaches us conditions can deteriorate pretty quickly so you'll want to make sure you're being safe be safe uh and be safe and not sorry remember we are Louisiana strong and we're going to get you through this we've got much more to come as we continue to track Francine right here special coverage on wbrz your storm station back with more right after this after my car was hit by that van I had so many injuries and a lot of medical bills at Murphy Law Farm we return your calls answer all your questions and go after all the money you deserve injured call Murphy Law Farm 928 8800 need a lift in a bedroom it's more common than you think Goodwood men's sexual Wellness is here to help you rise again with our expert care you can regain your Peak Performance visit yourg good wood.com there are trucks and then there's the GMC Sierra available with the connected Driving Experience and the world's first six function multipro tailgate GMC Sierra it's the truck or get 3500 purchase cash on select GMC Sierra models or get a total of 6,000 purchase allowance when you trade in an eligible vehicle see your bayu GMC dealer car WS auto accidents T-Bone no matter what you call it at Murphy Law Firm we've seen it all our team is dedicated to helping you seriously injured call me attorney pton Murphy at 928 8800 let's face it life throws you curveballs at Goodwood men's sexual Wellness we help you stand tall whether you're facing Ed or battling low te we've got the solutions to help you regain the O you need Goodwood is your partner in men's sexual Wellness visit yourg Goodwood docomo it's where the West Begins in 1965 my grandparents opened Bear Creek Western Store it quickly grew as my family says it's Grandma's hobby that got out of hand hello boys and girls this is where the West Begins Bear Creek Western stor it's where the West [Music] Begins the storm station is tracking Francine good afternoon and welcome back to our special coverage of tracking Francine I'm John pastor and I'm Brandy B Harris storm station meteorologist are working over time to give you the very latest information to keep you safe let's go straight to chief meteorologist Dr Josh iches and meteorologist emate Cowan for more all right thank you guys very much yeah new information just coming in Emma Kate and I have been digesting the 1M advisory on Francine here and not much change in stats but this yellow shaded area that you see across East Baton Rouge Parish or excuse me just south of East Baton Rouge Parish and toward Lake Pon train that is a tornado watch yep that's until 1100 p.m. tonight so we keep telling you guys guys yall are starting to see rain now things fairly calm I guess you could say Calm before the storm but this is an all day event so stay hunkered down and pretty much some of the worst action could be later on this evening yeah the tornado watch uh in particular you're going to find it we talked about it earlier I think you said the dirty side of the storm the right side of the storm this is the uh Hurricane Center cone overlaid with that tornado watch the yellow shaded parishes Iberville if it's a little blurred by the track Ascension Livingston there's Tango and then Southeast from there into New Orleans the right side of the track is typically where you have the favorable wind profile for tornadoes to briefly spin up into some of those tropical rain band so that's what we'll be watching very carefully I think you see some of these Western parishes in it in case we do see a little deviation on the path to the west but largely most of that tornado activity what does develop will fall east of the center and maybe Northeast of Center just as the storm is making landfall later yes and we'll continue to watch this and update the system still picking up speed as it moves now mov moving Northeast at 16 mph still good news because that means it'll move through quicker but that also tells us it's approaching even faster and we'll start to see some of those issues out there we'll be monitoring the radar very closely and uh speaking of let's take a look at that right now we do have an eye defined on radar here we also noticed some heavier call it convection shower and thunderstorm activity on the northeastern side of the eyewall and then a band spewing out from the Northwestern side but it is pretty light south and east as some of those factors we'll go through just a minute here such as wind shear and dryy a start to take a toll we checked in with Balon Rogers a few moments ago in Morgan City getting one of those heavier rain bands right now and uh starting to see the rain pick up closer to the New Orleans Metro in Lake Pon train it's just outside here not much wind still kind of a light Misty moderate rain at the moment yeah and really when it comes to that tornado watch if we were to see any spin up tornadoes that's going to be ahead of landfall in these rain bands that's typically where we see those systems spin up some of the tornadoes and they might be quick lived but they definitely can do some damage yeah you know what and this is interesting to point out so you see how these rain bands kind of spin in from the the southeast to the Northwest so think about you have a Southeastern wind coming at the surface and we talked about wind shear working on the western side of the storm so in the upper levels of the atmosphere winds coming out of the West we always talk about how in a severe weather event you need winds moving in two different directions in the atmosphere to create that funnel effect that sheer effect so while sheer is bad for her tornadoes and we have wind through the the atmosphere from aeas surface wind to a Westerly upper level win which is overall harming the hurricane but may help to generate some tornadoes later on today yeah definitely pros and cons with both of that so it's a lot to work with we can't roll out severe weather at any point during the day even if in regards to the hurricane or with those tornadoes all right as we move along to the track here and just push in a little bit tighter so you can see the Capital Area this is now without that tornado watch on there um you continue to see our closest time frame to uh the National Hurricane Center forecast in land is 700 p.m. but notice where the center is it should be a little bit Inland by then I know i' I've had a few comments from people that it's confusing that they continue to kind of waver back and forth between a landfall Time the National Hurricane Center forecast do not ever explicitly display landfall times that's kind of up to us to communicate we believe that's going to be around 4: to 6:00 I think that's the exact text they just put in our blog online yeah those later afternoon early even time frames hours with the max winds at landfall likely close to 90 mph the pros and cons you mentioned emic is that we could see some really significant winds last a little bit further Inland but it should Tamp down on the Heavy Rain threat overall but speaking of those winds it's not just the tornado threat that's greater on the Eastern side it's just the general wind threat right yeah the winds typically will move um from the southwest to the Northeast with this system and so as they move counterclockwise the stronger winds are going to be on the east side and as we can see with the latest track that does put baton ruse just to the west of the center can't roll out some strong winds there but especially for our eastern most parishes that's where we can see the gustiest winds um closest to the eye and to the center that's where we can see the hurricane force winds but even tropical storm winds obviously will do some damage yeah and worth uh pointing out too that that's that Eastern side we talk about winds a lot but that's also the side where you not only have the forward motion of the storm coming from Southwest to Northeast but the winds in the same direction that piles extra water up on those south facing shorelines so along the immediate Gulf Coast east of St Mary Parish coming up the a chaalia river toward Bal and Rogers there in Morgan City and then Pon train going to have to watch out on those Northshore locations as well for some water stacking up there and remember once the storm passes the opposite becomes true the winds come around from the Northwest and we're going to send all of that water back to the South Shores now it likely won't be as high but you might get a minor surge on the North facing shorelines On The Backs side of this system and that does even mean some of the uh tidal Inland locations along the immediate Louisiana coast think fushan Grand a on the back side of those Barrier Islands rather than the uh Coastal facing side yeah something you wouldn't typically think about but definitely is an impact from these topical systems it's why those storm surge warnings often last well beyond the hurricane warnings all right now we talk about just the overall health and strength of Hurricane Francine and Emma Kate even an hour ago we were seeing a little bit more deeper colder Cloud tops with fr than we are now yeah FR still looks to struggle to strengthen even more which is great news it is predicted still to have that hurricane strength when it makes landfall but as of even early this morning it could have potentially become a stronger cattoo storm there's just so many factors in the atmosphere that's working against it to not allow it to strengthen even further yeah and that those Max winds at 90 May well be plateaued at that point we'll keep an eye on this number this is kind of a leading indicator as to where the storm is going the minimum from Central pressure if that is stable or even Rising you have a weakening storm what we were seeing yesterday was a pressure that kept falling but winds weren't responding but usually a falling pressure is a strengthening storm so uh let's go back further and talk about the sheer working on this and why we're talking so much about maybe the upper limit and strength has been reached there are Clues looking at a larger satellite picture that we can find uh to pick up on the wind shear that's working on that storm you don't really necessarily see it on the Storm itself but if you look at the clouds around the area where emic Kate's pointing the Southeastern Gulf To the west you see these high thin clouds moving Southwest to Northeast that is wind shear working on the west side of the storm it's likely why we've never seen an eye cleanly open up on satellite some of those high clouds blow over top of it and uh all of that is good news plus the other Factor harming Francine yeah the dry air obviously storms in the tropics don't like dry air that kind of shuts off its energy source and says we take a look at what's going on over in Texas all of that brownish color that's deep dry air that's trying to make its way into the system actually yesterday when that when we were watching Francine expecting it to become a hurricane a bit earlier than it did it was factored in that the dry air was in the mid levels kind of making it harder for the system to develop eventually did yesterday afternoon and now today we still have that dry air working in from pretty much all angles trying to um kind of die down the system yeah a real small subtle little feature to watch here so think about the circulation around a hurricane counterclockwise right so you have all of this dry air on the western side follow this dry air slowly but surely while some of it's covered by upper level clouds right now it is wrapping in to this storm's Center that little Notch right there that's some dry air starting to intrude on the center circulation of the storm that is what slowly surely gnaws away at these things and breaks them down and that should happen more rapidly as it moves Inland and has those weakening effects due to friction across land as well the storm she the wind shear the dry air all of those working against it look we're just telling you this is why we don't think there's further strengthening I don't want you to think that this means we have a weak hurricane or we are expect reduced impacts all of our impact messaging Remains the Same we're just kind of digging in here and show you what's happening in real time absolutely yeah still expecting hurricane strength um storm impacts when it's making landfall but thankfully we likely won't see it become even stronger before then all right so as we uh tighten up once again and look at the track we look at that live radar uh we noted the speed that's what causes the winds the last further Inland but maybe the rain threat to lessen overall I think Emma Kate that track and the positions of the storm over the next 12 hours really or 18 hours really illustrate the speed yeah I did want to point out this Gap um right here where it looks like there's no rainfall that actually might be that drier air trying to circle into the system so that's something good to see when it comes to tropical storms but yeah quick moving great news that by this afternoon when we see that first landfall through Southern Louisiana by tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. and it's expected to be well well above our coverage area that's great news for when it we talk about rain rates and the potential for flooding because the systems moving so fast won't be as likely to see those um training bands across the region but something to note is that when fast moving systems do pass through it allows for the high winds to move further Inland than they typically could yeah and on that right side on that Eastern side uh closer to the bodies of water is important too you have less friction there you don't have trees you don't have buildings so uh winds will whip across more upon Pon Tran especially on those shorelines you may experience some locally higher gusts than you do in the Inland areas where all of those other factors kind of work against those winds it is a bit of a tale of two stories from the capital city to the coast right now winds at Metro Airport 15 mph 77 still see a few cars on the interstate uh can tell that we do have rain and a dreary day but nothing terrible outside in the capital city yet Morgan City starting to change a little bit yeah those winds definitely picking up down there we just talked to Balon Rogers earlier he was noticing the winds as well sustained winds in the 20s but those gusts becoming tropical storm eventually hurricane strength gusts out there you can see even from the live radar more moderate even heavy downpours down near Franklin near Morgan City even moving up towards Baldwin across St Mary Parish and we'll continue to see these deteriorate the conditions as the day wears on and with these winds in Morgan City I'm working on a visual right now it's a graph that will show you the wind timeline in Morgan City the next time we come on the with our next weather update or myself or Emma Kate will bring that to you I'm almost finished putting that one together but uh we want to show you that timeline we'll also then give you a reference point in Baton Rouge as well for that timeline of wins we're looking throughout the next 24 hours it's kind of a give and take with the impacts we expect in the Capital Area I think just going back Sunday I thought this was primarily a rain event for us Monday looked like kind of a 50/50 yesterday was looking like primarily a wind event right I think I kind of lean like 60 40 wind to rain impacts across most of our viewing area yeah I'm with and I think that has much to do with the speed of this system if if it was slower moving it maybe be more so a rain concern but at this moment the grounds are saturated the winds are going to be able to be gustier further Inland and of course that could mean more trees more power lines things like that OCT over yeah that's the point you made it right there we've had news stories the last few days about the saturated grounds and the potential uh for maybe some of those weakened trees from last year's drought potentially coming down uh it will take less to do maybe more damage the rain we had last week now even more beginning early this morning yeah we'll definitely be monitoring that fingers cross the canopy holds up and stick with the storm station we'll keep an eye on all of that for you we'll have another update here on air in just a couple of minutes you know that we're with you through the duration of this thing now this weather app great tool I I personally use it you know even though we have access to so many other tools uh in housee here that weather app has the storm track on it you can zoom in place it right next to your neighborhood and it gives you an idea and a timeline of where it will be and when you can actually click on on the little icon and it shows you the storm stats at that point so really helpful wbrz.com we just published an update before jumping on the air with a tornado watch New forecast information we've got new forecast images in there on the expected winds the expected rain and advisories are coming out every hour now on our weather and X platforms and we'll continue to update all of that that information of course we're breaking on the air as well but we just want to make sure you have you kind of covered everywhere yeah so hunker down prepare we'll see things really ramp up over the next few hours as the system makes its way closer to the coast all right we'll be back with you in a few minutes JP Brandy over to you thanks so much to our storm station team and we are only hours from Francine making that landfall here in Louisiana stay weather aware stick with us here on the Storm station download the WBZ news and weather apps to stay ahead of the storm you can stream our live team wall to--all coverage and get up to the minute updates even if your cable or electricity goes out that is crucial we are also streaming live right now on YouTube getting you the important information to help you weather the storm before during and after you know Brandy as Dr Josh and Emma just showed us a lot of Livingston parishes on the right side of the storm's path are the dirty side so residents there are making some last minute preparation yeah news to's David Hamilton is live with the Paris president David good afternoon so how is it looking in Livingston and what are you learning about their preparations for the storm good morning Brandy and JPC like y'all said I am right here in Livingston Parish matter of fact I'm right outside of the emergency Operation Center of of preparedness for Livingston Parish and like they've told me today they are putting doing everything they can to make sure residents and their residents are the top priority to make sure their safety is taken care of now right on side of me I have Parish president Randy deette who's here to tell us about little some of the things they have done since the last 24 hours yeah takes pound on the message earlier we want the citizens of our Parish to realize that we have trained for this event we have people in place we have equipment at a stage and we're going to our mission is to make sure that the safety and Welfare of the citizens of livon parish is taken care of having said that all elected officials are been involved in this decision or most of them have been the sheriff has requested along with the homeland security that we have a u a uh Dust to Dawn curfew curfew I'm sorry couldn't think of the word curfew apologize and the reason for that is we're going to have a direct hit to Livingston Parish the storm is coming dead centeral Livingston Parish we're going to have 90 mph winds there's going to be a bunch of dead trees that going to be on the ground in addition to that the title is flood is going to be probably between 3 and 7 foot so that's on the lowline areas that's going to bring a lot of flood water in the sheriff department has to maintain the safety and Welfare of those people and it's going to make it a lot easier if we have a cur a curfew now curfew doesn't stop anybody from going for emergency services or going to their workplace or any any that's necessity what the curfew does is stop the jaw Riders from riding through the water riding over electric lines and no one likes a curfew but it had we will have a curfew the first day between Dusk and Dawn and this curfew is only for the safety and Welfare of our people in the in our uh our departments those people need the curfew also cuz they're responding people are still sandbagging as we speak right now and we have outages all throughout the parishes I think we have six to eight outages as we speak all this is going to get worse as we go along tonight so the curfew is a good call by homeand security and the sheriff's officer yes sir and we're also here with um Chris Anderson who is the director of the EOC office can you just tell us a little bit about like what more have y'all been doing today as well as to making sure like he said there's like 68 outages currently what are y'all doing in preparation yes sure so we uh we have our sandbag operations still moving until the wind speeds HS that 35 mph unsafe Zone uh we will be ceasing operations here shortly um you are seeing those outer bands coming in so as soon as uh those outer bands start getting closer to us and the wind speeds pick up we'll have to start uh stopping those services from going out but as of right now we're still pushing sand to the locations that are low L floods and uh right after that first light tomorrow morning we'll start our push to make sure all the parish residents are getting their roads open and cleared and power back on as fast as we can yes sir and now look we are still here in Livingston Paris and we will be here for every for any and everything that happens and we're here to keep you updated and let just like the Paris president and Mr Anderson said there is a curfew now in state and what y'all say is from Dust to Dawn and what from what days it's going to be only one day first night today dust to D yes sir and that's all we have right now we'll be back with more and more updates as more progress is reporting in Livingston Parish David Hamilton wbrz News 2 great thank you for that reporting David and preparing for the storm Rouse's markets say announced that they around the state they will be closing early today at 4 locations in Baton Rouge Zachary Denim Springs Gonzalez and Prairie Ville will all close for the storm they are open right now for those last minute items you may need then at 6 their locations in mandaville cumington and Sidell will also close well the East B Parish May office of Homeland Security and emergency preparedness is finishing up their final preparations St Vincent of Paul and the Salvation Army already have set up shelters in the parish and new to spoke with mayor broom this morning on how to stay prepared during this hurricane we are prepared on our end as far as City Parish government is concerned uh so I want our residents to uh stay off of the road I want them to be guarded when it comes to generators cuz generators uh can be unsafe if you're not using them appropriately uh I want them to check on their neighbors uh we are prepared to respond uh to the impact of Francine uh but I just want our citizens to be safe in the midst of this mayor broom is also urging people to stay safe during this hurricane season and as she said check on your neighbors families and the elderly Francine approaches the shoreline terrible Parish already starting to feel the effects of the storm that's right Matt Rivers is in h where the rain and wind are starting to pick up just the fact that we had to wipe our camera lens because if we're not doing that you can't even see it that's how much uh rain is now coming down here in h and that's really changed over the last i' say 20 30 minutes where this has really begun to pick up and that's how you know that the outer bands of this storm that has just been inching towards the shoreline for seemingly forever now for the residents here is really starting to be felt you can see the rain behind me it's picking up there's a little bit of Street flooding the wind definitely increasing not that big of a deal as of yet there is a curfew in place here so that's a Walmart parking lot that this morning was jam-packed with people trying to pick up last minute supplies obviously that's not the case anymore people really hunkering down and I can show you just some of the preparations that are being made because this is a place that has dealt with storms before so if you look here you can see uh some of these gas pumps have been wrapped up this is obviously closed if you were trying to get gas to run a generator for example before this storm that time is over now the time to hunker down is is here and then some of these buildings again this is an area that gets a lot of storms you got this here which is a actual built-in system a gate that they can lower to make sure that some of those exposed areas of this building doesn't get hit by flying debris we know that the state is preparing the governor just had a press conference saying that there'll be 2500 National Guard troops activated for all of this there's going to be 400 State Troopers that are actively on duty at this point the state is preparing for a lot of flooding uh flash flooding again sorry we got to wipe the lens there cuz it is so rainy out here uh a lot of flash flooding because what we're going to see Kira is a lot of rainfall in a short amount of time somewhere 5 to 10 Ines of rain uh expected in certain areas that is a recipe for flash flooding so I think if you're talking about the overall risk from this storm and what feels like the most risky it's probably the water more than the wind at this point the winds will be severe but it's the water and the flooding that is expected from this it's really a god official's concern all right yeah it just shows you for all along the coast those areas including Tbone Parish lefou Parish Jefferson Parish and then assumption I can just go on the list goes on they're all being affected starting to see conditions worsen as the storm makes its way uh to make landfall well after Francine has moved through there can be a lot of work to do that's right and two in your size Britney Weiss explains before and after the storm you want to take a full evaluation of your property take pictures and know your name storm deductible if you have flood damage homeowners policies do not cover most flooding you need a separate flood insurance policy to protect your home and belongings from flood damage take pictures and video of the flood damage before removing the water or making repairs you need this to make an insurance claim contact your insurance company let your insurance provider know as soon as you can about your claim so an adjuster can visit your property to look over the damage if you don't have flood insurance you may be eligible for federal Disaster Assistance if your home is in a ferally declared Disaster Area two on your side Britney Weiss wbrz news2 all right Britney thanks for that she brings up a lot of good points and you know it's good to have all the documentation it's good to get ahead of the game before the storm hits uh to make the process a lot quicker and easier one of the big tips that I've always been taught was you take pictures of everything in your home and your area as it is now that way whenever you do file those claims you've got evidence and pictures to show exactly how everything was and all of the stuff the contents inside and and it's as easy to do if you do have some damage whether it's a down tree or you lose some shingles or whatever get some pictures on your phone and then you've got it then you can send it right to the insurance company and make your claim so well you know the mayor president's office of emergency preparedness our map continues to meet ahead of landfall new's Gabby Davis is live from the East B Rouge Parish of emergency preparedness Gabby what's the latest what are you learning JP Brandy we are here we just spoke with an official from the mayor's office he told us there is a briefing going on upstairs but ill end soon and he will start sending officials down here for us to speak with and when we when we do get them down here we will be asking them questions about drainage how is that being monitored Community concerns what are people calling in about and also we will be discussing after storm plans and all be live here on the live coverage from WBZ live in B Rouge Gabby Davis WBZ news2 well Gabby's there with the mayor's office of Homeland Security emergency preparedness a short while ago about at about 11:00 or 11:30 we heard from the governor's office of Homeland Security emergency preparedness GOP what we know right now 2 200 Louisiana National Guardsmen have been mobilized they have aircrafts and water Vehicles obviously they're going to wait for the storm to pass before they can actually get out there and help people if needed but they have been mized and we've been talking a lot about the post storm recovery where all of our emergency officials both local and um on the state level have been telling us that the post storm After the Storm passes is often the most dangerous and they've been re reminding people about generator safety about making room for those linemen and about and and about just some of those other things you want to be aware of including carbon monoxide that's probably the biggest thing we're going to keep pushing is about the generator safety keeping that generator about 20 ft from your home not near open Windows not in a a closed garage so there's still lots of information that you'll want to know a lot of that is posted on our website wbrz.com but right now we are bracing ourselves for impact from the storm it feels like it's been very quiet out there but we have not the storm hasn't really hit us the way it will later this afternoon Dr Josh and mate keeps telling us that this afternoon things will look a lot different outside somebody that's been monitoring the conditions for Baton Rouge is Mayor President Sharon Weston broom and she's standing by live with Gabby Davis at mosp uh Gabby take it away uh what are the biggest concerns from the mayor this afternoon all right here with me is Mayor president Sher Weston broom they just got done with their um briefing and she is here to tell me what that briefing was about please share with us your concerns about what this storm is bringing to us yes we just had our 1M briefing with all of the agencies that are part of our Incident Command Center and um basically we are still in a wait and see mode uh there have been no uh developments that caused us any alarms at this moment uh but what we are doing is continuing to be prepared um listening uh for any concerns that our constituents uh might have we activated MP this morning at 6: a.m. fully activated so we are ready to respond uh to whatever hurricane Francine brings our way is there um anything else that may have came up that may be a concern for you guys um there are no uh immediate concerns as I've been sharing all day um our city Parish government has been working uh intentionally over the years even since we had the great flood of 2016 to constantly improve we've spent dollars to clean out our waterways $70 million we've spent we've worked on the a meat and the co meat and um we've gotten over 30,000 tons of debris out of our water systems so I believe that preparation laid a great Foundation uh for where we are today in terms of seeing that uh water flow that might come into our community as a result of the hurricane and of course our uh departments have all been prepared uh to make sure that they can clean up the roadways if trees are down and do anything else that's necessary to offer a an expeditious response and anything else you would like the community to know as the storm approaches as the storm approaches I want our community uh first to uh stay safe make sure you're prepared with everything you need your flashlights your food your water make sure you're connecting with your neighbors uh but most importantly stay calm all righty we are going to be here for some time interviewing officials about what's going on with the storm and what is the after storm recovery plans please stay tuned live in ban Rouge Gabby Davis WBZ news2 all right Gabby thanks for that and the mayor broom repeating what she told us earlier on tune in this morning it seems to be the motto this time around stay calm stay safe stay calm and that's really a very very important message JP we constantly talk about the fact that you know our area we are very familiar when it comes to storms and active weather season so staying calm especially after all we've been through with storms like 2016 and Ida and so on and so forth it is very important that you stay calm and make sure you stay here with WBZ and the storm the storm because we are tracking Francine sending push notifications directly to your phone through the WBZ news and weather apps to keep you up to date up to the minute with notifications and alerts yeah and I can tell you uh mayor broom throughout her tenure as mayor she's handled tackled a lot of issues but it seems one constant year in and year out storms tornadoes floods seems like uh her Administration has handled a lot of that and she's been on this show a lot talking about everything from floods to freezes and now hurricanes so uh she has a lot of experience when it comes to that that's right we are going to give you team coverage across the board we've got our teams all over our viewing area to give you a live look of what's happening outside and I want to reiterate it may be quiet or seem quiet where you are right now but as the afternoon progresses the conditions will cont deteriorate we are checking in with our storm station meteorologist Dr Josh iches our chief meteorologist he's all over it he'll be up next with another update for you to give you the very latest of what to expect as we track Francine yeah and you will see as as the storm slowly makes its way onto Shore and then quickly speeds up you're going to see bands of rain then winds bands of rain winds so it's going to be one of these things where you may not see anything for a while then boom all of a sudden heavy heavy rains and those wind gusts come in that's typical in a tropical system like this which is why we want you to stay safe and stay whether aware a tornado watch already in effect for a lot of our viewing areas so you'll want to make sure you stay safe those things can spin up very quickly so we'll want to make sure that we are checking in with the storm station meteorologist they're tracking it for you as I said they've been sending push notifications to your phone we've got lots of information of where to get sandbags the shelters those shelters of Last Resort that are open you want to make sure you're staying wether aware with us on wbz.com we have everything you need to know and of important note if the power goes out we will continue to stream live on the WBZ YouTube page you can also stream us through those apps or through the wbz.com website and that's a great Point Brandy because take right now why you have power uh because you may lose it in the next few hours you know get those phones charged get your batteries out your flashlights ready you know maybe cook some extra things and get ready just in case you lose power so you can keep up with the latest information because look from Livingston to Ascension East West Baton Rouge East West fiana Point cap uh Iberville assumption Ascension we have got you covered we have as you've seen just within the last hour we've been all over the place coverage of the storm it's unprecedented we have so many reporters and photographers out covering those areas and they have yet to see any any really bad bad conditions but you know what in the next hour or so that's going to change that's definitely going to change and you'll want to make sure you're staying whether or where if you're clicking around on wbrz.com right now we do have an article listing um the curfews that have been posted because as we're telling you later this evening the conditions outside will continue to deteriorate our storm station is going to walk you through the timeline of when and who's going to be under the gun for the impacts of that but there are curfews in place for many of our view much of our viewing areas so you want to make sure you are aware of that again we're not seeing a whole lot here other than rain and some breezes but we know that that's going to change as they were showing us the storm track I know a lot of people were um looking at that to see that we're on the east side of the storm a lot of the our viewing area on the east side of the storm so they're going to be feeling those impacts yeah right now it is 1:26 coming up in just a few minutes we're going to hear from Dr Josh iches who's going to give us a complete recap complete forecast is going to take a current look uh at the hurricane tell us where it is and how that's track looking any change in the track any change in the speed everything you need to know about Francine is coming up keep it right here we are tracking Francine on the Storm station WBZ back with much more just for you right after this research shows that car crash injuries are more costly and more severe than ever but insurance companies are still trying to pay victims less don't miss out on the money you deserve deserve because you didn't call us dep the results are in an All-Star Automotive is the largest Automotive Group in Baton roue that's right with 14 brands at 13 convenient locations we are the largest Automotive Group in Baton rout thanks to Allstar price Allstar service and Allstar selection you get it all at Allstar so come choose 14 brands at any of our 13 locations or go to Allstar automotive.com serving bat route since 1987 allar after my wreck I tried to handle my case on my own every time I took one step forward I took two steps back so I got Gordon I'm attorney Gordon mccaran we've seen this game a thousand times we know how to take on the big insurance companies and we'll fight get you 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to the Louisiana coast all morning we've been tracking it giving you team coverage let's go to chief meteorologist Dr Josh iches for the very latest on Hurricane Francine Dr Josh good afternoon so is Francine still getting stronger I'm of the Mind onine th Max winds at about 90 miles hour to this point winds are out of the Northeast or it's moving to the Northeast at about 16 mph guys in the back tell M SL it's on so I want to make sure we check that uh we continue to find that storm moving off to the Northeast at 16 mph and there is a little bit of dry air starting to wrap into this system we can see that multiple ways I'll take you through some of those here just a moment the first that's really interesting to me is this Notch that is forming just south of the Louisiana coast you'll notice that we do have a southwesterly wind flow overall there's a lot of dry air on the western side of this system that gets ingested into the counterclock wise uh feed into Francine and that's starting to carve its way into the storm's Center of circulation now and we've also noticed in the last couple of hours the last few scans on satellite you see those bright shades of pink that shows us very high deep cold Cloud tops strongest shower and thunderstorm activity in the storm collapsing a little bit all of that is good news with the grain of salt this is still a strong hurricane 90 mph Max winds the takeaway is that this is not going to be a r up of intensity into landfall like we've seen in some past hurricanes to affect our area but this is still a hurricane affecting our area so not letting our guard down I'm just letting you know that we have likely reached Peak intensity on Fran scine and the results are because of all that dry air that we've been showing off to the west and these white lines on the map that is fast moving mid to uper level winds that tend to rip apart the hurricane as well and they're going to play a role in ultimately steering this thing more to the Northeast uh through our region as we get into the evening hours all so so that's the factor in the setup and the strength of Francine as for what is happening right now when we take a look at the radar picture you can see with our high resolution radar that we've got a storm over the last four hours or so this rapidly approaching the coastline I've been texting back and forth with meteor allers Balon roders and he's uh of the sense that winds have really started to ramp up and they're getting close to Tropical Storm force in Morgan City and actually just a second I'm going to show you some radar estimated winds that would kind of verify what he's sensing there so we'll zoom in a little bit tighter now talk first about rain in our area and we don't have any major reports thus far of flooding that would be expected I think the heavy rain starts about now along the coast and continues to work northward into the capol area into the evening hours keep in mind let me go back just to show you most of the rain will occur on the north side of the system where we see those moderate shades of yellow even a little bit of embedded orange this is where all the heavy rain is radar South of the Storm Center not much ragged opening up where that dry air is starting to take its toll so you're going to experience the Heavy Rain first while the heavy rain is happening the winds are going to start to pick up and then on the south side of the Storm Center we'll likely see much lighter rain straggling showers while the winds remain into the evening hours but thus far we've only picked up about a half inch since midnight in the Baton Rouge area and in Morgan City approaching 2 Ines those gauges are going to start to go higher though here in the coming moments all right now we look at that zoomed in our view and we can see a pretty large open Center of circulation this is the last identified point of the Storm Center from the National Hurricane Center where that line ends but you can tell the center might be just a little bit farther to the east of that so we'll see if there are any more Wiggles to the East and the track adjustments moving forward from the National Hurricane Center again we've seen just a kind of a slow progression from originally a landfall in Southwestern Louisiana to here we are in South Central Louisiana an adjustment of about 150 mil over the last 3 days or so here anything more to this point should be relatively minor in terms of track shift but especially when you're on that immediate Center Line there is kind of a big difference from east to west and the farther you go to the West the Lesser your impacts would be so we'll continue to follow those Trends into the evening but we're focused in on those heavier bands that are starting to move across South Central Louisiana now now I'm turning on our velocity product this is something we use when we're talking about severe weather uh we may need to use this later because of the tornado threat in our area but overall when you're looking at velocity you're really just sampling the winds in the atmosphere when you're looking for tornadoes you're looking for that cross of winds moving toward and away from the radar at the same time telling you of circulation but you can look at the speeds too and ultimately these speeds are the wind velocities above the surface and gives us an idea of what may be within the storms there and what could potentially mix down to the ground and radar is estimating that there are some wind speeds just above the ground of about 60 mph in South Central St Mary and look offshore close to the Storm Center no surprise Max winds in the hurricane are about 90 and radar is estimating there may be one of about 80 in there I will point out that uh this particular position where we're sampling these winds is a little bit higher in the atmosphere because it's farther away from The Radars one over in Lake Charles and Fort Johnson the other one that's been moved recently to Hammond so the farther it shoots into the sky the higher those winds are going to be so maybe overestimating some of these wind speeds at the the moment at least what's closer to ground level could be slightly lower again Balon told me he's sensing that we have about 35 to 40 mph winds in Morgan City and if you say that these winds might be overestimating a little bit all of that kind of matches right up we probably do have those 45 maybe 50 m per hour winds moving toward Morgan City now all right so as we go out a little bit wider and look at the track with the radar overlay here you're seeing Wednesday 7 p.m. 90 that's going to be a storm that is perhaps just Inland at that point we're projecting landfall a little later than yesterday we were saying two I'm thinking 4 5:00 now seems likely on the South Central Louisiana coast and from that point forward we should see some rapid weakening in this system and just look at the progress 12 hours later it's barely holding on to Tropical Storm status approaching I20 in Jackson Mississippi so we're going to see a fast Improvement in conditions before Daybreak tomorrow in the Capitol area but uh that's after uh the next say 6 to 12 hours are pretty Rocky here locally so let's go to Future cast to give you an idea for the timing as how all this unfolds here we are live time we'll zoom into the coast 3:30 looks like the center's just offshore I'll also point out that our futurecast color scale we try to kind of keep this in tune with what you're seeing on radar this is overdoing a little bit compared to current radar and there's a couple things to point out here first off is a stronger storm as future cast is indicating would be push a little bit farther to the East and in the last couple of days we've been talking about how the National Hurricane Center forecast lies to the west of what a lot of the model guidance was showing well if the models are checking in on too strong of a storm or estimating too strong with storm naturally they are going to be a little bit farther east than where some of that guidance has been so I think that's one of the reasons that's been occurring and I also point out that this may be a little bit too intense on the rain rates because it's not what we're seeing on radar right now and that's why I think you've seen the weather prediction center rainfall forecasts come down a little bit from uh yesterday in some cases were a corridor of maybe 5 to 10 or 6 to 12 Ines of rain so now more in that 4 to8 range overall and more like 3 to six in the capital city so all that roundabout way to say our heaviest rain and wind action is occurring in south Louisiana just ahead of the landfall during the mid-afternoon hours and then conditions will start to go downhill in the Baton Rouge area shortly after landfall some distance to cross there heavier rainbands primarily in the Baton Rouge area Gonzalez uh Denham Springs Livingston Parish points south and east to toward New Orleans again most of it's going to on the Northern and Eastern side and then 7:00 and forward we're going to lift this storm toward the state line midnight it's Crossing into Mississippi while there's still not a lot of rain in and around Baton Rouge this is still the Storm Center and it's a low pressure center and that's why the winds pick up it will be windy and drier on the South Side the back end of the storm whereas it will be windy and wetter on the front side of the storm and then future cast shows tomorrow morning some leftover clouds there may be some showers out there and i' clock it is still breathing easy but that magic number that JP and Brandy have been talking about of 30 mph to when those power Crews can get out and start to safely work on restoring whatever's been lost that should occur around mid morning to maybe midday tomorrow maybe not first thing at Daybreak but you should see those crews out and about by afternoon okay so we talked about futurecast and the rain rates being highest on the north side of the storm this is what we're left with a swath of probably 3 to 6 in you see where we get into this blue range here that's some six maybe 7even in totals I think it's a reasonable worst case scenario for the heaviest rain as you know in south Louisiana there are always a few Bullseye point locations that see some higher amounts that's where there maybe some standing water or flash flooding issues but overall this is not going to be the most prolific rainmaking hurricane we've seen just simply due to its forward speed but the largest Corridor the corridor of heaviest rain should stretch from about I 55 southwestward to Highway 90 in Western St Mary Parish and then Eastern bounds on that over to about New Orleans and the lakes and maybe into Washington and St timy Parish on the NorthShore you should miss the heaviest rain if you're in New Roads in St Francisville Woodville and Southwest Mississippi and then from Lafayette to Appaloosas to Alexandria really not much more than an inch or two would be expected in those areas rain always has you asking or wondering about the rivers so what are we looking at from a flood potential starting off with the big board here showing the Mississippi remember local runoff really doesn't have a factor on the Mississippi River its levels may actually be falling over the next few days the a cayia that doesn't have a big drainage impact from our area as well but we will see the level come up about a foot in Morgan City by tomorrow why winds are going to push water in the opposite direction so we're going to see that level rise Maybe by about a foot or two close to flood stage and then finally the Tango at Robert is likely to enter flood stage minor flood stage by the time the runoff takes effect into Friday morning about 17 and 1 12 fet the crest there flood stage is 15 we've actually had higher crests on the Tango Robert already this year now we go to the uh important ones right in the heart of the metro area the AM me at Denim Springs the projected Crest is currently below flood stage the flood stage is 29 ft we know the am me can enter minor flood stage also a couple of times a year so we actually have some wiggle room up to pick up even a little bit more rain before we'd have any major concerns there you'll see some Rises at Port Vincent French Settlement to want to point out those two locations the crests are expected to be uh late tonight early tomorrow once again I think that's an imp effect of the river's somewhat reversing course thanks to the winds and water coming out of the mouth near morpa and a little bit of Backwater movement causing the levels to rise in those locations but again below flood stage tick fall at Mount pear and Holden those are going to come up close to flood stage Friday and Saturday respectively and there's the com atj that's our fastest response river that we keep close tabs on the flood stage there is at 20 ft and the heavy rain tonight will likely cause a crest close to that sometime tomorrow again we have a little bit of wiggle room here that we could withstand maybe another extra inch or two than what is forecast and see these levels come up without us entering a major river flooding situation but we won't rule out some minor River flooding but right now ladies projections have most of our key gauges below flood stage let's go to the wind impacts talked about the possibility of tropical storm force winds I believe they're likely to occur from let's say Hammond to Baton Rouge Gonzalez to Morgan City Lam dunk that you're going to receive at some point a sustained wind of 40 mph or greater in those locations certainly going to be some higher gusts even into New Roads about a 90% chance that at some point you get a one M sustained wind over 40 mes hour rapidly diminishing returns on rain chances heading west into Central Louisiana New Orleans will even likely see tropical storm Forest winds and Grand Isle is going to be close to that as well so this is largely a South Central Louisiana wind event on the right side of that storm I promis this the last time was on air with Ade a little while go and that's a graph to show you how winds play out over the next 24 hours you really want to know the time of the most uh Gusty or consistantly damaging winds in our area still should be on the cusp of tropical storm Force around 4:00 that's about that landfall time but once we get that storm further Inland and starting to move toward Baton Rouge 7:00 hour We're projecting a 28 mph sustained and gusts over tropical storm Force near about 47 mph and maybe maximizing shortly after Nightfall between 7 and 10:00 we could get some sustained winds in that 30 mph range and potentially flirting with gusts I would say around 50 maybe even up to about 60 miles per hour and by midnight the rain will be winding down but don't lull into a false sense of security there the wind will remain again we're going to be on that dry open south side of the center or the eye and winds will continue because we're close to that Center still gusting near tropical storm Force just past midnight and close to 30 mph winds at Daybreak tomorrow but there's that 30 magic number for power restoration as I hinted at by midm morning afternoon tomorrow I think crews are going to be able to hit the streets safely and uh get back in those lines and do their the yman work they do to get our power restored in this area now Morgan City it's a different ball game in terms of wind speeds look at that 4:00 sustained wind of 33 gusting to 54 and uh we could see some gust potential up to Hurricane force in Morgan City this is an estimate for 67 around 7:00 that's a sustain wind of 40 and a gust the yellow number to about 67 mph 10:00 36 mph sustained winds still 60 Center really starting to rapidly pull away from the coast from there and you see a fast drop off in wind speeds a little sooner in St Mary Parish naturally the coastal sections we see those gusts easing below 40 by one and tomorrow morning might even have a single digit sustained wind speed on the immediate Louisiana coast so all of the wind concerns have to do with our concerns about losing power this is a model estimate of winds to what that may do in terms of a power outage potential so we take this with a little bit of a grain of salt but it gives you an idea of how the devastating winds will be at the coast first and then weaken a little bit as coming Inland so St Mary Parish Southern assumption tabone Northern lefou unfortunately there's a high potential of power outage there naturally landfalling hurricane we expect that as the storm continues Inland 5:00 you can see there's still a moderate power outage potential with wind gust extending into uh say a caana maybe southern Iberville Parish over to Ascension Parish the I 10 Corridor in St James Parish and Advance our clock to 8:00 p.m. and still have that low that's why we've been using the wording for scattered power outage potential likely in the metro area and the 1012 Corridor that will extend to the state line through about 11:00 tonight before those winds release overnight and we should no longer have any damaging winds in our area by day break tomorrow other wind concern here we brought you this a little while ago is the potential for tornadoes always a possibility with landfalling hurricanes tornado watch in place for basically all of our parishes south and east of Metro Baton Rouge the tornado threat should largely be concentrated immediately to the north and primarily to the east of the Storm Center so that potential is there through about 11:00 as the storm advances Inland we'll likely see a Southwest to Northeast trim of Parishes out of this tornado watch and of course we will track those storms and if any warnings are issued we'll continue our coverage for severe weather just the way we would in a springtime severe weather event for those tornado warned areas obviously we're going to be live on the air all afternoon evening long tracking this event anyway storm surge potential moving through this gamut of Hazards highest along the coast obviously you can see that we have the levy protection system around Morgan City that's the white area so uh not projecting a surge there however these Reds indicate the potential for up to a 9-ft storm surge on Coastal St Mary Parish uh some of the marshy areas and Southern tabone Parish we may see a foot or two of water in Southeastern Livingston Parish off the shores of lake morpa and a 3 to 6 foot water inundation on the uh North shore of Lake Ponch train and again one thing we talk about is this is all early because you have this southwesterly wind flow or southerly wind flow stacking water up on those south-facing shorelines so you get your storm surge initially ahead of the storm in those areas but to a lesser extent there could be some water in ation on the northwest facing shorelines of course New Orleans protected by the levy there but uh in some of these bays and Backwater areas some of those North facing shorelines could see some surge overnight tonight and tomorrow morning while we get those northwesterly winds on the backside and in some areas barrier islands and whatnot on the backside you could still see about four or five foot of water inundation so we have a breakout now for you of all of these areas within the hurricane warnings and the tropical storm warnings let's go with a region by region impact across our viewing area we'll start in the I 1012 Corridor I pulled out the parishes I would include in this general area for these specific impacts so if you live in one of those parishes that we have highlighted on the map I would expect 20 to 40 mph sustained winds with gusts that are potentially up to about 60 possible we get one close to Hurricane Force but I think that's becoming less likely watching the health of this storm right now rain of 3 to 6 in always a point location that can beat higher and especially east of Baton Rouge the potential for isolated tornadoes let's go to our coastal areas now St Mary Assumption St James Parish storm surge on the immediate coast of 5 to 10 ft Winds of 60 to 80 mph and gusts that could top 100 rain of 4 to8 inches in an isolated higher Mountain tornadoes again should be of the scattered variety rate along the meean landfall point of that hurricane and finally for the northern and western communities you'll be on the weakest side of the storm you'll still notice it I think that you know gusta 45 could create some scattered power outages in Southwest Mississippi East and West feliciana and point cap Parish the rain amounts will be lighter to the tune of 2 to 4 in I don't think we get much higher than that there and tornadoes are very unlikely in those sections as a result okay went through a lot of information there remember you can get all of it on air as we continue our coverage this afternoon but that's all boiled down in a blog on wbrz.com I I hear the keyboard meteorologist emate Cowan is typing away and keeping that updated right now the advisories come out on our WBZ weather Facebook and xplatform every hour now we're getting new advisories you'll find those there and of course you can track the storm and all of the rain and wind with us on the Storm Station weather app you go into the settings there in the maps layer turn on the storm track Slayer and you'll have Francine's track on there you can zoom it right into your backyard and see how close the center may pass relative to you you can click on the Storm icon to get the details of the stats on the Storm at a given point in time really helpful tool there so that's the latest on Francine now we'll get much deeper into radar and current conditions as it's bearing down on the coast here in the coming hours and of course continue following these impacts through our area into the evening JP Brandy thanks so much for that very important information Dr Josh again we're still hours away from Francine making landfall you want to stay weather aware stick with us here on the wbrz Storm station download the WBZ news and weather apps to get all of the latest push notifications and alerts and advisor you can also stream our live team coverage and get up to the minute updates and remember the important part about having the app even if the cable or the power goes out you can still stream us live well also we are also streaming live on the WBZ YouTube page you'll want to make sure you know that that way in case the power or the the cable goes out you still have a way to get the very very important life- saving information so get those phones charge right now and get those apps because they they can be really Lifesavers when it comes to big storms like this that's right in Francine preparations continue all across south Louisiana This Afternoon News two's Alexis Marin and Bri Andress are in laville now Alexis Bri good afternoon we see that you've changed location so how are conditions looking right now hey there Brandy and JP yeah we are in laville a very nice family allowed us to hunker down the storm at their home we're currently under Pavilion right now but the storm is starting to pick up since have gotten here winds are getting a lot tougher the rain right now like 5 minutes ago it was a lot heavier right now it's starting to light up a little lighten up a little bit but it was a lot heavier right before we came on the air I promise but the storm is getting more intense by the minute I'm glad we got here and in a safe place when we did we talked to some officials it's going to be it's a serious storm like it we need to take this seriously not just treat it like it's just a normal afternoon shower it is a serious storm so we are safe we're in a safe place and the storm behind us I I wish it would have we could show you how intense it was about 5 minutes ago because it just started lighten up but we expect it to get a lot more intense as the day goes on that's absolutely right Bri we were watching as sugar cane was I mean it's going you can kind of see it in the background there but it has gotten really intense waves of rain that's what we keep hearing Josh in our ear tell us there are waves of rain coming through and it seems like every 5 minutes there's just a huge like it really just pushes you um with rain um we're underneath a carport but there's some rain getting on us um and it's so it's really intense to watch um but of course the worst of it is not here yet so stay safe just because you see rain outside doesn't mean it's over yet Bri yes absolutely the hurricane if I'm correct hasn't even truly made landfall in our area yet U I had to kind of explain that to some loved ones that the Hurricane's not even here yet this is just the prequel to what's to come later on this is going to be a while before we get any relief later tonight but if you see behind me talking about that sugar cane here the more mature sugar cane That's about ready to be harvested this fall is kind of all over the place that's a result of the wind and the storm but the the sugar cane in between the I don't know what you call them the aisles of each uh line of sugar canane uh has flooded with water so things are starting to pick up I'm expecting it to get worse as the storm gets closer and actually makes landfall here we are further south in laville in Assumption Parish than we were earlier in Napoleonville and things are going to be more intense on this side but this parish is not new to this kind of storm before hurricane Ida really impacted them a couple years ago so this is nothing new so people are really prepared the very nice lady that opened her home to us said that she's been through enough hurricanes she's going to prepare as soon as hurricane season starts on June 1st and she's been ready for this storm for weeks now so it's good to always be prepared Lexi Bri I was going to say the same thing but we keep saying the word prepared over and over it's Wednesday and I think we've done two I've done two preparedness stories for the past two days um and I think it's important to note that here in laville just seven months ago a tornado touched down here um just a couple blocks away from where we are now and wiped out one of their volunteer fire departments it wasn't a huge tornado it didn't hit a very large area um when I covered it then but those folks are still recovering so there are people blocks away from where we are now who are still they still have holes in their roofs there are still you know things in their backyard that are been picked up from 7 months ago um which really isn't that long ago so if there's people I'm sure across our viewing area who are dealing with similar things from past storms so you know just keep the keeping them in mind during this this time is going be really important um because some people have not recovered from those previous storms so this we don't know what level it's going to be at we don't know what we standing here in laville is going to be like just yet but you can only imagine that it's it's going to wor before it gets better I'm sure absolutely like I said earlier it'll be a little while before we get some relief but we're hoping that this storm doesn't have the physical impacts that previous storms have had in this area before we hope it's it kind of just like flies over really fast and gets its way out of here so it's not a lot of lot of damage but of course it is a hurricane you have to expect that you have to expect the worst but hope for the best and that's going to be the situation here we are very grateful to the family that let us kind of stay here to ride out the storm with them they've been very welcoming but right now in laville things are starting to calm down a little bit but we expect things to get worse before they get better but for now here in laville Bri Andreas Alexis Marin back to you all right Bri and Alexis thanks for that and the thing that's kind of scary is when you see those sugarcan fields behind them you're very familiar with that area that's your old stomping grounds but we've seen storm after Storm come through that area sugarcane country and really just Smash and knock down that sugar canane and damage the crop and something we haven't really talked about this hour but we talked about extensively this morning on tune in the ground's already saturated so when it's already wet like that and you can even see behind them there's standing water and the between the roads of the sugar cane so when you see the sugar cane that should be harvested in a couple months already leaning like that that's going to be very worrisome for those forers down there that's right well City officials and First Responders are urging everyone to stay safe as francen inches ever so close to landfall in south Louisiana and New St Jack Shimmel is live with bad rouge fire chief Michael Kimbell Jack good after after so what's the chief's main message to the community this afternoon good afternoon guys I'll let the chief answer that for you I'm with uh fire chief Michael Kimble uh today what did you guys just kind of go through in that briefing and and what are you telling people and what's the message that you guys have so the briefing we just had the homeland security director went over with everybody let everybody go around the room of what is our description what are we doing moving forward and it's a lot of different moving parts inside that room because you have everybody that's part of serving back the city in that room at one time from Public Safety from emergency services to the uh in technology Department's bre red cross Sheriff's Office everybody's in there going over what their plan is which allows us to be collectively have knowledge of what each other is doing in time of the event we're able to have some collaborative collaborative efforts to work forward to get the job done and what are you guys do in the fire department at this time well in this time it's as a normal day we respond to any type of emergency across the city we're still doing that but we're also prepared for any type of wind damage that we may receive or any type of flooding we have the people and Equipment prepared to move forward to go and assist these citizens in a time of need during this emergency so what do you guys kind of have on your list I know you're you're helping people with flooding you're helping people with other things as well you know down power lines and all those things you know what do you kind of go through on your checklist before something like this well for our checklist is of course make sure our people have the proper uh protective equipment to go out into this type of environment we check our equipment which we do daily already and again it's just a normal day at work for us it's just a little bit more preparing for a little bit more of a call volume due to the potential impact that we may receive and what's kind of the cut off when you guys you know when the storm's you know going too much before you guys can or I guess when you guys stop going out to to help people what's kind of the threshold there so that's going to be determined at the time of we want to make sure we have situational awareness and take care of our people but we also understand we have to go out and provide a service to our citizens so we understand there's a risk in what we do every day this is just another day at work again for us and to go out and provide a service to the citizens is there anything I'm missing that you wanted to touch on and let the community know the biggest thing we'd like to understand to the community call 911 for a true emergency if it's not a life or death emergency call 311 and that would get you in contact here with the DPW folks and they'll be able to get you your assistance of a down power line or down tree you know in the roadway if it's not a life or death situation leave 911 open for the citizens that potentially will need that and hopefully we don't need that but we want to prepare for the worst and we're very much prepared for this event thank you appreciate it and good luck to all of you guys today and stay safe back to you guys in the studio all right thank you for that Jack well WBZ Sports director Michael Cobell has been getting around in the city today yeah he joins us live outside the WBZ Studios Michael good afternoon so what have you been seeing out there uh this afternoon I mean just you know just general preparedness right Jack was just at oep the office of emergency preparers for the parish I went to the governor's uh Statewide briefing over at ghep Homeland Security and emergency preparedness for the entire State and he was surrounded by his federal agents and you know State agents that work with federal agents like FEMA Etc and so really that was more of a broad-based uh press conference we carry that live for you here around 11:30 noon right here on WBZ but you know I'm a sports guy I'm a highlight guy so let's kind of get into some of the highlights right one of the things that they were talking about is the National Guard staging and the head of the National Guard here in Louisiana said they have 2500 soldiers staged and ready to respond to this in a varying number of ways and they actually moved them strategically last night when they saw the storm kind of shift and take its current plot path based on the track of the storm moving East as of yesterday evening we started repositioning our forces to the southeast and South Central Louisiana we currently have over 2300 Guardsmen on Mission and we'll continue to mobilize forces to reach approximately 2500 total strength uh before the storm uh strikes the Louisiana National Guard is supporting Civil Authorities and other agencies and we'll continue these efforts uh with a focus on search and rescue to assist with that potential search and rescue mission operationally right now we have 58 boats and 101 high water vehicles in the uh area of operations uh We've pre-staged 14 route clearance teams across seven parishes to assist with debris removal and clearing roads for our First Responders can respond to the storm you know and I think that's the key thing here right that everybody needs to talk about and understand stay off the roads if you when we were coming back to the TV station just on I 10 I glanced over at College Drive and saw in the Walmart parking lot that they're already staging utility trucks repair trucks right so we stopped and got some video of this obviously these are the the heroes right in the aftermath of the storm they're ready to go out but they can't go out until the storm passes the governor Landry talked about you know what is needed to help them do their jobs and a big portion of that is just you people staying at home staying out of their way after the storm is over please remain in place as you heard from all of these agencies it we are going to have a lot of people on the roadway that is necessary to put the vital infrastructure back in place so that you can go about your daily lives we have checked with our utility uh Partners uh we feel like they preposition the assets necessary uh to help them uh Jay is going to give us some great information hopefully tomorrow that the winds will die down real real fast so that the utility Crews can get up and on those lines because remember they have a wind restriction as to the wind exceeds 30 m hour they can't repair the line so we're hoping that this storm passes fast enough through the state and we can get every all those utility trucks and DOD and our First Responders on the roadway right and that's what we all hope anybody that's been without power during a storm here in Louisiana or even on a good sunny day in Louisiana can lose power right so the ability to get those Crews up on those ladders up on those lines and repairing the lines I think is vital so again do your part and if you are at home without power of course generator safety is a huge topic of concern right A lot of the times we don't see fatalities due to weather instances it's it's the things that happen around the weather instances especially with carbon monoxide poisoning that's something that the State Fire Marshall once again wanted to stress generator safety if you are in fact using supplemental power all right that's Michael Cobell reporting outside the studios of Channel 2 some very important information there and again that generator safety that's been coming up time and time again because we have seen some tragic results of that in years past that's right and not just that we on our website wbrz.com we've listed some of the things that Michael just kind of recap there from the governor's office of Homeland Security to emergency preparedness from curfews to shelters to that information about generator safety want to just keep reinforcing that 20 ft away from your home so post storm all of our emergency officials have been reminding us of that all morning and afternoon long that post storm is often when it's the most dangerous and that's what cble just said there too we want to remind you that we have Crews everywhere all across south Louisiana covering the storm as it makes landfall it makes its way through the capol region unprecedented coverage because that's our promise to You When Storms like that here at the Louisiana coast right now it's just after 2:00 and we've been with you oh there's another weather I got to get that app that's right we've been with you since 5 this morning but right now we're going to take a break and step aside we're going to turn over to our colleagues Michael shingleton and Sylvia Weatherspoon and they're going to carry you through the afternoon as we continue tracking Francine right here in the storm station WBZ we'll be right back right 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day only come out to the West Baton Rouge oldies but goodies Fest at antique car show enjoy live music dancing craft food and fun all day long stroll through the polished chrome and cool cars everywhere at the antique car show don't miss all the good times dyo at the oldies but goodies Fest in West Baton Rouge at the storm station we are here for you before during and after the storm with that mission the tropics are a key part of our broadcasts every day every hurricane season chief meteorologist Dr Josh iches and the storm station team watching forecasting bringing daily updates so you'll hear from WBZ first When Storms are coming knowledge and dedication to accurately predict storms be with us through November on air on wbrz.com on the app or however you stream the storm Station tracking Francine to keep you safe the storm station is tracking Francine welcome back I'm Michael shingleton and I'm Sylvia Weatherspoon thank you so much for joining us and it is probably going to be a pretty long day we're going to be here got you covered from the afternoon into the night as we are tracking friends see you know we have teams that are fanned out all across parishes a number of parishes from uh Livingston Ascension East Baton Rouge uh St Mary Parish which is where meteorologist Balin Rogers is where we expect the storm to come uh ashore we're going to check in with Balin momentarily as Sylvia mentioned we have Joe Collins David Hamilton in Livingston Paris we're going to check him with Sarah grey bar she's in Ascension Parish this afternoon also Michael Cobble you just saw from him with uh Brandy and JP they did a fantastic job by the way getting you through this morning but as they said Team coverage everywhere we got a lot to get to but first we need to get to the storm station with our chief meteorologist Dr Josh iches all right thanks very much Michael and Sylvia joining me meteorologist Emma Kate Cowan we've been uh kind of tag teaming here at the big board showing you what's going around the area and uh all day long you've probably noticed a moderate rain in the Capital Area to this point but uh visibility is a little lower than last time I looked at this shot yeah absolutely and the winds are picking up out there now at about 15 mph out of the East and they're just going continue to ramp up as that system gets closer Josh yeah and uh the east east 14 m per hour winds obviously here in the Capital Area something we expect to pick up but we also keep an eye on our friends in Morgan City and Kate you've been watching our uh weather stations like a hawk in there and these numbers are steadily increasing right since I got in early this morning things relatively calm and as the system moves closer now sustained winds down to Morgan City 31 miles an hour with gust even higher as the system nears the coast we spoke to uh meteorologist Balon Rogers a little while ago he is definitely noting an increase in the conditions down there he texted us that he's starting to see some smaller limbs flying around and coming down and whatnot so that would certainly track with 31 m hour winds we're going to get to Bal he's going to have some great video and live shots for you as we move through our coverage this afternoon he's also noticing an increase in rain now that's just the radar cut out of St Mary Parish but you can just kind of see that west east line that's one of those stronger bands starting to move through St Mary Parish now yeah dumping the rain that we've been talking about all week long the heavier rains that are associated with the hurricane that'll move through the capitol area we'll begin to see more moderate to even heavy downpours here later on this afternoon so we'll talk more about winds currently sustained East 31 milph in Morgan City going to get those over 40 tropical storm Force there that's a lock Gonzalez it's a lock Baton Rouge is essentially a lock yeah as that system moves in one one thing we've been talking about all day long is how quick the system is which is great news in regards to the flooding possibility but not as good when we talk about winds because as the system moves quickly that means we can have stronger winds reach further Inland which we see here all the way up into Baton Rouge could see those winds sustain above 40 m hour so let's show you what that looks like in a timeline promised this earlier and we wanted to line it up for Morgan City first yeah nasty winds over the next let's say 6 to 8 hours there on the Louisana Co so you're to just get your bearings here the white number is this expected sustained win the gold number is the wind gust potential and even a gust over hurricane Force for only one second big problems right so now it's just after 2:00 p.m. and they're already seeing those sustained winds of over 30 m an hour those are going to last and even ramp up throughout the rest of the afternoon into the evening hours down in Morgan City by 8:00 p.m. wind sustained up near 50 miles an hour Josh with gust even higher yeah and the the key is that we keep those winds elevated through about midnight as Emma Kate said and we do look at the same into the Baton Rouge area just knock back about 3 or four hours we'll get to that a little bit later on in our coverage but of course our Coastal sections going to take the battering in the brunt of this first the other key number is 30 miles hour tomorrow we want to go below that right because that's where the linemen and anyone fixing up thought any damage done can get out there if it's above 30 m an hour we they can't do their job job safely and as we take a look at the expected winds well good news is because the system's so quick moving by early tomorrow morning it's expected to be well off to the north and we should see those calming winds throughout the day yeah fingers crossed for all those workers and we appreciate that they'll be out trying to get us back online tomorrow hopefully by this time at least working toward getting us online not guaranteeing back online by then rain forecast is the other end of the spectrum you mentioned speed Emma Kate yes that hurts us for wind because the storm can keep those winds a little farther Inland but faster it moves the rain it can dump right we're still looking at about 3 to 6 in while the system moves through of course wherever that eye is in the center of the system that's where we typically will see the heaviest rains usually right around the center into the East and as we take a look at this rain forecast you'll notice where the darker Blues are that's right where we expect up to 6 in of course can't roll out locally higher amounts but that's still the forecast we're trending to see anywhere from the Baton Rouge area in East and those of you that have been really watching this forecast with us closely through the week you'll know that yesterday you did see a little darker blue and even white on this map and looking at our legend that was some suggestion that maybe there were a few spots that saw 10 11 12 Ines of rain the weather prediction center makes these rain forecasts has paired that back a little bit I agree with that due to the fast moving nature of the storm now still 5 six in a couple of hours that's problematic got some flash flooding but the lower amounts overall are better for our Rivers yes yes indeed yeah we don't want to see a lot of rain come down in a short amount of time obviously that means River's rising and even if it was a prolonged amount of time that's sometimes even worse because you get days on days where those Rivers have time to rise that's right and uh now as we talk about that big rain and wind maker and look at you look at it on the radar give you a perspective there that Center is getting awfully close to the Louisiana coast look at this look at this we were texting with meteorologist Malcolm Byron he'll be joining the coverage in a little bit here it was right about here he texted us and he said hey guys notice how the last observed point is a little bit West of where the eye is and look at the National Hurricane Center catching up to that and putting the new observe point a little bit farther to the east so we may have yeah our latest motion Northeast and not necessarily North Northeast anymore so a slight jog here yeah also something to note is that the system's actually continuing to get quicker early this morning at the start of TuneIn it was only moving at about 10 miles an hour and now it's really gained speed up to near 20 mph which as we keep saying that's good news in regards to rainfall and amounts we could see not as good when it comes to winds prolonging into the region let me uh go beyond that every time we have this conversation I think about something new I've discussed with somebody I was on the phone with our radio Partners at talk 107 earlier this morning and they were talking about the speed of the storm in general and I said one thing I I want people to be aware of is that yes this one's moving pretty quickly but with these changes in Direction hurricanes are uh creatures of momentum so as it's moving to the Northeast and later on today it starts to get a tug back to the north from the upper level steering winds because of its somewhat Eastward momentum there will be a point where it slows down a little bit to make that turn and that pivot and that can be alarming I remember seeing that with some previous hurricanes and that's in a short time when you can get one rain band over the same spot because the Hurricane's not moving and that's where we'll get our isolated higher location so that pivot will likely happen somewhere in this region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans later today where we take away a little more of that easterly component and go back to the north we expect that so when that occurs don't be alarmed by the slowing motion it will happen for a short time right exactly and that's when we really Zone in and watch some of those training bands especially ahead of the system because when you get the rain over the same um area for a prolonged time of course we know that's when the flash flooding issues happen especially in those areas that have the poor drainage or maybe are prone to flooding issues that's what we'll be watching closely uh as far as other radar presentation here we're seeing some of those heavier rains and winds on the northern eastern side where it's usually expected to be we're seeing a continued erosion of activity on the southern side uh and a couple of minutes we're going to show you some images that all of the Hostile conditions that this storm is starting to encounter it's why we haven't seen further strengthening from here but let's go ahead and hone in on that track and again Emma Kate to set you up that Eastern side bring some other hazards as well yeah absolutely usually on the Eastern side of the center of the track that's where we see some of the strongest winds that's where we can also have the potential for quick quick spin up tornadoes and we actually do have a tornado watch in effect from around the Baton Rouge area south and east included in that abille Parish Livingston Tango and mainly all other Southeast regions of Louisiana and we've been talking all morning long about how when you have the East um side of the system that's where we see the stronger motion that's where we see the um atmospheric flow but something else we've been mentioning is that we're also seeing some other forces interact in the atmosphere from different directions and then that helps tornadoes form so bunch of different things we're watching with the system yeah we highlighted kind of regionally and Parish by Parish last time I was on air before Emma Kate joined me here about what you can expect and you'll notice that locations north and west of Baton Rouge point cap east and west feliciana southwest Mississippi not in that tornado watch really difficult for tornadoes to develop on that Northern Western flank so we don't Focus too much on Center for the reason being you do feel impacts away from the center they do happen but the specific impacts are important to where the center goes so that direct Center Line especially as we get closer to with an hour or two reaching your location becomes really important north and west of that the tornado threat should be pretty minimal for you speaking of the Eastern side the tornado threat is there and just in general it's where there's a greater wind threat yeah obviously we know the greatest wind threat is going to be down towards the coast right when the system makes landfall because that's when we're going to have the strongest winds when it does move Inland it will lose um some of the the strength because of the land Factor not as much supporting the system but still to the east side of the system that's like we call the dirty side because it does typically hold these strongest winds and kind of holds on to them longer than typically on the western side yeah surge too I mean you're going to have those more persistent southerly winds on the Eastern side of that line so more water water is going to stack up on these coasts Coast over the Lakes look out on the NorthShore this evening now we've seen two three 4 foot of water inundation in those sections before but that will likely happen again with this system before It ultimately all starts to pull away overnight tonight into tomorrow all right we'll go into a little bit more of the sciency stuff now and talk about what's happening to this storm right now couple of things I'll have you point out here m one is just the coloring on the satellite image that indicating something and that dry air that's starting to wrap around towards the center yeah as you can see in this loop at the beginning there's some purpler colors I guess you could say that's not really a word but we'll use it purple colors that it um tells us there's High Cloud tops in the atmosphere those storms really becoming stronger but when those are dying out over the past couple of hours that means that Storm's not strengthening anymore it's kind of plateaued we've been at maximum Winds of 90 M hour pretty much for the past 12 hours or so which is great news we have lots of um different things in the atmosphere working against this storm one being winds at different speeds in the atmosphere hurricanes don't like that and so it's working for us you can see this flow towards the um area really going against the actual flow of the hurricane yeah and uh I I love this this opening that we're seeing here towards the center of circulation that's some dry air trying to wrap into this system that's going to eventually cut it off as well and it's going to contribute to that overall weakening that we see in the coming hour so it should happen pretty rapidly upon landfall and just based on that presentation I I don't really say see a way that we get much additional strengthening prior to landfall which is what it's all about so uh the other Factor working on this you could see the dry air wrapping into you could see the lower Cloud tops there you see a bit of an eye trying to open up here where that Center is pointed out but this broader satellite picture gives us an idea for the wind shear that is happening out there you'll notice look away from the hurricane look toward Emma and Florida there see those upper level clouds that are trying to move Southwest to Northeast especially over here in your southern Texas see that cloud motion that tells us we have some high clouds moving fast in the upper levels of the atmosphere across the system shearing it from the southwest and the National Hurricane Center remarked that the eye at the surface is much farther to the Southwest than the eye in the upper levels it's Northeast of that storm so that tells us we have that southwesterly wind shear working on that storm another sign that it is starting to weaken a little bit and that's that's a big one too and actually noticing on our Cloud tops they're cooling over land as well and water vapor picks that up emate and it's because of all of this dry a we have working on it so many sides on the west yeah we were talking about this earlier um this week as well yesterday when tropical storm Francine was trying to develop into a hurricane it was struggling a bit because of the dry air in the middle layers it eventually obviously became a hurricane yesterday evening but still at this point tons of dry air off to the west of the system and actually trying to circle into the system as well and once dry air is able to get in there it kind of shuts off any further development and even helps kind of deteriorate the system as well these are all features that past hurricanes in recent memory did not have to fight Aura a Delta and Ida they were strengthening on AO to land they did not have to fight off dry a and windsh Francine does and that's why it is likely maxed out here that is still a dangerous hurricane there is still going to be uh pretty good bit of damage across Southeastern Louisiana but not quite to the level of some of more recent memory storms because of those factors so there's the track you see that first notation from the National Hurricane Center is at 700 p.m. we do think now it's Inland at that point we think landfall is going to occur slightly before that yeah probably in the next three or four hours Josh as the system is getting quite close to the coastline right now we're seeing those impacts already as meteorologist Balon Rogers will show us in just a bit but notice this timeline 700 pm tonight the system moves Inland 700 a.m. tomorrow 12 hours time span it's already off up in Mississippi that is quick great news we want this out of here as quick as possible but some of you guys might be ansy sitting around waiting the worst of the storm is yet to come so just bear with us for a little bit longer good news is by this time tomorrow we should be even seeing some sunshine out there that's a great great point is is I know uh you're off work today or off school today you're sitting around watching the coverage probably power is still on what's Happening thought we were getting a hurricane today maybe it's two three hours later than we thought but those those impacts will start to be felt in Baton Rouge we get closer to dinner time and dusk hits the coast first as Emma Kate just pointed out so all the ways you can stay in touch with us I know right before we got on air Emma Kate was typing away keeping that blog up to date with our new information coming in uh we'll continue on the air here into the evening hours with our teams all across Southeast Louisiana I just love this hurricane tracking tool we have on our app uh you can sit on your couch you can take a look at our coverage watch our live reporters in the field follow along with your location zoom in with the maps view turn on the Storm tracks layer you can even click on the Storm icons to show you the conditions expected at that point and um those new advisories that do seem to be coming out hourly now we do get a 2 pm update so you'll get those on WBZ weathers X and Facebook platform so Emma Kate that's a wrap for now we'll visit you one more time before you get to your rest in for the day but we got to get back to the now and we look forward to hearing what Bal has to say on the coast too absolutely all right Dr Josh and M thank you for that of course we are only hours from uh Francine making landfall in Louisiana stay weather aware with the storm station you can download our WBZ news and weather apps to stay ahead of the storm you can stream live coverage and get up tothe minute updates even if your cable and electricity goes out we are also streaming live on YouTube getting you the important information to help you uh stay weather aware and to weather this storm as well uh Emma Kate said and Dr Josh said just a little while ago that um you actually see the greatest wind threat as the storm makes landfall they say we're about 3 to four hours away from that so kind of think in terms of Morgan City 5:30 6:00 tonight uh as I thought it's very important that they said for those of you watching at home and kind of wondering like where is the storm it's coming it's going to be here but uh just got to be patient and uh stay weather aware to your yeah balen Rogers is out in Morgan City as uh Francine prepares to make landfall he's right there in it he's joining us live picking up this weather event Balon well I tell you what Michael I'm actually at a different location uh there where I was uh earlier I was on The Floodgate there in uh Morgan City right on the aafia river uh that was a more exposed location and we've had to move locations now uh I'm actually shielded from the strongest winds uh building is right in front of me uh shielding me from some of those winds but I tell you what over the last couple of hours conditions have been rapidly deteriorating from my experience and being in hurricanes I feel like we've definitely seen some of those tropical storm wind gusts now actually seen a lot of those 1 to 3 in tree limbs coming down a pretty large tree limb around 3 to four Ines AC crosses down right over to my right uh but we're kind of in and out of rain bands right now uh with each rain band consecutively getting stronger so we'll see a pretty good strong us win as the rain bands move through maybe go through a little bit of a moat and then when the next rain band comes in it's even stronger than the last one and we're really going to continue to see that until we get into the core of this system and uh here in Morgan City we're likely going to get into that eyew wall that is the strongest part of the hurricane it's really the Ring of storms right around the center of the circulation and that looks to come very close to Morgan City slight wobbles though will control what part of the eyewall we get in this location whether it's the Western Northern or Northeastern eyewall we'll have to see little tiny couple mile wobbles could really control that but in general the strongest part of the eyewall is that Northeastern quadrant and we're going to be very close to that and could even get into the eye of the system but when that eyewall moves through it's going to deteriorate fast conditions are going to get really nasty here in Morgan City could see some wind gusts uh near 100 miles hour it's not wind you want to play around with uh that could definitely down some trees down power lines and uh even do some light structural damage as well but as of right now it looks like we're in one of those little bit of e e e e clear aim I take the shot the Hunt is on what it say about sitting in my chair sorry Grandma [Music] the Timeless face when is it time yeah that's a great question so I tell patients so what the Timeless face is is think of it it's really a traditional sort of facelift it's same Maneuvers same procedure loal anesthesia 95 to 97% of the risks of a procedure of a facelift procedure is the anesthesia so facelifts are for ladies and men that are older right the older you get the more dangerous anybody above the age of 65 should avoid anesthesia at all costs wow so we do this under oral station which means no IVs no tubes we give you an oral pill called Adavan and valum okay get you to a points where you're nice and sleepy and relaxed we numb the face there is no skip steps you're getting the full shebang well I think it's a great lesson for a lot of people out there about local versus General and the fact that you're reducing the risk fear is what blocks people from fa right fear of the result crazy results right and then fear of the anesthesia two legitimate fears let's talk about the procedure and your approach to it everybody wants natural wonderful results what's your approach so I tell ladies and men I'm your guy if you want a comment of where have you been have you changed your hair you look amazing okay I'm not your surgeon if people come up to you and ask who's your plastic surgeon I'm not going to give you that surgical look and then downtime two to three weeks Party Perfect Party Perfect two to three weeks yeah face heals amazingly well I love it thanks so much Dr Wilder we appreciate it in my wreck I was hurt I couldn't work I take one step forward and two steps back so I got Gordon I'm attorney Gordon McCaron we've seen this game a thousand times we know how to take on the big insurance companies and we'll fight get you every dollar you deserve for your medical bills loss wages and pain and suffering Gordon got it done and got me $440,000 just call me get it done call 8888888 the storm station is tracking Francine we are expecting a new update from the National Hurricane Center about 30 minutes from now yeah let's send it over to imate for the latest hey guys yeah as we take a look at where Francine is right at the moment still a category one storm with those maximum sustained winds of 90 miles an hour you can see getting awfully close close to the coast right now and where Balin was just a few minutes ago that's where we'll watch the landfall happen that's a look at the our Loop you can see all of the rain bands ahead of it impacting Southern Louisiana as we speak some periods of heavier downpours definitely happening across the board and that's a look at the past track as it's moved the past couple of days you can see that northeasterly direction and it continues to move Northeast at about 17 miles an hour right now here's a closer look there's the eyewall it has shifted ever so slightly to the east but it's still anticipated to make landfall quite near that St Mary parce region probably in the next hour hour and a half up to 2 hours so 5 5 400 p.m. it is expected to bring some of the gustiest Winds heaviest rainfall to parts of coastal Louisiana and then make its way North through the region over the evening hours here's look at some velocity that tells us how fast the speeds or the winds are just above the ground up to 70 mph winds right now in Morgan City right off the coast closer to 95 mph that's where that iall is currently that's where where we're definitely going to see the gustiest conditions as the system makes its way Inland there's another look with the track on top we'll get another update in about 30 minutes like Michael mentioned but as for now not anticipating any um more or heavier rain or an upgrade I should say was still sticking with a category one storm through landfall and then thankfully as it makes landfall it'll quickly lose some of its steam in fact taking a look at the Timeline by 700 p.m. moving Inland by 7 a.m. tomorrow well off to the north of Southeast Louisiana so like we've been stressing it is a quick Moving System that's good news in regards to the flood threat can't roll out some flash flooding and isolated um places but more so we're dealing with the wind threat with the system as it moves through the winds will stay higher for longer amounts of time reaching into the Capital Area let's time this out for you guys like I mentioned really in the next two hours we do anticipate a landfall right around that St Mary Parish region you can see that's a look at 3:30 p.m. as this model predicts and then as it moves Inland the rest of your afternoon and into the evening we'll see some of the gustiest conditions the heaviest downpours the strongest storms with the system as it continues moving mainly North Northeast through the region now we've been talking a lot about how on the Eastern side of that Center Line is where we'll see some of the heaviest rains and as you can see right now really pretty much from bat Rouge East is where we anticipate some of the strongest action later on this evening that's 700 p.m. tonight up near point cap Parish Northern Iberville might even see some dry time while all of us are seeing some heavier rain so that's something to keep in mind the further west you live the less likely you are to see some of the um frunt of the storm and then good news like we mentioned moving quickly so by 10 p.m. things will begin to lighten up around here as the system continues to move north may have some lingering showers and storms into the early hours of your Thursday that's a look at 1 pm. but by the time you're waking up tomorrow morning things will be mainly dry out there possibly a bit Breezy but overall drying up as that system continues to push North that's a look at expected rainfall as with most tropical systems the eyewall and areas just to the East are going to hold the heaviest rains within them we're dealing with about 3 to six inches of expected rainfall right along the path of the storm some heavier localized mountains definitely possible and of course if all of this comes down in a quick amount of time or a short amount of time or over a prolonged amount of time that's when we can start to see those flash flooding issues so we'll monitor that closely but as you can see once again just to the northeast of the Baton Rouge area less likely to see some of those higher rainfall amounts as for River forecast not looking at any potential or probable flooding issues of the rivers um most are looking decent around the region sticking at or just below um forecast conditions for flood stage I should say now we've talked rain we've talked the rivers something we also watch of course with these tropical systems is those Gusty winds or even sustained winds at high levels grounds very saturated right now from last week's rain from the rain we're getting all day today and so things easily top all over when we get those high wind gusts but also when sustained winds are over 40 mph that's when we can see a lot of damage as well and for the capitol region it's looking very likely here almost 100% certainty we'll see those winds get up near 40 m an hour we're already seeing that down near the coastal regions where Francine is about to make landfall let's just take a look at Baton rouge's expected winds over the next several hours right now in the teens we've already seen some gust up into the 20s but by 5:00 pm as hurricane Francine makes landfall and moves North we could see gusts up to 40 m hour even closer to 50 m an hour with sustained winds near :30 right around 8:00 p.m. into those late hours of your night and then as the system pushes North we'll be begin to Cal out into your Thursday Oregan city is a whole different picture of course that's where we're going to see the strongest conditions because it's closest to the coast already seeing those gusts quite High could get up near 57 miles an hour for gust just in the next couple of hours and then tonight as that system continues to push North maybe even getting gust up to 80 mph with sustained winds of 50 or more so definitely winds a huge threat when it comes to the system and of course with winds we have down power lines we could potentially see some scattered power outages around the region this is just a model to give us an idea of where we could more than likely see at least some scattered outages definitely down near the coast where the um hurricane is going to make landfall that makes sense that's the strongest condition so Morgan City tooma scattered outages definitely a possibility and then mainly to the southeast of the Baton Rouge area where the strongest conditions are anticipated we'll see some scattered outages so make sure to charge up those phams now we're still not going to see those direct impacts until later on today so keep them charged and have a way to receive alerts even if they do die one more thing to note tornado watch in effect until 11 p.m. this evening with all of these winds around and even some winds working in opposite directions in the upper atmosphere raises the concern for spin up tornadoes especially ahead of landfall haven't seen any issues yet but we will continue to monitor that that's pretty much for all of Southeast Louisiana excluding the Baton Rouge point cap West feliciana East fana and St Elina parishes so keep that in mind of course like we say stay weather aware turn those alerts on we'll be here all afternoon tracking this out for you and we'll keep you updated through wbrz.com and our apps all right M thanks well a lot of storb damage can involve trees even trees that may not belong to you yeah two on your side Britney wise answers a question many people may have who uh pay for the damage who actually pays for the damage and whether an insurance company will pick up the tab my neighbor's tree fell on my property and now I have a tree in my yard or Worse on my house or car what do I do is the neighbors homeowners insurance company responsible for repairs what if they don't have insurance what if I don't have insurance all likely scenarios first take pictures before you start cleaning up generally if your neighbor's healthy tree falls on your property your house a fence a car it's your insurance company's responsibility to pay for repairing the damage your neighbor's insure would probably only accept liability and pay for the damage if the tree was dead or weak or if there is a documented history of concern and that was your big fear is it Fallen while you were inside I text him several times and to to him too he said he didn't have the money and I know I don't however if a situation like this does happen you have an obligation to make temporary repairs prevent further loss and keep your property secure this includes boarding up the house putting plastic tarps over the holes and drying out what's received water damage to prevent mold keep your receipts if you use materials keep record of what it is and what it was used for so you can give a detailed report to an adjuster if you don't don't have insurance there are some instances where FEMA can help two on your side Britney Weiss wbrz news two all right Britney thank you WBZ Sports director Michael Cobell covering the storm today as well in Baton Rouge including the governor's press conference from earlier so let's head outside and check in with Mike hey guys yeah we've done this familiar dance a timer too right doing it again they got the sports guy doing some weather coverage and happy to be doing it just to Emma Kate's point from just the last time I was out here on the patio 45 minutes ago the is certainly picked up here in the Baton Rouge area and the wind gust you can see and hear them obviously picking up as well and that's kind of what we're dealing with right Governor Landry had all of his assembled agencies there to talk about what is to come for us and I don't think any of us want to say the part out loud because we want this storm to pass as quickly and as peacefully as possible Right but Landry was cautious about you know not taking this for granted what we're seeing right now could change could change for the worst he wants everybody to stay weather aware look I want to thank the citizens of the state I think that all of y'all uh everyone out there has been great in as we prepare for this particular storm again I would caution our citizens that just because it is a category one or possibly a category two doesn't mean it's just going to be a thunder bumper right I know that we have been through a lot here in Louisiana again I urge everyone to take the necessary preparations if you're in the storm's Pathway to understand that you may be without utilities for some time uh and so to go ahead and make those necessary arrangements yeah for sure we've done this song and dance before we know what some time could be it could be one day it could be four hours it could be three days right so prepare as best as you can right now and take advantage of the fact that it's not beating down our doors right when we were coming back from the presser we saw some utility trucks already staging here in the capitol city region at the Walmart on College Drive these are you know the heroes that we're going to be praying on those of us without power over the next couple of hours you know is how soon can they get out there and do their job Governor Landry reminded everybody you know utility workers can't get up on those poles can't get on those ladders until the winds recede from 30 mil hour so that will be critical and you may have a generator at home just as critical and important is generator safety there's a lot of common things that everybody thinks they know about a generator but the State Fire Marshall was there to remind everyone about the dos and don'ts when it comes to supplemental power make sure that when you use a portable generator you keep it away from the windows and away from the exterior of the house and the openings of the house be sure that you always keep it 20 to 15 to 20 ft away from those windows and those doors before fueling it make sure you turn it off and let it cool for 15 to 20 minutes never use it during the storm use it after the storm make sure you have a fire extinguisher close by and make sure that you have your carbon monoxide detector working in in order this is very important we lose people every hurricane because of this issue please adhere to those restrictions and warnings it's a good point right like a lot of times it's not the storm that gets people it's the aftermath of the storm and some of their preparations and things that they're trying to do in the aftermath of the storm and one that I will add just having a generator in my house don't refuel it when it's been running right just so let give it some time to cool off before you go ahead and refuel it guys can't get out of here without a sports update talked to Brian Cy today on the SEC coaches teleconference the Tigers practi early this morning morning in anticipation of their game against South Carolina this weekend and one of the things that they've been doing is practicing in the rain there are some potential showers expected in Colombia this Saturday morning and Brian Kelly really wanted to have his team prepared for what it might be to play with a wet ball play on a wet field it's one of the things they did yesterday when they had their normal practice time and it's another thing they did today getting them out in the elements dealing with the wind dealing with the wetness and hopefully that spells success in LSU's SEC opener this weekend at South Carolina so a little bit of weather a little bit of sports we always got you cover so Mike real quick what is their timeline for for the rest of the week and then I have some questions about what what you covered earlier today as well yeah sure thing uh for LSU it's going to be business as usual you know like the weather team has has already said here hopefully this storm moves on and is out of the state you know later this evening early tomorrow morning uh they're set to leave Friday afternoon going to leave a little bit earlier than expected and that probably has to do with the 11:00 a.m. kickoff I think they're going to depart campus around noon get over to Columbia around 3:30 our time so that's typically they wouldn't be leaving until that time so you know 3 or 4 hours earlier but then it's business as usual an early 11:00 a.m. kick here on WBZ but uh as for the Tigers everything should be all systems go if this storm gets out of here they're set to practice again tomorrow they already practice today we saw your video the uh the bucket trucks I believe you said they were parked there on College Drive earlier today C can you put a gauge was it just that one location or there's several locations the reason I asked on the way in on I 10 this morning I saw several on the road but looked like they were just passing through town yeah I mean anybody that's lived here like like you just alluded to Mike right we've seen them caravaning through the the city right it's obviously a major thoroughfare for those utility vehicles to get to their staging areas and that's one of the things that they all do I think this is actually a contracted group I don't not even sure that they're from Louisiana but you'll see different companies come in from the neighboring states whether it be Mississippi whether it be Texas Arkansas Etc and they you know they have these contract workers that come in and help in these emergency situations I'm sure Louisiana Crews wind up going out of state when it is their turn this was just the latest example that I just happened to catch out of the corner of my eye got off the interstate turned around and saw it I knew we were going to need some of this video because it's something that we're always talking about right I live in St Gabriel and I know when the power goes out the one thing I'm looking for is the guys on my street up in those ladders I thought it was interesting when the governor talked about the wind restrictions it's something that we probably all know in the back of our head and makes a ton of sense but it's always good to kind of get that refreshed right the fact that it is 30 m an hour we want to look out for everyone's safety we're not just concerned about our power charging our cell phone watching our videos on our iPads Etc you know all of these things come into play right and that's that's what this is about you know I I kind of said it earlier but this feels almost like a preseason game right like let's get the things done that we need to do to make the corrections in case the big one actually comes this is a great tuneup for the state of Louisiana and certainly us here in the capital city that's a good analogy Michael Cobble Sports guy um let me ask you there with the state officials did they talk about after this storm passed is the importance of staying put until really sort of they give the all clear because again we know the damage really is after the fact and they they want to get all of that cleared before they give the okay for folks to go out trees down and that sort of thing certainly right and and here's a number that you can uh jot down if you're at home you know you're wanting to get out and about certainly they want you to stay at home unless you're Mission critical or it's an essential need to get out there but 511 is a number that you can call to find out about road closures to find about down power trees about excuse me down trees on roads you know something that might inhibit your ability to travel but they want you to stay home so if that's again we're kind of used to this right we've been through this song and dance before and one of the big things that everybody does is they get stir crazy right they want to get out of their house they want to see what the damage looks like in their neighborhood in their city and of course they always want you to caution uh caution you against doing that stay home until you kind of know that all of the threats you know are cleared because really what is essential is that if anybody does need emergency assistant those people are able to get around the city I was out there earlier traffic is very light just exactly the way you want it to be but that doesn't necessarily always stay that way right and I my fear is that with this storm being not as severe as it could potentially could be that people will be more apt to get out I think that's exactly what we don't want to do right let's let this thing pass it's going to be a nighttime pass if that's the case stay in your house deal with it at your house and then tomorrow let's get on with our lives and can you uh emphasize once again uh the timeline for uh utility companies the bucket trucks I mean we want them if you have no electricity we want the electricity ASAP and so um you mentioned specifically the winds uh they have to be less than 30 miles per hour before they can get busy working trying to repair those lines to get you utilities yeah absolutely right and then we want those people to have the easiest access to whatever scene that they're going to we want them to have the the first and fastest routes right so I think that's the important thing there and I know that we have more news coming in right now we'll get back to you guys because I'm sure we have some more Capitol City region information that we want to pass along Mike thanks City officials First Responders urging everyone to stay safe as frany and inches closer to landfall here in south Louisiana D's Jack shibel is live with meor President Sharon Weston broom yeah I'm here with mayor President Sharon Weston broom you just got out of a briefing what can you tell us about what you guys talked about and and where we are right now uh the briefing that we just had was was with our council members to keep them up to speed and up to date with uh the actions that we have taken as City Parish government uh to respond to Hurricane Francine and we've we also heard uh concerns that they may be getting from their constituents within their District so it was a a a very uh good flow of communication and a great update for them what were some of those concerns that maybe they were hearing well of course people uh keep bringing up shelters and right now uh we have two shelters that are open St Vincent depal and Salvation Army and uh we will act accordingly after uh we see what the impact is and the need is uh once hurricane fanine uh impacts our area and we talked a little bit about it earlier with the fire chief um what should people do uh when you know this danger does come about if danger uh does come about of course that's one of the reasons we say stay connected with your neighbors but call 911 in case of an emergency but let's just say for an example you have a tree that's down then you want to call 311 if you see debris or something that's has flown in the air and impacted uh one of your neighbors house or your house or whatever call 311 and uh we have uh 311 um we have uh people that are there uh now and will be there through through the through the duration of this event and right now have from your perspective and what you know have we gotten any kind of distress uh going on around from anybody or is it just kind of um we're waiting for the storm to kind of hit before anything happens at this point we have not received any distress calls we uh did receive a call from a disabled person who wants to uh navigate and have a plan uh in case they need to leave their home got anything else that I'm missing that you wanted to touch on and and have a message for the community well my message is consistent we want everyone to stay safe I believe people are prepared with what they need we need people to stay inside and off the roadways especially as we get closer to the time that we are anticipating uh the impact and in the midst of all this uh keep the lines of communication open through our Red Stick ready app and uh stay calm in the process thank you so much for joining us mayor president back to you guys in the studio you so much there with the mayor saying that uh she met with council members just to update them on City uh protocols as they deal with um phone calls from their constituents the folks that they represent about concerns and things and uh specifically I think the takeaway there is that there are two shelters open right now St Vincent dep Paul as well as the Salvation Army and they will open um more shelters depending on the need the shelters are all operated at the parish level not necessarily the state level so as your to your point we'll see what happens over the next several hours if there is a need for additional shelters here in East bidge Parish no shelters though right now Statewide as far as the state Statewide like yeah they're all um operated at the parish level and I just one before we take a break a couple of numbers to pass along 911 for emergencies but also 311 if after the storm passes there's tree there are trees in your yard your property uh debris 311 is the number to call and you heard Michael kobell say earlier uh to get information updated information about road closures and such that number to call is 511 we'll be right back after I was injured by a truck driver I had high medical bills and a ton of worries I want to make a difference in people's lives after a serious accident I fight for injured victims don't be a victim twice call 928 8800 [Music] bear begin in 196 5 my grandparents opened Bear Creek Western Store it quickly grew as my family says it's Grandma's hobby that got out of hand s up boys and girls this is where the West [Music] Begins do you remember the moment you became an ELO fan maybe it was your first football game or the first time you heard the golden band from Tiger land maybe it was always a family tradition or it started when someone you knew played for an LSU team whenever it was once a tiger fan always a tiger fan at 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station is tracking Francine welcome back we're also keeping an eye on the electric grid throughout Southeast Louisiana and as of now I mean this is going to get worse over time but as of now it's performing pretty well taking a look on the Entergy side it looks like the brunt of the outages at this point are an assumption Parish where we have Bri anderas and Alexis Mar we're going to check in with them momentarily on the Demco side they were performing great thus far as Josh Malcolm imic have said though this is going to get worse there's only about 125 customers without power on the Demco side of things so good news there thus far so far all right so let's get the latest on what's going on with our weather with our storm station meteor olist Dr Josh iches and Malcolm Byron all right thanks very much syvia yes we are welcoming meteorologist Malcolm Byron into our coverage this afternoon and uh he and I will be with you through the duration of the evening and the impacts we see uh through tonight and into the early Parts tomorrow morning Malcolm as we bring you in today you remember the first place really to start as we look outside is you were just driving in this on your way to the station so Baton Rouge what are you experiencing right now and I've been looking at it outside my apartment Window all morning long it was just some light rain to start and frankly I didn't even notice a lot of wind but uh I was driving stopped at a stoplight near uh Jefferson and Essen and I saw some Flags blowing a little bit more in the breeze there so the winds are starting to pick up I wouldn't say it's overly crazy right now but the rain rates are really starting to pick up in fact I was going about maybe 50 miles per hour on the interstate and I had to slow down a little bit because I hit some water patches and began to hydroplane just a little bit so there is some ponding even on the interstate there this is just the beginning yeah I'm glad you bring that up I don't think something we've touched on yet today Emma Kate and I is with regard to the winds and driving and as we look at the bridge here especially high-profile Vehicles even in an 18 mph wind a cross wind that should at some point this evening be out of the southeast it could be really difficult to manage especially those 18 wheelers high pickup trucks SUVs um and these winds are going to increase from here that's right and uh the rain droplets are fairly large as well I was making a Mad Dash outside holding the suit jacket in hand and they were just littered with the rain droplets which it looks like they've dried out since then but it was really tough to keep my clothes dry even you know peing in here at the station well we'll get you out in the elements later to take care of that we'll get some more raindrops on that suit jacket a little bit later on looking to the south in the coast uh big time different story in Morgan City I think the first time I joined Ade I'm looking at a clock here was around 11:00 and we were seeing a sustained wind of about 13 in Morgan City boy that's changed we visited with meteorolog Balon Rogers on the Louisiana coast a little while ago he's noting that with each increasing uptick and r a rain band coming through winds are strengthening as well I think he's really going to feel it when this rain band starts to move to the North toward Highway 90 as well and those winds are likely to increase too and and let's just emphasize here that 40 m per hour sustained wind speed those are tropical storm force winds and Center circulation still has not made landfall I believe we're still a couple hours away from that and that is a sustained wind speed averaged over a period of a couple of minutes we have even higher gusts on top of that I don't know what that looks like at Morgan City off the top of my head right now but those gust of course being the instantaneous burst of wind that's happening sustained over a several minute period and a that's a big deal I I think sometimes what's what's lost when you're in the wind forecast of a tropical event is you see the max winds for instance right now are at 90 and if it's you go oh it's only 40 that's not that bad well remember the National Weather Service pulls the trigger on a wind advisor and we're simply expecting winds to be over 30 to 35 miles hour you sustain that for multiple hours bal's already reporting seeing medium-sized brand is flying around that's where the power outage and the infrastructure starts to get damag I have a print out here this is from the last hour we're probably going to get another hourly update in just a couple of minutes here but we have some offshore reports of peak Gus up to 112 miles hour and that's just offshore with sustained winds up to 92 miles per hour but again that's overwater I suspect those numbers will come down a little bit once you get over land due to the frictional interaction but that is right there is Hurricane force winds I mean we're talking Max sustain winds around 90 mes hour this report right here confirms that let's do the timeline then on tropical storm force wind probabilities across our area we'll show you this just as a broad brush and then I have a graph I'll show you for Morgan City's timing and Baton rouge's timing uh everybody in our viewing area has essentially a 100% or a 90 to 100% chance of experiencing at least one minute of tropical storm Forest winds that's 39 plus we say 40 to keep it even uh Baton Rouge that will occur a little bit later on Morgan City that's starting to happen now you get out of the storm Forest Wind probabilities in Lake Charles and maybe toward gulport but most of Southeastern Louisiana expecting tropical storm force winds through the evening and the wind timeline in Morgan City that's where you're getting it first and I think we should also emphasize that even though the probabilities were a little bit lower to the east I still think we will see gusts at the very least that map was showing sustained wind speeds above 39 miles hour but still seeing some gusts here and even near the coast could see some hurricane Force Gus yeah up to 79 mes hour 9:00 tonight in Morgan City that's that's an estimate right now I actually think that could come a little bit earlier maybe in the 6 7:00 window shortly after landfall and you see the rapid ramp down in winds closer to midnight and again this is for the coastal sections that looks a little bit different in Baton Rouge we should see those winds start to pick up a little bit later on an hour or two after landfall and again you say Max 90 and we're only seeing 32 that's still enough to create some chaos and just a brief gust an instantaneous gust as you said to 51 to 53 in a couple of hours where that's possible the infrastructure will feel that I think it's also worth noting the rain is happening now so we're going to really water log a lot of our soils and they're going to become really moist it'll moisten up the soils around tree roots and whatnot so when the wind comes especially as the rain is letting up that's still going to knock over trees I would imagine resulting in scattered power outages where we have those highest wind speeds and then you add on the rain we saw last week as well we already have a saturated ground yeah and there have been news stories here on uh news two through the week about some of them weaken from last year's drought so all of that um I remember I did in our hurricane preparedness week setup this year a story uh with an arborist who said last year's drought the impacts may be felt by a hurricane event this year he said it could be what's called a clearing event where a lot of the weak tree canopy comes down so we'll have to see how that plays out it's going to depend on the extent of the Winds relative to previous hurricanes we had the Baton rary winds shouldn't be as high but scattered is why the word we use I think there will be certainly plenty of tree and power line uh issues around our actually let me go back to that for one second because I did want to share with you the other important number uh and that's 30 30 miles per hour it's at that speed and lower where our linesmen who we are counting on to get us back online following this and we appreciate their work so much no easy job they work around the clock that starts to happen around Daybreak tomorrow so Crews should be able to hit the streets pretty quickly after this event to start the restoration process now we go into the wind threat Emma Kate and I were talking earlier Malcolm about how uh the forward speed of Francine is increasing and that's going to allow the winds to remain elevated as we' talked about a little bit farther Inland but also the opposite is true for then rain because of the forward speed especially on the east side with regards to wind because we're looking at the winds aligning with the storm motion on the east side so if the storm motion picks up that would tack on to the generated wind speeds by the storm making the wind threat greater but obviously if you have a faster moving storm that's less time for rain to fall but I think it's interesting to notice this blue swath right here where the uh the forecast projections for rain totals at generally 3 to 6 Ines as a baseline but you could see some locally higher amounts along that and I think that lines pretty well with the center track because you have the eyewall producing these deep towers of thunderstorms and convection that's where you see your highest rain rates I think we will see our highest totals very close to the center of circulation which the Hurricane Center takes that path pretty close to Baton Rouge now yeah a at least at least a little bit of a come down from yesterday's forecast we did see some white Pat is on the map with you look at the scale right over Malcolm's shoulder there that would put it close to a foot for some spots we'll say an isolated location might see that close to the center but broadly speaking um yeah I think that that 3 to six 4 to eight farther south looks like a pretty good range at this time all right let's get in some radar now we're looking at the metro area I promise you we are going to go further south and take a look at the center of the storm in just a second uh but uh moderate rain continues flying across the 1012 Corridor a little bit of a gap here I think you're going to notice this is important this is one of the uh I'd say this is the second outer ring north of the center or the eye as this starts to track North through assumption Parish we do have Crews there we'll check in with them as this moves into Iberville Ascension St James Parish this is where you're going to first go whoa yeah we do have a hurricane coming that's going to be some heavier rain and some Gusty winds that should make it to Baton Rouge over the next three four hours here and yeah St Mary Parish really starting to get it yeah are you about to go farther south next yeah let's go let see where that eye is yeah I mean there's clearly an eye it's hard to see on satellite imagery I don't know if you have that queed up here coming on later on it's hard to see it from above because we have high clouds just streaming over the storm system but you can clearly see where we see a lack of rainfall that is the center of circulation there's St Mary Parish BAL of course in Morgan City and based on that current trajectory it is moving Northeast this may miss uh St Mary Parish just to the southeast based on how things are looking now but getting out towards tabone LEF going to need to watch that closely for a landfall yeah I mentioned a minute ago this is that the southern view there you got that outer ring rain band that's moving through Northern St Mary Parish that's the one that will start to move into our viewing area shortly here balon's feeling that he noticed the uptick with the latest uh track through his area and then this is where Bal will get the worst weather he knows that's coming here in a matter of an hour or two and once we see the middle of this Center cross land that's the official landfall we'll get that word from the National Hurricane Center but also look at this Southern Edge look at the trends that we've seen over that over the last couple of hours what we expected there's a lack of rainfall right there the storm is interacting with shear and that's making making it have a little bit more of a lopsided appearance on radar there's a lot of asymmetry with this storm where you still have wind on the southern side and that's why even as the rain lets up tonight the wind will still be there in full force could see tropical storm force winds even without the rain there but the rain the heavy rain all on the Northern side of this and that will continue to fall into early evening and Josh I'm just kind of glancing up at the clock over there it is 3 o I'm going to step off camera real quick and see if there's a print out from the National Hurricane Center because we are anticipating those hourly updates all the way up to landfall all right yeah we'll visit you in a sec here I'll step through some of these other items I did want to on that same radar Vantage Point show you our velocity perspective and we use that often in severe weather to determine where we have winds moving toward the radar and away from radar where there may be some rotation we may need that because of the threat for landfalling tornadoes with the tropical system later on but we can also just generally estimate the wind speeds and uh this is sampling I kind of do this from the side of where I sampled right here offshore just above the ground radar is estimating about 70 mph wind so uh Bal and those in St Mary Parish will start to experience that maybe to a slightly lesser extent again because this is above ground level and not dealing with friction but maybe some sustained 50 60 m per hour winds heading toward St Mary Parish Malcolm back on camera as they pull up the latest stats in the 3M advisory the big change I see is in that that third column down that third row down Northeast at 17 milph uh we actually have a couple of updates one from the National Weather Service and we'll get to the Hurricane Center when a flash flood warning has just come out for St Mary Parish until 9:00 uh around 3:00 Doppler rator indicated thunderstorms producing Heavy Rain obviously across the warrant area between two and four Ines of rain have already fallen the rainfall rate about 1 to 3 Ines per hour and flash flooding is either ongoing or expected to occur shortly and I'm sure when we get back out to Balin uh he may have some visuals of that there is a a chance of that and again that goes until 9:00 for St Mary Parish including the cities of Morgan City Franklin hat Berwick Bay Vista Patterson Memorial airport Baldwin pretty much the entirety of St Mary Parish now to the update from the National Hurricane Center uh they state that tropical storm force winds and heavy rainfall are spreading Inland across Southern Louisiana of course we have observed that right here we just saw that with the observation at Morgan City uh conditions continuing to deteriorate over the next several hours and hurricane force winds are located just offshore not far away and they note in here now is the time to stay inside and away from window cuz with winds like this if you get any sort of debris flying around that could very easily shatter glass and uh they also note a couple of observations here that one oil platform offshore with a peak gust to 112 mes hour and sustained wind speeds that's just crazy sustained speeds of 92 miles hour that all tracks with yeah again we measured that out I do want to point out this is a new track a three here and this is further to the West which is surprising to me that is that that is quite a bit further to the West than we were seeing earlier and it's interesting because I mean when I was looking at the radar earlier and in fact I texted you and memade about this it the radar Center circulation or at least the center based on radar appearance appeared to be just a little bit east of the hurricane center track but these are the experts they are very good at what they do and you've said it before um we we trust what they do at the Hurricane Center because rarely do they fail they do and um so what what really this means as I pull up this map just to relate to what you're seeing or talked about all the impacts coming Inland we have haven't touched on tornadoes yet all of those that lie just to the east of the Storm Center specifically run the greatest risk of seeing tornadoes and we could see those spin up in eastern St Mary Assumption St James Ascension Livingston and Tango later I think the threat's a little bit lower for the capital city and points north and west western parts of Iberville here and western parts of St Mary Parish maybe maybe not so much but uh the Eastern side is what it's all about as we head into the evening hours and that's certainly a little bit new as well for the difference between tropical and hurricane force winds come 10:00 tonight maybe approaching the Capital Area and a lot of the guidance has been shifting things East in recent days so that would suggest to me that this was very intentional by the National Hurricane Center and if that continues a little bit farther west then we may start opening the door for more significant impacts here in Baton Rouge yeah we'll have to watch that into the evening I wonder we want to hone in on that Trend we get a little bit closer at least when we zoom out at the bigger picture I think you asked Malcolm we have a have an infrared satellite here a viz and then a water vapor we'll go through just to show kind of the status a health check on the Storm it is looking increasingly more ragged here with each passing hour yeah I mean we've been talking about the dry air wrapping into this it's kind of hard to see on satellite imager but you can see that little Notch right there to the train ey it it jumps out at you but that does not look like a classic hurricane as we mentioned a few moments ago you don't see an eye right there uh overall I don't think this is going to strengthen anymore as you get closer to landfall it is at Peak intensity right now there's even a chance it may come down just a little bit in intensity just prior to landfall the thing is as it interacts with the hostile environment the weakening Trend does not happen instantly it takes time to see that weakening trend of course once it makes landfall that's going to pretty much shut off any strengthening alt together and you'll see things rapidly weaken yeah and the the other thing to point out on this before we go to our visible satellite image just these these darker Reds and even some pinks here we seeing much colder Cloud tops deeper shower and thunderstorm activity that is rapidly diminishing thanks to the interactions with dry air and wind shear which we can pick out on this map plus I know Malcolm kind of wanted to comment on the eye which you can faintly see there's one there but again it's not classic yeah maybe just a little bit yeah I guess that it's it right there MH but again you've got high clouds drifting from Southwest to Northeast also a sign of the shear there and it's trying to cover up that eye if you will and plenty of dry air working on the western side you notice that wind flow in the atmosphere out of the Southwest and then of course you have the counterclockwise wind flow around the system itself so what's happening is and Malcolm pointed this out with that little notch on satellite all of this dry a over Mexico andex wraps around the storm circulation into the center of low pressure and it kind of erodes it from within and as that starts to occur it breaks down the structure of the hurricane in a hurry and here's another interesting thing about that dryer I read this in the forecast discussion from the national weather service this morning of course it's detrimental to the hurricane because it will weaken it it'll kind of destroy the structure if you will of it but with these spiral rain bands when they get a little bit of dry air in there similar to how dry air within a typical thunderstorm in the summertime may result in a burst or a Micro Burst that may happen with some of these spiral rainb bands farther out from the center of circulation yeah so you mentioned this uh we said oh the tropical storm Force Windfield kind of from Acadiana to the Louisiana Mississippi line but hey over in gulport right buuy uh mobile don't let your guard down some Gusty winds tonight there's a spiral Ram band right there and with the current trajectory of this storm that may go up towards Mobile Bay and there might even be a tornado threat there too maybe and some cases can be greater with some of those outer rain bands as we've seen with past storms let's get a little bit tighter now we're taking a look at that latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center uh The Advisory is right next to Malcolm we've touched on those stats 700 PM we're expecting Max WIS to still be around 90 I'm a little surprised by that number because it should be Inland by then remember this does not uh implicitly show a rainfall or excuse me a landfall location but I do think that we have about a four or five: landfall in St Mary Parish and then by the time we get into Mississippi it's close to I20 said tomorrow morning around 7: a.m. with a 45 mph Max wind I'm told my ear that we have a live report we do want to get to so Malcolm and I could go all day about the hurricane we're going to do that basically we'll be back in a little bit with much more and we'll update you on all our digital platforms as well but uh so many crews out in the field today and they're bringing great color to what's happening in this event as well so Michael Sylvia back to you to get on to that you bet Josh Malcolm thank you hours away from Francine making landfall here in Louisiana stay weather aware with the storm station if you haven't done so already download the WBZ News news in weather ABS to stay ahead of this storm all right so fory and preparations continue all across south Louisiana news to is Alexis merid Bri Andreas live in White Castle what are you seeing there guys hey guys we are actually in laville right now and I think when Josh was talking about uh the weather coming through and the winds hitting us um there was a couple minutes ago you guys missed it before we came on but I literally was pushed back into this field by behind us it was was kind of ridiculous but yeah these Wing gusts are getting pretty intense they'll hit us for a couple seconds and then things will calm down like it just did but it is getting a lot more intense than since the last time we spoke to you guys earlier so it's time to really get ready for this storm to really hit sooner rather than later yeah that's absolutely true um I want to show you Bri I going to show them the pictures behind us of what we can see so again we haven't had a whole lot of anything yet but you can see in Parts behind us I'm going to step out of the way but you can see this tree over here has had some branches fall down on it um that's pretty much what we're seeing from a lot of these trees oh there goes the rain there goes the the rain is picking up you can see the trees are blowing back and forth um this has been kind of the pattern for the past I guess hour or so um when Breeze showed you the sugarcane earlier that was kind of crazy it was it was literally on its side so I'm going to come back into frame but Bri Bri has some important information about assumption Parish emergency um officials and I really think that's important for folks out here especially as things pick up um you never know what's going to come your way with with this storm and so I want to make sure that everybody has that information um also before we get to that it's just so insane how this is picked up so fast free but you have that information for us don't you yes if you need additional information in Assumption parishes in Assumption parish for emergency services You Can Call 985 369 2912 again that is 985 369 2912 for additional information and emergency services in Assumption Parish After the Storm concludes that we have seen a few um cop cars drive by here on the highway as of recently we've seen sheriff's deputies drive by back and forth really I think they're checking on homes um we're not sure if there's any emergency calls their lights weren't on or anything like that but it's it's significant to note that those are the only cars we've seen on the road this afternoon yeah this storm is like I said going to get more intense as we go out throughout the day so it is important to just stay where you are get in a safe place stay inside don't be outside like us crazy folks uh because this is getting more intense the winds are picking up the rain again not picking up quite as much but it was earlier it's been on and off ever since and the closer the worst of the storm gets here to assumption Parish the worse it's going to be outside right and I I was also just saying I was I was watching somebody else's feet on Twitter it was a reporter who literally got blown out of the way was trying to stay stable on her her two feet and I thought she was being dramatic but we really are feeling that right now and it's again like Josh said it's it's just going to keep picking up so we're going to throw it back to you guys in the studio where it's nice warm and dry save us some towels please live in the field Alexis mariny and de Andre news two all right Alexis and Bri thank you for that and just as we've been hearing all afternoon from uh imade and Dr Josh and Malcolm as well once uh Francine makes landfall there then that storm will Trek North and you know they're already experiencing the winds from that not really feeling the impact here in the bad Jer that's we have the police chief DJ Moors here with us what has been the preparation like for the police department yeah so we've been preparing um since early this week since we started seeing the shift Eastward towards Louisiana um the mayor has gotten everybody together everybody that works on City Parish government we have mosp stood up which is our mayor's office of Homeland Security emergency preparedness for the police side we also have our own incident command stood up at police headquarters um we've adjusted people's hours our officers are working extra hours more overlap time all those officers that are in specialized Visions like detectives other places showed up in uniform today they're out on the streets to be able to go into help uniform U be able to block streets in case we have down trees or flooding help direct traffic and we're just going to stand by to see where the power outages might be to be able to shift our resources around can you talk a little bit about high water Vehicles that's one of the things that you've mentioned earlier as well as um I'm just wondering um if you get a call if the the the issue is not as severe here but you get a call from another Parish needing additional help are you guys able to deploy officers to another Paris to help yeah 100% we are um one of the biggest uh metropol Metropolitan police departments in the entire State um baton Ridge Police Department so we definitely assist other agencies on a regular basis in a case like this even more so we have a lot more resources and a lot more things we can give with our high water rescue vehicles our boat teams even um scuba teams that are certified in uh Swift water rescue so just depending on how bad it gets we can definitely help out other areas as well as our own people what have been some of the calls for service thus far yeah so right now we're just seeing the normal things we're seeing some traffic accidents because people are still out on the roads you want to be we're seeing you know just regular type calls right now um as the storm we're starting to feel some of the presence of the storm what is your biggest concern is this your first hurricane as Chief yeah so it is my first hurricane as Chief I got to appointed as Chief um earlier this year in January but I've been with the apartment for 22 years so definitely been on the department through this I just get to feel it from uh this side now AB what are your your major concerns the major concerns right now is just uh to see what is going to happen uh we are definitely prepared um there's nothing really big that uh we're worried about we're just where do we need to put our resources we have all these people we have all these things set so now it's just are we worried about flooding are we worried about power outages what are what are we going to need to put the people you mentioned the Staffing uh do you have like a ballpark number I assume they're working in 12-hour shifts M yes sir so we got uh our uniform officers they're working extra they normally work 10 hour shifts they working twelves just to get us some more overlap um detectives are also instead of doing their normal case loads they're out working 10-hour shifts to supplement those officers I think we have about 55 um extra detectives working right now we'll have another 45 joining them later tonight when things are getting worse um so we definitely have increased those patrols and those manpowersupply.est not to affect um the officers that were already off today if we got to call them in that's just extra Manpower we can have because we our officers they not only have to worry about what's going on in the community they also have to worry about their families and their homes and making sure all that is straight as well I would imagine that uh you are having the same um advice as we've heard from State officials if you don't have to be out on the roads uh to stay off the roads because it if necessary if there's an emergency you guys need to be able to get out as soon as possible you don't need all the unne necess folks out on the streets that's correct we want to encourage people to stay home one just for their safety it's safer for them to be home because we could have trees coming down or down power lines and then just to make way for our emergency vehicles and we don't want to create more calls for our officers in Fire and AMS get them tied up having to respond to traffic accidents when they need to be going other places um as we get power outages those traffic lights are out treated as a four-way stop if you are out the water looks too high turn around don't try to go drive through any high water you've been in law enforcement a long time obviously we've seen here in Baton Rouge over many many years when some municipalities have called for a curfew tonight I know that's not the case here in Baton urge but what parameters go into making that decision if that is needed like what what has to happen for for you guys to pull the trigger on a curfew of some yeah it's definitely something we want to avoid it's just something we'd have to look at if we're looking at some kind of prolonged um power outages um where safety you know and security alarms are down for businesses or people are having to evacuate so they're not there to stay at home and watch over their homes all those kind of things would go into that decision it's definitely not something we're looking at right now um something we would have to evaluate in the future all right I think that covers it for now uh any else you'd like to pass along to no thank you all very much for having me um what I'm looking forward to most he's asked me about my concerns what I'm looking forward to most is just seeing after this is over with we always see the community coming together neighbors helping neighbors and BGE Police Department is going to be right there alongside of our community helping them whenever we need to do whatever assistance we need to give we're going to be right there along with them all right thank you for what you're do thank youall very much thanks very much we getting sended to uh Sarah greay bar who is in a cin right that's correct Sarah gray yeah I'm out here in Ascension Parish the rain is slowly starting to pick up we got out here around noonish and throughout the day the rain has kind of let up and then pick back up you can feel a little bit of wind but it's not super strong uh we were watching the roads as we were coming in there is still as you can see a fair amount of cars not too many when I talked with Ascension Parish Public Works they told me that they have crews out here keeping the roads clear just so people can get to where they need to go but when I talked with the sheriff's office they were telling me if you don't have to go out please don't go out please keep these roads clear for emergency responders as you can see there is a little bit of rain on the road when we were driving we saw in the canals and the coverts there was very little water but those ditches are slowly starting to pick up I brought my handy dandy yard stick to measure how much water has slowly filled up in this area when we came out here we got to this area about just after noonish and there was not a ton of water in this ditch I'm going to measure it for you right now I'm going to say it's about 3 and 1/2 in and that is slowly increasing as you can tell the water and the rain is slowly starting to pick up so again if you don't have to be on the roads don't be on them you might be able to see how the wind's starting to come at me and how it's pushing the rain onto the ground into my face these are not conditions that you truly want to be in in Ascension Paris they've also opened up a shelter of Last Resort that's going to be the Lamar Dixon Expo Center Gym if you have to go there there's space for over 400 people according to Public Works you're recommended to bring enough stuff for several days that's your medicine your clothing food Electronics if you are on these roads and you get into an accident call 911 but if you get into some sort of situation and it's not an emergency Ascension Parish says that they're asking you to call their Civ citizen service number and if you need that number it is 225 45012 I'm going to repeat that one more time for you 225 45012 when I was talking with the sheriff's office they told me that they have have doubled the number of deputies on patrol today just making sure that people are staying safe and watching over these roads I talk with Public Works they say they have all their Crews on standby ready to go and to help clear out any trees that might fall over any power lines but they say that once this wind starts to pick up and get stronger they're going to bring their crews in wait for the worst of the storm to pass and then send their Crews back out so if you have an emergency call 911 if it's not an emergency call the citizen service number and again that number is 225 45012 we are outside the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office District 2 headquarters we'll continue to stay out here we'll be driving around Ascension bringing you updates on the conditions as they come in in Ascension Parish S Bar WBZ news2 all right Sarah thank you for that some really good information there again that number for a n for nonemergency uh issues in Ascension Parish is 225 4501 120 Livingston Parish also making some last minute preps new to's Joe Collins live with the parish President Joe guys I'm here with Parish president Randy L Randy thank you for being here with me now tell everybody about where we are right now we now at the a river the Virgin canal and we at the business of the Canal bank we're watching the water roll in from Lake M far going towards de spring if you look down you can see the waters about two foot higher than normal now with a projection of four more feet what this is going to do with the wind continuing to blow in this direction if people in denner Springs and and above us for venson that water can't get out until this wind shifts and the water goes back the other way what we are praying for is that the storm does not just H hover over us we're going to take a direct hit right here but the storm doesn't cover over bus and just get out of here as quick as we can because the water has to reverse back out the other way in the Southeast wind East Wind plays a major part on how long people going be flooded in this condition okay and um last week we had a lot of rain definitely come through the area and we worried about because of the amount of rain last week that this could that's a great great um uh piece of uh information that is correct the water has been closed the rivers has been closed for about a week and a half now because of all that normal amount of rain so the water was already above normal and with the four tide the coming in and it's just rain it's not only going to get high but can stay here particularly on the low for a larger period of time than normal because it's raining a little bit we're going to start walking more up to the canopy now one thing that I definitely wanted to ask is we definitely seeing talk a little bit more about the rain that's coming in from the lake now around these houses we see we see they're really close well all right we're having some problems there but listening to the parish president uh talking in Livingston Paris talking to Joe Collins they're really concerned about flooding there right now that's right they were standing on a dock as you saw there and he expects the water to come up even more they're getting pummeled with rain at this moment but it didn't look like wind was much of a concern yet but that certainly will change we will continue with our special coverage tracking Francine we'll be right back you're invited to take a vacation from everybody else's vacation far away from long lines heavy traffic and jam-pack schedules to a place where you're free to explore and discover where you can wander and be filled f with Wonder find your own way in Mississippi Wanderers welcome this is your city these are your streets injured in a car crash this is your lawyer Casio injury attorneys 2258 cash the secure complete plan from People's Health is designed for people with both Medicare and Medicaid and it comes with a long list of Rich benefits your new member ID card will come loaded with $248 per month spend it on utility bills Like Water and Electric healthy foods like fruit vegetables and meat at the grocery over-the-counter items like vitamins toothbrushes Band-Aids and hundreds of other products or choose from a selection of home and bathroom safety items you'll also enjoy $0 co-pays for dental services like cleanings x-rays fillings extractions and more doctor visits a 24-hour nurse line and emergency and Urgent Care worldwide hospital stays with two weeks of meals delivered to your home after an inpatient stay Part D prescription drug coverage plus hearing aids glasses or contacts and a personal emergency response system call People's Health to see if you're eligible the storm station is tracking Fran scene okay welcome back bringing in our chief meteorologist Dr Josh heis it looks like Morgan City's about to get the pront of this yeah and uh guys in the back just keep me uh posted if we get bail and gr if not I'll get over and take a look at the radar but we would like to see from him um so we will uh we will talk to Bale in a little bit but the eye wall is approaching St Mary Parish and Morgan City so uh he will be experiencing perhaps some 60 70 m per hour winds and torrential rain here momentarily as this storm will probably have an official landfall in Louisiana it's 3:30 on the clock up there I'd say by 4:30 we're going to have official word on that and we'll let you know when that happens of course we've seen a lot of these Joe Collins in Livingston Paris she's just getting pum coming pummeled by rain it doesn't look like wind's much of a factor there that certainly will change talk to us about these outer bands and what like the metro area can expect about flooding in particular yeah okay so first of all the outer bands I think one of the things Malcolm and I highlighted when we were talking a little bit earlier was that with each consecutive uh rip of rain you get and they do seem to be intervals between them that's the nature of the banded structure of a tropical system each one will be more intense in terms of rain intensity and the winds ramping up heading into the afternoon and evening here Balin Morgan City about to get the most intense one uh now momentarily and we'll find that happening uh over the next one hour and then to the flooding concern Sylvia um because the system is moving pretty quickly it's still at a point where we'll likely see some standing water flooding issues some nuisance flooding issues obviously as our uh police officers told us earlier we don't want to be on the roads this evening and I am going to address the rivers here in just a moment I have the levels but to give you the uh the preview really don't see any of them reaching any kind of major flood stage most of them actually expected to stay below flood stage which is good news that's where we see the much bigger problem but it's going to rain a lot in a short time here uh moving forward go ahead well you so there in St Mary Parish so it'll make landfall and quickly move on yeah tring North yeah the track believe it or not covered a couple of these now and I think this is one of the more mysterious tracks I've seen and we're only talking differences of 25 to 40 miles but that will matter um right now the National Hurricane Center has almost a hard left turn more due north as it makes its way across land which was not even expected six hours ago was supposed to be just kind of a Gra gradual northeastward projection and then a curve to the north I'm very curious to read into why they made that change but that will matter for let's say Baton Rouge to Livingston Parish in that quarter so what would cause that right now I think they're sensing that the upper level steering winds are grabbing it a little bit sooner than anticipated if you guys want to put weather Up full again uh I think that the satellite picture kind of shows some of that this system is taking a beating on the Northern side I mean look at the last three hours here where you see red and orange and green over South Central Louisiana uh you see a lot of shower and thunderstorm activity and deep cold Cloud tops but now that's all lopsided on the southern and western side this is a storm that's not in great health right now um and they just said to us yeah that we do have Balin out in the field right now I really do want to get to him and see what conditions are like in Morgan City uh right now so Balon what are you seeing out in the field um talk to me and I'm going to put radar up next to you as we talk back and forth here well Josh we are actually right on the outer edge of the iall and I'm telling you what rain is really picked up here pretty much over the last few minutes the winds are picking up Flags starting to blow a little bit still nothing too bad we've been gusting right around I've have not looked at official observations but if I had to guess right around 40 to 45 miles per hour as a Max gust few of those tree limbs have come down but uh yeah what is radar looking like now Josh is that eyeball coming on Shore kind of keeping an eye on that here and I was just telling Michael and Sylvia the desk that I believe you're about to get the northern eyewall here momentarily at least the strongest band associated with Francine is coming your way I know you you're checking radar on your phone um and you've made some observations out there we're seeing some offshore gusts that maybe were as high as 80 or 90 mes per hour of course land friction is going to reduce that but um I can see the Sheets of Rain behind you and and velocity is probably saying that you've got 30 40 50 mph winds heading in your direction you'll get the brunt of this storm within the next 60 to 9 90 minutes I'd say yeah it's definitely starting to go down here Hill real quick wow rain rates really picking up recently uh Flags really blowing behind me I see Sheets of Rain curtains in the distance and uh with my experience with hurricane eyewalls I've been in quite a few things are going to go downhill very quickly here and it's going to be like a night and day difference from the rest of the storm yeah it might have been Gusty beforehand a few gusts in that 40 to 45 M hour range but once that eyewall comes asore that's where you see those Max sustained winds and that's also where you see the max Gust in the system uh when you get you know a 90 mph cat one hurricane those 90 mph winds that is not outside uh in the outer bands that's going to be right around the core of the storm and that is exactly what we're about to go through here uh we're in the outer iall right now uh but conditions are going to get uh much worse here uh over the next hour to hour and a half and it could get pretty bad here wi out conditions Downing trees and Downing a few power lines as well uh but I'm going track it with here try to stay on air as long as possible hopefully we don't lose connection here as the iall does move ashore as his strongest Winds of Francine about to make landfall here in Morgan City and then slowly weaken as it live in Morgan City I want to keep the conversation going with you here a little bit longer here you're getting the most interesting weather we have in the in the viewing area right now couple of questions and we do have radar up next to you and it's loop it's a looping radar and it shows that that that flood warning that you're under right now as well so we'll talk about a few of those things first of all uh set the stage for us as to where you are we can tell there's like a parking lot behind you I know you moved away from the achaia river so what is your location right now well we're pretty much it looks like this might be uh the mayor's office some sort of governmental building I'm not sure exactly but it's a very secure building uh pretty much blocked from majority of the Winds with this building uh right in front of me winds are blowing uh east to west right now and we're getting blocked uh by this building but I tell you what rain rates really increased here over the last few minutes and uh winds seem to be increasing as well but not too bad just yet but like I've been mentioning is definitely going to increase Josh all right and then we have uh on the graphic next to you we're scrolling the flood warning that's essentially along the high High Way 90 Corridor that's not surprising I mean we just don't want folks on the road in that area at all right now anyway speaking to those those High rain rates you said we're seeing the Sheets of Rain behind you and that flash flood warning from your area are you seeing you know standing water become increasingly a problem have you noticed any flooding in your movements around Morgan City day to get to the safe spot you are now not yet um we made that movement a few hours ago so that was before some of this heavy rain uh has started to come down but the heaviest rain rates with this system is going to be with that eyewall as it moves through so that's probably when we're going to get the most surround amount of rain in a short time I'm thinking the National Weather Service uh issuing this warning expecting for the rain rates to really increase with the eyewall of Francine as it does move on Shore uh it's going to get pretty busy here basically the heaviest rain and the heaviest Winds of the system about to move into Morgan City yeah and actually we're we're seeing that uh I is just now trying to breach the coast and the I'd say at the St Mary tabone Parish line and of course there's as the crow flies probably about 40 miles between you and the immediate Coast so doing the math on the speed of this system that's getting your way here within that next hour so talked about rain I before I let you go and we're going to check in really frequently here as you get the worst of these conditions I want to talk a little bit more about the wind there we go he's just getting you're getting a gust right there holding on to the Hat what have you seen moving around in those winds today Bal uh so far we've been gusting to Tropical Storm Force so it's been mainly I haven't seen any trees down it's been those like 1 to 3 in maybe a little bit bigger tree limbs you get a big gust com through and the tree lims start blowing off the trees uh flag pole moving around a lot uh just had a nice little gust a second ago but so far again I haven't driven around the city in the past few hours but in my immediate area seeing a lot of tree limbs down but no large trees but I do think that's going to change and then what about uh uh power outage I mean you don't have the numbers in front of you but have you heard any power flashes have you had any Transformers going yet uh I haven't heard any Transformers or seen any uh I know the power in this building right in front of me they still have power but this building over here they looks like their generator kicked on so I'm be interested to see if they lost power and also I've gotten reports uh from a few different people people that their hotels have already lost power so don't have the official numbers but definitely looking like we're already starting to see a few power outages around the area all right B we are going to check back in with you uh very shortly here stay safe out there uh and you know text us get back in touch with us as the rain picking up the weather's picking up and you have a site to show uh we want to get that on the air here as you are at the uh close to the landfall site in Morgan City so great work and uh we'll bring it back into the studio for a few minutes we'll talk to you soon how high could those winds get you know I I think uh as Malcolm mentioned earlier and this is just worth pointing out that once you start to see that hurricane interacting with land the friction starts to slow those winds down so we'll probably see in that St Mary Parish tabone Parish earlier some sustained winds on the order of 60 to 80 with a briefly higher gust but it only takes 40 or 50 to start doing a number on the power grid so that should start going there uh pretty quickly I'd say again within the next 60 minutes we're still going to have a B's going to have a lot of interesting weather to show us here in the next hour so stay with our coverage here on channel two speaking of for those at home that may not know talk about Balin and he he's been through these things before yes uh bal's been with our team for just a year now but as a meteorologist and a meteorology student at the University of Louisiana Monroe he has been a stormchaser uh essentially since he was a college student he even started in high school so he's been a numerous followed numerous ef4 and EF5 Twisters around the country and chased them and he is frequently finding hurricanes along the Gulf Coast to go uh I mean the man's just in awe of weather so he puts himself in the path of it whenever he can he knows what he's doing out there and uh he's keeping the photographer with us one of our great new Young photographers Joel sa with him down there in Morgan City so uh Bal has a lot of experience tracking storms and I mean he's just a vital piece of our weather team to have that ability to know what he's doing moving about the field you kind of had to reel him in a little bit too for what he wanted to do and what he's actually doing right well you know what I'm surprised with how how enthusiastic he is about getting after the weather that um knowing the structure of Morgan City and the flood walls and the gates there we're like so uh we don't want you heading to the coast there it's going to get dangerous surg like yeah I'm not going to the coast I'm saying in Morgan City so um and and they'll be safe there at the hotel in so I do look forward to chatting him in a little bit and you can talk to me Dylan but if you want I can do a full wrap uh now what's going on with this storm can I ask you though uh you were talking uh just before we went to Balin and you said you're concerned about Baton Rouge maybe feeling some effects can you talk a little bit more about that yeah for the capitol city feeling those effects it's going to start to occur here in the next uh say two to three hours we're going to find that activity picking up in Baton Rouge like I said with each consecutive rain band heavier rain stronger winds I think we'll feel that first pop uh about two hours from now and then it'll be a couple of hours where we have those gusts ebbing and flowing and we'll start to see our power flashes in the grid taking a little bit of a hit we're going to get back with you in about 10 minutes for that full weather but before then uh interg Louisiana wrapping up their preparations for Hurricane fanine this morning CEO Philip May says they had short notice on the Storm because of how quickly it formed in the Gulf despite the challenges May says they are well prepared one of the things we did this year that's different than prior storms is we added a large contingent of tree ERS people who are going out there and assessing vegetation and since Monday we've gone out and we have trimmed trees or removed trees from over a thousand miles of circuit May says by addressing the tree trimming before the storm they have lowered the risk for problems after the storm speaking of last month too on your side gave us an update on the come diversion Canal project once completed it will help reduce the risk of flooding for thousands of properties but it's not complete just yet here's Britney Weiss the Army Corps now estimates the come diversion Canal will be finished by the end of 2027 or early 2028 in the meantime the project is acting like a massive retention Pond there are some days when you come out here water is actually a heavy rainflow of Lance water's flowing into the channel and actually FL flowing over the Weir and and off into the distance so it is providing some benefit now and not to mention this big 50 foot deep hole 300 feet wide it's it's storage it's additional like I said Retention Ponds and whatnot it's a good thing it's taking water off of the streets and given it a place to go a lowline area so while it's not fully functioning Co River diversion it's still providing some ancillary benefits the core has six contracts left to award they can't start those contracts until all of the utilities in the way are removed Florida gas is still waiting on permit approval two on your side Britney Weiss wbrz news2 State construction contractors are utilizing pumps to best maintain low water levels in that channel to facilitate a quick return to construction after this event has passed okay so we are joined on the set now by Trooper uh State Police Trooper Shelby mayfil uh he's the public information officer with troop a thank you for being here with us what you guys doing right now so right now uh we're we have Troopers out on the roadway uh what we did was yesterday we double staffed our shifts to ensure that we had enough troopers on the roadway just scattered out across the troop a area um and the primary Mission and the goal of doing that was to ensure that we can continuously uh monitor the road conditions uh and then tend to uh situations and events as they come up how does the communication work in that between Troopers and and I guess like uh City Police the Sheriff's Office how do you guys communicate and work through these challenges so we have uh contacts at at every location uh particularly here in the troop a area our uh you know troop uh Commander reached out to the local sheriffs the local police Chiefs uh just to make sure that our plans were aligned and that we had a a solid idea of how we were going to respond to certain things what have been some of the calls for service thus far so yeah one of the things that we we're noticing is uh like I said we we put people out in you know to um in certain are so that they can be ready for certain calls um but up until now one of the things we're dealing with um is motorists who are on the roadways um and what we ask is that a lot of the motors if you don't have to be out there if you're not a cenal Personnel you know just stay clear of the roadways um throughout the summer and over the course of the hurricane season we've been doing different community outreach events and just trying to you know get the word out you know how to properly prepare um for hurricanes and you know we're at that point now where the preparation uh is pretty much wrapped up and we kind of need everybody to start executing those plans and those plans including you know being at your your residence or wherever you're going to hun down and just keeping the roadways open you know the more you know First Responders and Troopers that we have available to respond to actual weather events um the better you know prepared we have uh to use those resources and assets to tend to those events but right now we're just dealing with you know crashes on the roadways and calls for assistance for you know people going off the road but that's because the roadways are you know in not the best condition yeah I was going to ask you coming in what kinds of conditions did you see on the roadways were there a lot of folks out right now even though you were saying stay indoors if possible so yes um there's a lot of people who are still you know commuting on the roadways um and again the intent was to kind of have most of our preparations done uh before now but we're just seeing you know heavy winds that are out there um we're getting reports of uh power outages um in the troop SE area um and what that does is that cut you know turns off the uh the signals the traffic signals at certain intersections and it just makes it more difficult so the less Motors we have the more you know freedom of movement we have for those essential workers and those first respondents who need to get you know to certain places to take care of our residents you mentioned Troop C and terone leuch and that they're kind of getting the brunt of this right now in terms of troop a is there a scenario where troop a needs to go assist Troop C or Troop B in New Orleans well there's always a situation for us to go outside of the area where we primarily operate um in addition to that and being ready to assist other troop areas we do have assets we do have our mobile uh fieldforce and then some of our SWAT responders who are on standby and Stage uh to go assist in those areas where we need to have a heavier presence uh than what we have currently but of course the situation and the weather is going to kind of dictate uh what resources we need to send down there but uh we're fully prepared uh at this point all we really need is the public to kind of help us out and uh stay off the roadways as much as possible and let's save those resources and those assets to help respond to the actual you know hurricane implication what is your biggest concern over the next 24 to 48 hours as far as our roads are concerned uh just Public Safety um that's going to be our biggest concern because again you know we we have a lot of issues with uh you know with commuting on a regular basis when things are perfect outside so what I don't want and what you know the colonel is hoping for is that we don't have a resident uh somewhere that's stuck on a roadway and our actual Troopers are unable to get to that person that's one of the reasons we ask that everybody they kind of hunker down and uh stay in place because um the worst thing that can happen is we have somebody who has an emergency or encounters a situation but because of the implications of the weather and the roadway conditions we're unable to get to them as soon or as quickly as we we would like to so sticking with that for a second the uh the linemen that will come in to restore power 35 miles hour is kind of The Benchmark that they use for when they can go back out are the patrol units limited by that that same wind speed well so for us we just have the the you know the saying you know arrive alive you know as a first responder I'm no good to anybody if I can't get to that actual event or that situation in one piece so it's not necessarily the speed to get there but it's getting there in one piece with the resources necessary to take care of the situation and help out that Resident so if there's a sustained wind of 4550 Troopers can still move freely on the interstate to get the situations they need to yes as long as everything is is safe for that Trooper um again you know we have the resources and the Personnel in place but we want to make sure that we can employ them um in a safe manner to make sure that we can actually conduct our job so that's the most important thing is there a number to call uh for information about road closures yeah so if if you find yourself out on the roadway for whatever reason uh and you need to get some information to one of the troops you can call the star LSP number star 577 um and that's just to notify us of roadway conditions unsafe uh conditions and things like that um but if you find yourself in an emergent situation where you need some assistance uh you know naturally 911 would be the best option so okay all right Trooper Shelby Mayfield thanks so much for stopping by yes sir it's a pleasure thank youall stay safe we're going to take a break we'll be right [Music] back at the Baton Rouge clinic our soul focus is to provide exceptional healthare for your entire family so that you can get back to doing what you love most we are caring for Generations after my wre I was hurt I couldn't work I take one step forward and two steps back so I got Gordon we know how to take on the big insurance companies and we'll fight get you every dollar you deserve just call me get it done are you ready for a new job with a team that always has your back TR care is now hir as you can see we we take care of our team members apply now at Tricare automotive.com and click join our [Music] team hi I'm Jacob with arrow pest control pest can be a nightmare protect grandma with Arrow's $20 initial Pest Control special and our eco-friendly Termite Control starting at just $349 call aerop Pest Control to schedule your free consultation today you know there's millions of people without the health insurance they need you deserve something better and better plans with low out-of pocket premiums local doctors and rewards for healthy choices that's why we're America's number one Marketplace health insurance and Better Health on a mission for better need an oil change in your car or truck we would love to help you at either one of our two locations in rout just go to Tricare automotive.com and then take it toare the storm Station tracking Fran scene to keep you safe the storm station is tracking FR scene 3:52 is our time we are approaching a 4:00 update let's get the latest from our meteorologist Dr Josh eaches thanks very much silia yeah that 4:00 update should be coming our way here shortly and uh but we'll get that to you here on the air if it's h issued I don't expect major changes we may see a slight reduction in wind speed we may also see a little change in the specific Direction this storm is heading but there's a lot to talk about now as this storm is approaching landfall the first thing we'll look at is just big picture it's not a healthy storm it is starting to take a beating from dry air and wind shear look over the last couple of hours here you saw this sudden blow up of shower and thunderstorm activity and then within the last hour or two I mean it is getting really ragged on the northern side fast but this is interesting um a blow up of much smaller scale shower and thunderstorm activity right at the landfall location in St Mary and tabone Parish and Malcolm pointed out I think this is a good observation what's causing that is probably the sudden interaction with land the friction of it colliding with land is causing collisions Rising air and some uh smaller scale shower and thunderstorm development but the reason that we're seeing the storm take the beating that it is is this huge punch of dry air off to the West flowing out of the Southwest and that is starting to wrap into an ingest into the center of the storm and is ultimately going to help to weaken it pretty rapidly as it moves across land we say all that to say we still have a landfalling hurricane and some pretty significant impacts across our area heading into the evening hours live radar over the last three hours is showing us this open exposed Center and eye moving toward land let's go ahead and tighten up on that and show you what that looks like across Southeastern Louisiana and we do find uh that Northern Eye wall starting to move across tabone and St Mary Parish you see where we have this yellow and orange that's going to be some of our most intense or perhaps the most intense rain and winds that we have here in Francine and that's going to be affecting those land areas here momentarily we'll get an official landfall declaration from the National Hurricane Center once about 1third to 1/ half of the Storm Center I has made its way across uh the border of land from the Gulf of Mexico so that announcement wouldn't surprise if we have that in about 60 minutes here or so based on that Storm's northeastward movement at about 17 milph Sylvia and Michael were asking earlier and so we can illustrate this visually with radar when we'll start to notice conditions deteriorating in Baton Rouge I said it will get worse with each successive band of heavier precipitation that comes through our area here's number one so what you're experiencing in Baton Rouge Denim Springs praireville right now even Gonzalez to some extent okay multiply maybe double that for our next one that will come in about two hours that's over assumption Parish St James Parish and uh St Martin Parish right now and then of course the worst of it with that Northern eye wall that's over St Mary and tabone Parish at the moment so we got three heavy punches lined up and heading our way as the storm continues off to the Northeast here into the late afternoon and the early evening hours western side starting to get really ragged and dry out rain is letting up across uh say locations like Alex Andria even into Southwest Mississippi West Felicia and East feliciana Parish that dryer in the upper levels is working out some of that shower and some thunderstorm activity as well then we go into St Mary Parish we talked with meteorologist Balon Rogers a little bit earlier we're going to check in with him again as conditions continue to go downhill there but you see this green box it's a flash flood warning and that's live until 9:00 and it's almost likely a preemptive flash flood warning from the National Weather Service there's certainly been plenty of rain so far but this is this is a warning for just do not drive at this point if you have decided to stick around there in St Mary Parish keep it to your home home location or wherever you're riding out the storm and let's not take to the roads we going to have torrential rainfall rates and obviously really strong winds moving across that area and we might start to see some pretty significant ponding of water and some flooding of low-lying areas as the storm continues to move across land here uh within the next couple of minutes so there's that flash flood warned area for St Mary Parish and we may see some new ones issued across portions of assumption and St James Parish within our viewing area here uh as time moves forward also now looking at another aspect of radar and that's our velocity look at that there we go okay new uh new update is in and we do have a Max wind of 100 miles hour uh approaching landfall here same motion with that 4:00 advisory uh but pressure's gone down about 5 mbars and wind speeds maximum have gone up about 10 mph I think that's going to be sampled up above the ground and they've identified that now with some our offshore buoys and oil platforms so uh some of those wind speeds that are highest are just in southern St Mary Parish and Western tabone Parish now and you can see where we're getting radar estimates here of a gust of about 75 miles per hour just above ground South of Highway 90 another one that's potentially around 45 miles hour in Assumption parish and again this is above the surface so you may take a little bit off as this mixes down to the ground and translates into the uh wind gust we ultimately feel down at ground level Malcolm brought me that new U observation from the National Hurricane Center New advisory I should say um yeah hurricane Hunters have found a sustained wind now near 100 miles per hour uh but they don't expect any additional change in strength before landfall a little bit surprised by that based on what we just talked about a few minutes ago on the presentation of the system on satellite it's certainly not one that's gaining an organization but even in losing organization yeah certainly those wind speeds seem have come up about 10 mph the hurricane Forest winds and this is important extend about 40 M from the center and tropical storm force winds extend about 140 miles from the Storm Center so that's why in the coming hours here with our coverage we will focus a lot on that uh eventual Center Line in the track it's not the Beall endall we have that cone of uncertainty for a reason areas in and outside of the cone field impacts but that Center Line gets really important especially when we're speaking specifically about hurricane force winds and again they extend about 40 miles out from the center so where that center is right now you go 40 miles in this Direction that's most of St Mary Parish 40 miles in this Direction that's most tabone Parish are going to be getting those hurricane force winds at least some gusts over hurricane Force which is 74 miles hour within the coming hour or so here taking that wider picture and looking at that latest advisory and uh once again this this one hey the Hurricane Center keeps us on our toes here that track has gone back to the east so we saw this sudden shift to the West with a 1M advisory which I was surprised by it took the center line right over Baton Rouge remarked on the air that I didn't understand it this I understand this track makes more sense this is almost directly in between Baton Rouge and also like pona train and fits with the current storm trajectory so that makes total sense and that's a track that I am on board with heading into the evening hour so that would take the center of the storm directly through St Mary Parish through assumption Parish through Ascension and then right through Central Livingston Parish and eventually exiting around I55 in Northern Tango Parish in our area coming into about midnight tonight over that state line into Mississippi and by then we would look for the winds to be reduced the max winds to be reduced to about 65 milph let's show you what that looks like with futurecast and this futurecast model is much more in line with that storm track that you're seeing from the National Hurricane Center so that landfall fall within the next 60 minutes here there's one of those first heavier rainbands influencing Baton Rouge around five the second one is near the coast as the storm weakens we'll see that kind of spread out it'll get a little bit more messy in radar presentation by 78 o00 you have this swath of heavy rain and also strong winds essentially from Morgan cting North to Baton Rouge and over into Tango Parish look out around the Lakes too and even New Orleans and then we'll start to see that system pull away to the Northeast still think we're dealing with some pretty strong winds on the western side of Center and the capital city across Livingston Parish into the I55 Corridor at this time maybe gusting over 60 MPH and the storm itself and the strongest winds begin releasing after 1:00 in the morning and certainly by Daybreak tomorrow we get to that magic number of 30 m hour or less where power Crews can get out and start to restore any infrastructure that has been damaged let's go to the Rain aspect of this no major changes here we're still expecting about 3 to 6 in with this heaviest swath right along the immediate Center PATH it's going to be that Northern eye wall that Northern or excuse me closest rainband north of Center that will have some of the heaviest rain rates that will deal with as this system scoots northeastward and Inland across the area and talking about rain that raises questions about the rivers what's happening with them the Mississippi doesn't have a lot of runoff in our area directly tied to our local rain the aaal does not either however you will notice a little uptick in Morgan City with a Crest from where we are now one foot higher that's because there the river will likely rise due to some surge breaching Inland from the south and that's why they have those floodgates up in Morgan City and then the Tango at Robert starting off at about 7 feet but we'll rise to 17 a half that's just in a minor flood stage by the time we get into Friday will remark that we've already seen higher levels than that on the Tango at Robert this year so that's not a major flood event there and then closer to the metro area the Amy at Denim Springs current Crest is projected below flood stage I'll say that actually gives us some wiggle room up we could overachieve in terms of rainfall and still maybe get to a point where we're at a minor flood stage on the am at Denim Springs that's already happen this year as well so that's not a major event uh Port Vincent and French settlements see a little spike in their levels in the short term that's likely due to some surge related flooding out of Lake morpa some coastal flooding The Tick fall at Mont pillar and Holden would be more tied to rain runoff and they see a Crest just below flood stage Friday Saturday respectively and then our most rapid response River the co me at J Road that spikes from nearly flat to about uh 17 1/2 ft below flood stage into tomorrow again slightly higher bulls eyes in the wrong location of rain we have some wiggle room up with these where we still wouldn't get into a major flood event so uh generally this is good news yeah we're going to see River Rise as we expect that but nothing too alarming right now as far as the winds go lock it in we're going to experience tropical storm force winds and at least gusts to that level from Baton Rouge to Gonzalez Morgan City the coast essentially a line from mome to Abbyville certainty to see tropical storm Forest wind gust East to New Orleans and Sidell so that whole swath of Southeast Louisiana can expect to experience that as far as a timeline on the winds put them in the Capital Area strongest I would say from about 5:00 pm that'd be when this graph starts to about 1:00 a.m. and as you can see the white number suggest sustained winds of about 30 that'd be enough to damage some power lines and weaker trees and certainly these gusts the gold number 48 50 maybe some in there 55 mph those moment AR gusts those are the ones that are going to cause the real damage to some power lines and trees in our area as for Morgan City that wind game is totally different uh look at the coast 7:00 we're still gusting to 66 milph 62 milph by 10 and then quickly releasing as that storm pulls away to the Northeast from there that by tomorrow morning we could have a single digit sustained wind in those sections and again you focus on the 30 m per hour wind if you're worried about when's my power coming back if I lose it the linesmen will get out when those winds are below 30 m hour here's a model depiction of the outage potential thanks to the winds and just gives you an idea of where those uh power outage potentials are greatest and it's where you're going to see some of the orange or even red shades here moving forward in time you'll notice how that extends just about into Livingston and Ascension Parish think the model might be underdoing on the western side a little bit baton rou should have that risk as well but you'll notice the uh the damaging winds start to exit our area again as we've said once that storm crosses the state line Beyond midnight and looking forward nonzero Z chance too that some of these bands are able to spin up a brief tornado in our area and that's why the tornado watch is live until 11:00 and that's a whole different can of worms to open if a tornado warning is issued as the storm is coming Inland just like we would in severe weather coverage we'll get back to you and we'll stay live with weather coverage until that tornado warning is free from our area surge is still expected to be in the 6 to9 foot realm along the immediate coast and the say 2 to 4ot realm on the NorthShore of Lake Pon train and around Lake more we could see maybe 1 to 2 feet of water inundation as well all right so I'm going to wrap it up before we go back to news here I kind of want to show you a region by region look at the viewing area and these specific impacts in a bullet point form over the next couple of hours in the 1012 Corridor I would say that includes Iberville West and East Baton Rouge Ascension Livingston St Helena and Tango Parish Winds of 20 to 40 mil per hour with an occasional gust to 60 rain of 3 to 6 in there could be a higher amount embedded within that and there's an isolated threat for tornadoes now until let's say this evening the coastal sections St Mary Assumption St James Parish stronger winds closer to the landfalling hurricane 60 to 80 m per hour winds maybe a gust up to 100 as we've seen in that new observation from the hurricane Hunters I think that's uh that's a high-end worst case scenario but uh in the back of our minds then rain of 48 in with some higher amounts and then finally north and west of Baton roua you will feire the best in this event still could be some isolated issues with power there with a gust of 45 or so don't believe you have a tornado threat on that side of the circulation and Rain of about two to 4 Ines when do we get out of this tomorrow a lot better we'll see some showers left over and the breeze especially in the morning then pretty standard fair for mid-september with the 90s into the weekend and some sunshine back out there we'll continue with you here I want to check back in with Balon in a little bit we'll continue to update our blog on wbz.com new advisories hourly as the storm crosses land on our social platforms and get that WBZ weather app out if any breaking weather alerts are issued for your location you're going to hear it there immediately and you can also track along with Francine on your mobile device as well so Michael and Sylvia that's the long summary of course we'll keep checking back in as needed and see again in a couple of minutes okay Josh thank you okay right now this is a we just spent a lot of time focusing on St Mary Paris Josh was Josh real quick you were saying the sustained wind right now in St Mary's roughly what 30 to 40 yeah I think that's fair I can pull up a r so we can thumb through that as well we might go back to that in a second but this right here this is that live camera in downtown Morgan City on the right that's the aaf River on the left that's Front Street kind of also on the left kind of in the middle there that is the uh the flood wall that that many people especially in St Mary Parish are familiar with so you can see that camera bouncing around pretty good there absolutely and Josh when you get a second if you wanted to talk again just a little bit about that Northern eyew wall bringing with it the heaviest uh rain as well as um the strongest winds as well and I guess we're starting to see just a little bit of that now yeah yeah absolutely I mean those conditions aren't shocking at all the northern eyewall is breaching St Mary and tabone Parish at the moment if you guys want to come back to me I do have that radar and that angle pulled up so we go back and forth maybe between the live shot and uh analyzing what we're seeing on radar but yeah those conditions are about what you would expect and uh I mean look at the the flag there on the left side of the screen that's blowing around pretty good this camera is wobbling and you're starting to see some of those white caps on the river uh indicating those stronger winds as well and we're referencing this right here this yellow and orange shaded area that's the northern eyewall and you know eyewall is kind of a scary word term it's proper terms certainly of what we're dealing with here this one's not in in the best shape it's not as tight as you might see on a major hurricane but no doubt that is the eyew wall moving across St Mary and tabone Parish at this time and uh again this was our new update I think we saw a track that made total sense this caught me a little off guard to see a brief tick up in winds from the hurricane Hunters uh 100 mph from our former Max of 90 about an hour or two ago so won't uh rule out that mixing down on the immediate Coastal sections I don't think we're going to see 100 m wind gust much farther Inland certainly but uh immediately along the coast there that's where we could certainly see some pretty hefty tree and power line damage with that feature that's coming across land right now that video is uh impressive right now we are I'm told working to get back to meteorologist Balon Rogers we'll do that in a few minutes but uh Michael and Sylvia wanted to point out maybe I didn't do this in the hit because we got the new um update in on the the storm's New Path and also updated winds but look at the eye at this moment it is continuing to open up to where this is almost a half moon at this point that the Southern and Eastern side they're continuing to get eroded by that dry air that we saw now that can be a little bit misleading because this is still a pressure system it's not just it's not just this rain and where you see green that's also where there's wind you have to factor in that there's a pressure difference at its lowest at the center of the storm here and it increases the farther out you go from Center and it's those differences in pressure that result in the wind so because this is still a pressure system not just a rain system winds still exist here on this Southern and Eastern side of course you don't really see those on radar but because you go oh look at that the eye that's opened up it's nice weather coming over terab F Parish ah might be dry might not be raining but it will be cloudy and the winds will be extremely high as that area of lower pressure moves across your area so that's worth focusing on it's just the combo here that's more visual on radar to see that Northern eye wall with a really heavy rain and the really strong winds and certainly the thunderstorm activity can magnify those winds in that Northern eye wall but it's going to be quite Gusty on the southern side too and that's why I say tonight across Inland sections while we're waiting for this heavy rain once the rain stops in your area that does not mean the impacts are done we'll continue to see the rain across Southeastern Louisiana from Mora to pona trrain even into New Orleans tonight as this system moves off to the Northeast at 17 miles per hour all right I hear that we have meteorologist Balon Rogers queued up I'd like to continue to talk back with him if possible I'm also going to step off set guys so I can pull up a radar so we have that next to Balon while he's out in the field giving us a support but Bal let's bring you into the conversation here on radar it looks like you are right in the middle of the Northern Eye wall what are the conditions like right now get pretty Gusty we go and then died down a little bit but we are now firmly starting to get into that eyewall and my goodness conditions have rapidly been deteriorating here in Morgan City starting to get complete wide out conditions wind speeds are increasing uh the sustained winds are increasing as well as the gust and this is not the worst of it we are just now getting into the eyew wall and based on velocity it's only going to get worse and worse and worse with those strongest winds pretty much right at the edge of the eyewall and the eye we call it the inner eyewall that is where the most intense winds are going to be located still I would say we have not gusted the hurricane Force just yet we've had some strong winds I've been seeing more tree limbs come down than I've seen uh pretty much for this entire storm and and wow big gust right there it's just going to continue to get worse here in um Morgan City uh this flag we'll see if it can hold on it's really been waving around in the win um but Josh where do you think uh we are in the iall right now I haven't got to look at uh radar in a second we got it right next to you Bal on screen um and you know feel free in the shot if you need to pull out radar scope and take a look on your phone there but uh uh you are in like I'd say the the Northwestern corner of the Iowa right now and you're maybe a third of the way through it so yeah you probably still are looking at a pretty uh pretty good stretch of time here where you're dealing with worse winds Michael just pointed out something on radar to me we have it next to you so I know you can't see this the uh the Returns on radar right now we call those DBZ's folks this basically uh how we measure the intensity of the precipitation it's about maxed out on our scale Bal and so torrential rain actually looks like it's knocking on your door I'd expect to see that pick up and of course those those down bursts may bring some some gustier wind as well I don't know if you saw the new um advisory as of 400 p.m. but hurricane Hunters actually found that we did tick up to a Max of 100 mph sustained now which which actually surprised me I didn't think we'd see additional strengthening based on satellite whatnot but um you could see some pretty high gusts there momentarily oh my goodness Josh while you were talking winds have substantially picked up you can look behind me it's just sheets of rain coming across the parking lot here uh this flag has really been whipping all the trees are bending pretty good and uh these conditions are only going to get worse over the next hour as we get into the middle eyewall and then eventually into the inner eyewall there we go really intense gust right now moving right through Morgan City wow big gust over here to my right and we're just going to continue to see these very strong wind gusts uh over the next several hours as we are in the heaviest rain and the heaviest Winds of this entire system we're about to get the full brunt of Francine and has to offer here in Morgan City Louisiana still though we are not at the worst of it that's going to be in the next several hours uh probably the absolute strongest Winds of this system are going to be off to our uh East in the northeastern and Eastern quadrant of the eyewall it's looking like that we had a little bit of a wobble to the east with the center and that puts us in the northern sln Northwestern eyewall so it's still going to be uh pretty bad in terms of wind speeds here uh but might actually see a little bit stronger winds off towards the east where you got that onshore flow and that's also where we're going to see the highest surge value so yeah conditions continue just get worse and worse here every second I talk the wind speeds continue to pick up the rain rates are picking up uh I 100% get why they issued that flash flood warning uh preemptively there because my goodness the rain rates are very high right now we can see inches of rain here in Morgan City in a very short amount of time as that eyewall does move through the area so it's going to start to get intense here already is getting intense so what are we going to say Josh curious as to just what what you're feeling I mean I know you're describing the weather to us but like are you feeling you know sometimes you we' say it's a little dramatized on national TV are you feeling a tug as you're standing there right now is the wind pushing you around a little bit are you seeing things blowing around near you is the wind or's the rain stinging as it hits your face well Josh I am actually protected by this governmental building uh right in front of me and the winds are kind of blowing east to west and this is blocking the majority of the Winds okay yeah we're seeing some of the heaviest gusts we've seen so far yeah I just saw a big bunch of tree limbs coming down off these trees over here uh we were starting to get into some pretty intense conditions here uh in Morgan City and it's only going to get worse and worse and worse wow big gust right on top of me um so this is really really intense right now as we were entering that eyewall and yeah it just continues to go downhill here and it's going to continue to just get worse and worse and worse I'm having to brace myself here as some of these winds are wrapping around this building and hitting me from the back and kind of catching me off guard a little bit and uh pushing me forward so having to spread out my stance a little bit I'm not in the threat of seeing any flying projectiles near my location that's why I got this big building in front of me if it was a big open area I would be at risk of sheet metal and whatever else gets blown by this wind coming directly at me uh but I'm in a safe position yes raining on me might see a just like that a good little gust that tries to blow me around a little bit but the winds are actually going above this building and around the building and I am not in those Max winds thankfully but yeah we were right in the center of it here in Morgan City and I'm afraid like I've been saying this is definitely not the worst of it we're going to continue to get worse here uh over the next hour as we get closer to the inner edge of that eyewall and that's where we will have those potential for those 80 to uh 90 plus gust so yeah it's going to get quite interesting here we're going to try to stay live uh on air as long as possible as long as the signal holds up I know when you get around these eyewalls you can actually start to see uh the cell service go down so that happens might lose signal here uh here in Morgan City but hopefully that doesn't happen and uh yeah we could stay live on the air here but Bay Rogers and Morgan City I'll send it back to the studio it looks like Bal needs to regroup a little bit there we definitely want to check in with him uh as soon as we can again he kind of getting the main event of the storm right now so when we took the radar down we backed out there I think Balon set the stage really well it is important to point out that he was in a sheltered place now you didn't see the shelter was behind the camera weren't seeing so that was protecting him from the direction the winds were coming what we did see is those trees were moving quite a bit and I thought I saw I don't know what it was maybe it's always like that it looked like maybe there was a power line or or some long strand was was blowing in the wind so something was attached to that at some point and that's maybe a flag was on it maybe was a flag BT you could definitely see in the trees though the wind picking up since the last time we spoke with this no doubt and you give Bal credit for uh you know again I I referenced sometimes you'll see some people out there playing it up with B but every now and then he'd stand there and you'd see one jab him and a gust would jab them that's because they they kind of C you're in a 30 mile per hour wi you're braced for that and then suddenly get hit with a 50 and that just moves your your center of gravity a little bit so um yeah he we need to get back to that when we can as long as they're staying safe down there so as you told him it appears he's about a third of the way through the northern iall how much time between then and and will he experience the 90 plus 100 plus small wi yeah he's he's in it for well with the rain included probably another 30 45 minutes but as I said um a few moments ago this is a pressure system so even as the rain stops we're we're dealing with those extreme pressure differences over a short short distance so he'll have dry winds too within that Center and within that eye does it appear that he's going to be in the eye because that's going to be a fantastic shot of so it is well okay well two yeah it would be two things I think he might just kind of stay on the western edge the whole time based on the North Eastern movement and two because this is not your picturesque perfectly centered Cat 5 hurricane we're not going to have an open Clear Eye it's going to be cloudy and filled in and maybe a little Misty and drizzly still I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that also about the dry when you were talking about and how that's impacting it but also it seems like just listening to you talk about this this is quite unusual from what you're used to with hurricane this reminds me more of a storm that we've seen several in the past in that say mid October late October that merges with a front and gets kind of dirty and messy and comes Inland as a hybrid system that's not fully tropical um but they still create a bit of chaos with strong I think back I don't know why 201 2019 I know it was the night before the Alburn game of the championship season because we went to our tailgate the next morning without power and it just surprised us it was a 40 mile per hour tropical storm that rode along a front and came inland across our area and uh this structure is a little bit more like that of course a bit stronger than that but but this is not a classic hurricane presentation on on radar and satellite yeah as they just told us and we've been showing this the past couple of hours here that is the camera in downtown Morgan City again Josh this is facing south so that's the achaa river there on the right it looks like they're moving it a little bit as well um if behind that graphic would be Front Street which is uh well known there in Morgan City and Josh we've actually seen video from pre prior storms and previous years of the chaffier river flowing backwards it doesn't appear to be the case here right I mean and it might be well if we're thinking about what we're seeing on radar there and then doing the math in our heads Morgan City is currently getting about a northeasterly wind on the Northern side of the eyewall so that would be why we're seeing that water if this is facing south that would be why we're seeing that water flow in that direction but to your point Michael I wouldn't be surprised if later on when they get south of the storm and the winds turn around to the South Southwest we might see that see that that River reverse course briefly or at least the Chop on it will look like it's going the opposite direction uh but yeah I mean that even I think we showed that before we went to Balin which was maybe 15 minutes ago that flag's moving more that Tower is wobbling more there you go and that that paints the picture what we were talking about the water Morgan City should be getting yeah it's about an East Northeast wind right now on that Northern eye wall so that would be why we're not necessarily seeing an an inland flow on the achapa and this morning we saw Balin standing right there on the right side of your screen before they kind of backtrack to the governmental building that they're at now for safety purposes obviously oh yeah obviously calm that's right mhm yeah and he's sheltered by that he would not be sheltered by that building if he was in that position right there and would be uh prone to anything debris wise that would be flying around right now um that area as as Balon is in right now is under a flash flood warning you see that boxed area around Highway 90 you'll notice it's it's more for the Inland sections away from the coast where there's actually population around Highway 90 there um so we don't want folks on the road right now obviously there's the wind concern there's the Heavy Rain concern and Michael just to something that we were talking about off camera while bayor was speaking you pointed out to me the white and for a moment there on radar I thought that white was actually some some lightning bolts as we would normally see but that's actually our rain rate scale at its very tippy top you don't even usually see that with thunderstorms here in the capital area but I believe your graphic shows that at the top right of the screen heavy the grayish see the scale right below the time there uh usually you see a dark red and that's a nasty heavy thunderstorm here in the summer that white the rain rates don't get much higher than that and you expect tropical rain rates are some of the most intense there are so so in the Iowa what is like the rain rate per hour very you know I could sample this on radar I could stuff off screen and do that I would estimate that it's probably on the order of about 6 to8 Ines per hour we were seeing some rain rates like that uh last week now of course it didn't rain for a full hour so you can get six inches but in a short time a 6 inch rain rate for just 15 minutes can drop a lot in a short time so uh and yeah what we're hearing in our ear now I think sounds good we'll go to the next Parish up from St Mary where we might have a a Alexis Alexis Mary will send it to her Alexis and Bri andresson those guys are in assumtion Parish right about 30 minutes away from where Balin was um and if you guys thought he was getting some stuff we are getting some pretty heavy storms here also it's just hit us with the past 30 minutes or so I want to show you guys exactly what I'm seeing here because it's it's eerie um maybe just a couple miles away you can't even see past um some of these rows of sugar canane it is completely just white um it is completely wied out there the visibility is super low trees that a couple hours ago seemed super close to us are practically invisible at this point the visibility is super low so if you need a reason to stay off the roads this is your reason you cannot see very far and that's just standing in someone's backyard um I also want you to look at these trees um these trees are tall they are waving back and forth and back and forth and that is all around us we are steering clear of them we want to stay far away from now in case something does happen of course but this this wind is insane um as I've been sitting here waiting uh waiting to come up I've been having to brace myself and keep my legs nice and wide open because it's really it's hard to stand up out here um with some of these winds gusting through and um so the back half of this property is Farm the other half is is a Highway I want to show you some of this over here you can actually see where the rain is wafting through on this driveway we are on an under a under a carport but you can see the just the sheets and sheets of rain coming through um you guys have been seeing Bri Andreas for the past couple of hours she is gone because she is holding the camera because the wind is so bad out here um this is really intense to watch um this is guys my jacket is like moving and you can see the wind this is crazy this is really crazy to watch um so we're going to keep you guys updated out here in laville all the businesses I think there's a car that just went past don't be like that guy um but there a lot of the businesses out here are closed of course um small town just stay inside please do not do not do what I'm doing right now live in laville Alexis mariny WBZ news2 so Alexis is what about 30 minutes away from where Balin is she talked about visibility being a major problem and of course we saw the sheets of rain falling there yeah I'll tell you what based on the path of the storm and uh guys feel free to pull up radar I do have that as a as a reference point she may get more of a direct path through the center in labille than bville in Morgan City so I've got two views here and I'll just go back and forth between the two if you want to leave it full so balin's in Morgan City Alexis is in laville look as we zoom out there and look at the center kind of due south of Morgan City the storm is moving Northeast so Balin stays in that western edge of the eyewall and Morgan City there and laville might get a little bit more of a path through center it's about 17 I mapped it from from their location about 17 miles between the two which we didn't realize they were that close together uh earlier on in the coverage but she's to your point she may take the front of this she could I mean at least level with Balin will experience uh you know in Morgan City both of them experienced some pretty significant wins you could tell just during the course of her shot as she was getting on the Northern edges of that eyewall that conditions were going downhill fast so um yeah those those two areas assumption and St Mary Parish obviously would be among the hardest hit in our viewing area uh Malcolm passing me a note that uh sustained winds of 74 miles per hour in a gusta 87 have reached the Noah Sean station at Eugene Island near theaf river so the translation of that is Hurricane force winds have made it to the Louisiana coast okay uh let's take a break we'll reset and be right back insurance companies have teams of professionals to fight your claim if you want to know what your case is really worth I'm Spencer Callahan I'd like to help the all new spectacular extreme circus presented by the card International circus is coming to your hometown with more extreme acts than ever before featuring BMX riders Cardon spectacular animals acrobats interactive entertainment aerialist and so much more the all new spectacular extreme circus get your tickets today come see the spectacular circus September 14th and 15th at Lamar Dix and Expo Center in Gonzalez driving the Nissan road with Google built in is like Hey Google turn on Rocky's food it's like the ultimate connection see why it's been awarded a consumer guide Best Buy and recommended by Consumer Reports Drive the Nissan road today get 2.9% financing for 60 months on Rogue one of six Nissan vehicles with starting MSRP under $30,000 bra teamed up to reimagine your parks and you imagined big with your help we went to work creating 12 beautiful Community Parks across the parish a family-sized water park miles and miles of tra in Parks just for your dogs there are more places to Splash to explore to run wild and even sore you imagined we delivered gold bre your Parks our purpose why do billion dooll insurance companies regularly delay and deny valid claims because that's how they got to be billion dooll insurance companies if you've been injured I'd like to help the storm station is tracking Francine all right it is the bottom of the hour approaching 4:30 here in the capitol city if you're just joining us we just checked in with Balon Rogers he's experiencing the northern eyewall of the hurricane right now we also talked to a license Marin in laville who's getting the BR of the storm yeah so now we're going to send it out to Livingston Parish and our Joe Collins is there Joe what do you guys we're back here here in Livingston Parish and we're also back to the emergency preparedness group emergency preparedness Center where we had just met with the parish president about an hour ago we were at near the am River diversion where when we were there we learned about the flooding risk that here in lney Parish that's one of the things they're really concerned about as you can see is the rain has intensified since we last spoke the reason that they're worried about flooding is because for specifically at the amate river diversion that's just one place is that we were on a dock and usually the dock for the water level is about 2 feet below the dock but the water was over that and even spilling onto the dock as well so that is a flood risk as you can see behind us we're at near a pond that kind of instates where there's going to be more flooding if it does happen you can see also on to the side even the grass is starting to get a lot more rain now we can't they came back here because they're expecting the storm to intensify in the next couple of hours they're expecting heavy winds and heavy rain but they want to make sure that people know that living parishes Under A curv View From Dusk until on tonight as the storm comes and they want everyone to be safe About It by morning they'll have everything that they need as far as emergency crews going out clearing debris making sure that power is good in the meantime we will continue to keep you updated from Livingston Parish live here Joe Collins WBZ News toin thank you just to pass along what he said Livingston Parish is under a curfew From Dusk until dawn a dawn tomorrow morning and then uh emergency crews will be out just surveying the damage and taking care of the debris before before they give the all clear for folks to be out we heard from the parish president about an hour ago Randy dad with Joe Collins an interview and they were showing us that area where where Joe is right now in a dock that is generally 2 to three feet above the water level the the water was already lapping over the dock and I believe the parish president said that they had concerns they get another one to two feet of of uh of surge coming in and that's obviously a concern in Livingston Parish uh we're going to head back down to Morgan City with balen Rogers as we have been talking about he is right there in the middle of the northern eyewall and he's going to be experiencing some of those 90 plus maybe in 100 mph wind gust Bal all right Balin yeah Michael conditions like I've been talking about are constantly getting worse here in Morgan City we are seeing some serious gust here right in front of this government building we just actually went through the outer eyewall and now we're about to go through the worst part of Francine and that is the inner eyewall of the system so conditions are rapidly deteriorating tree limbs are just getting flown in every which direction uh they are breaking you can see the Sheets of Rain behind me pretty good gust right there there's also this Tower off to my right a pretty elevated Tower it's making a lot of noises as the winds do move through our area uh this flag is really starting to move right now and we are going into complete white out conditions here in Morgan City I heard Malcolm mentioning earlier the hurricane force winds in excess of 75 miles per hour have now made it to the coast and they are moving Inland that was recorded at the southern edge of the chaalia river and that is all moving this way as the inner iall makes its way into Morgan City it's going to get very intense and it's already been intense I'm having to hold on my hat uh just so it doesn't blow away um I'm actually shielded from the highest wind speeds from the system there's a government building very sturdy brick building right in front of me uh is actually shielding me from the highest winds of the system but some of these winds are coming around this building and over the top of the roof and hitting me and I'm having to brace myself as they do uh move through our area so we are about to see the worst that Francine has to offer here in Morgan City I mean just look at that flag absolutely ripping in the winds right now uh we're definitely well into tropical storm Forest we're starting to get close to that hurricane Force I wouldn't be surprised if we're already seeing some trees and maybe even a few power lines start to come down across the area every single tree I look at there's just tree limbs and debris flying off the trees in any which direction and it's really starting to get bad here in Morgan City I expect our winds to continue to pick up over next about 30 minutes we're going through the Northwestern quadrant of Francine right now that's not actually where the max winds are that's generally in the Northern and Northeastern quadrant of the system but we're still going to get hurricane force winds here and it is getting worse and worse by the minute every single second I talk we're seeing a higher and a higher wind gust here in Morgan City I haven't checked radar uh in a second but it looked like we're about to go into what I mentioned earlier that inner eyewall and that is where the most intense winds are located at with the system actually just recently upgraded to a cat 2 hurricane with 100 mph win so we'll have to see if we get up to that Mark I think that's again going to be more just east of here wow really big gust right now just off to my right a lot of noises going on right now across the area a lot of whistling noises power lines are whistling and it is getting very intense here in Morgan City and I keep on having to brace myself so looks like we're going through the Northwestern eyewall we're going to get to that inner eyewall very soon we're pretty much almost kissing it right now and that's what we're going to see those hurricane Force gust here in the area and then if we get into the iron not it's going to depend uh we could have slight little wobbles off to the west and we could maybe sneak into the eye and see a bit of a calming in the system as we get into the eye of Francine before the winds pick up once again on the back side so right now the worst winds are going to be right around the core of the system system known as the eyewall and you're still going to see a remnant of the eyewall as this makes its way further north Into the Heart of the viewing area so although the winds are not going to be as intense as what we're seeing now and what we're about to see still going to be very intense for a good part of the Capital Area especially if you find yourself closer to the center of the circulation and wow that is a another very big wind gust here in the area it just seems like the winds keep on getting stronger and stronger and that might be one of the strongest wind GS we've seen so far yeah my camera man is getting soaked right now sorry about that uh but it is getting very intense here uh trees are coming down I haven't seen any power lines down yet but they might be coming down as well and I'm going to continue to follow this maybe come back pretty soon but uh for now I'm going to send it over to the studio maybe get a check on radar exactly where I'm at with uh meteorologist Josh Jesus but back to you in the studio all right Bal great work out there stay safe we did want to emphasize that for the viewers at home that did not see her last shot you do have Shelter From a building just on the other side of the camera there sir he is protected from the winds coming from that opposite direction guys we're all on set here together we were kind of mouths a gape looking at that shot the flag poles and the trees and the trees swaying back and forth yeah I'm looking on radar to answer bal's question he's about halfway through the eyewall at this point um and actually he's getting ready to take another good pummeling it looks looks like the very strongest inner eyewall point of the inner eyewall is about to cycle through Morgan City now uh I'm told we have Lexi in laville as well who's also going to be getting the brunt of that they're getting the Northern Eye wall right now is she ready right now tell you what tell us when she is ready we don't have her yet we're working on getting her up okay when she is ready we'll talk about that but I think what Balon is seeing is a pretty good example of what you can expect in Assumption parish and St Martin Parish likely in parts of St James and terone parish as well it should be to a lesser extent when it reaches the capital area later this evening so you're not necessarily you might see some sheets of rain like that I don't think you see the flag poles quite as sideways but there could be some temporary gusts that get to the levels of what balon's experiencing what was the gust that he was dealing with think you got I have the observations pulled up right here we got the computer right in front of us so we can actually see everything real time even when we're right here on camera I see a peak gust at 415 at 55 milph at Patterson Memorial airport highest sustained spe speed I see is 43 mph so those are tropical storm Force conditions but they are on the western side of the eyewall which might reduce wind speeds slightly we could end up seeing some higher wind speeds even in in h east of that in tabone Parish and then eventually I I I wouldn't be surprised in this event if New Orleans ends up with higher wind gusts than say New Roads or Baton Rouge I'm looking at the radar right now too and the northern iall is getting into St James Parish before too long maybe even Ascension Parish at Point So speaking of Ascension Parish let's get back to Morgan City and Lexi in just a moment we need to go to new sah gr bar who is also standing by live the volunteer fire department gotcha yeah guys I am in Santa in Ascension Parish I'm actually behind the volunteer fire department building at first I was blocked by the building so I wasn't getting a ton of rain but as you can see the wind has picked up the rain is coming at me it is just getting stronger on our drive here we got out to Ascension Parish around noon there was very light rain very light wind but as you can tell it is raining it's coming down and I want to show you behind me this is their overflow Pond canals coverts lead into this it looks fairly full hold up I have a yard stick I want to show you something when I was talking with First Responders who work here they were telling me that this overflow Pond has actually Isen about 2 and 1/2 to 3 ft higher than it usually is just to put that in perspective this is my yard stick from Lowe's I love my Lowe's yard stick that's up to my hips that is up to my hips for reference I am 5T tall this water has risen up to my hips just showing you how deadly this water can be and that it's dangerous imagine driving through that amount of water which is why the sheriff's office is reminding people to stay off the roads if you do not have to be on them please leave these roads clear for First Responders if you have to go somewhere of course you know go get your supplies go get your water go get your food but as soon as you can please get home and stay safe and a hunker down until this storm passes through and on that same train of thought when I was speaking with the sheriff's office they were telling me if you're having an emergency please call 911 but if you have some sort of situation that you need to report that is not an emergency please call the citizen service phone number we have that over on our website wbrz.com other things I might want to mention we were passing through through town we saw several gas stations starting to close we actually saw one gas station where a man was starting to Saran wrap all the pumps not only did he Saran wrapped the pumps he also was tying down the trash cans and he was telling us that the reason he was doing this at this Murphy USA gas station was to make sure nothing blew away and to just maintain the quality of his gas station service come tomorrow when the storm is finally passed through we're going to hear from him later tonight but as you can tell the rain is still coming down if you don't have to be outside please please do not be outside please stay home and just wait through this system passes all the way through live in Santa Mona gar WBZ news2 all right Sarah thank you for that unbelievable I mean yeah just makes sense too we're seeing the worst weather kind of creep up uh the River Parishes and eventually into the metro area this evening looking at a clock time flies obviously weeren doing this coverage and we were expecting a landfall on that 4 o'cl hour I would think that note will come to us imminently here and yeah worst conditions in the metro area I've been timing to start around five and I think i''ll be on track look five forward into especially closer to Nightfall start going downhill pretty quickly in in Baton Rouge Livingston Gonzalez right yeah we have the radar behind us here and we just saw Sarah Greybar in Ascension Parish and uh well the northern eyewall is very clearly right there and moving north towards that location yes and we we talked about the consecutive rain bands kind of lined up here so eyewall we're talking about here and the inner eyewall outer rain band there there's another one farther north and the first one that just came through the Capital Area uh within the last 1 hour or so here so you saw some heavy rain and some wind there Sarah gray just touched on the rain really picking up and this rain Band Here didn't look like she was dealing with a ton of wind but Alexis mariny laville is on that Northern eyewall and Balon especially in Morgan City so this is the one as this spreads Inland and northward into the late afternoon early evening hours this is where you really go okay Francine is here you're going to notice that next uh let's say here we go in southern Ascension so Donaldsonville 30 60 Minutes you're going to know all about it uh White Castle too that'll be coming your way and then as we get into lower Livingston Parish uh a little more than about an hour down the line so this is kind of the Leading Edge of the real tropical storm conditions as they spread Inland toward the capital area in the 1012 Corridor remember we haven't talked a whole lot about power outages infrastructure damage yet a lot of that's right here I'll check all that in a second in the Metro well that's what I'm saying it probably hasn't reached it yet but in the metro area the tri parish area when that that Northern iall gets to the metro area that's when those numbers are going to start going up fast we talked about rainfall in in right in Gonzalez is there a way to like show yes let's zoom in real quick here and we'll put up the Doppler radar estimates and it's important to note that these are just estimates but uh they tend to do a pretty good job with you know reasonable error there let me pop up the estimated rainfall totals so this would be since midnight here and it might take a second for these totals to pop on here uh sometimes it takes a couple of seconds here but you see all those green shadings and we will sample some of these velocities we'll go to Southeastern Ascension Parish first you see a 1.8 Bullseye there in the Southeastern part of the parish let's go along Airline Highway where she is north of Gonzalez yeah just a little bit under an inch and but remember I mean the storm is still moving North into that location and still kind of uh I don't even I wouldn't even say we're Midway through at this point now drag that South toward uh assumption in St Mary and we earlier I was querying some two two three inch estimates there but look that's piling up fast south of Morgan City and just east of Morgan City and a milia don't want to leave out those communities too are likely seeing some of that heavy rain as well 3.7 that estimated almost 4 inches there forecast four to eight so like that range looks very probable and it's continuing what we can also do is uh broaden out the view just a little bit more and we can actually draw a box here and look at the average accumulation over the region um instead of just picking out local bulls eyes uh sumption St Mary Parish on average 2.2 in so far and and more to come like you said about halfway forecast rainfall was 4 to eight double that we're in that 4 in range you're going to have some Bullseye some isolated areas where it's a little bit higher and uh I mean I think that's why we see that flood warning in place along that Highway 90 Corridor it's not necessarily amounts we can't handle here it's too much too fast right yeah and I think uh you may see some more warnings expanding a little bit farther north with time there is a look at the current radar perspective and I would say landfall is going to happen uh pretty shortly here I you look for the center of circulation which is right about there now and it's not far away we can uh measure that actually real quick and give you an estimate on exactly how far that is uh Center of circulation is less than 10 miles away it's moving 17 miles per hour so within the hour within the hour we will get that update from the National Hurricane Center that's kind of why we dragg this computer over here too is so we could stay up to date with the latest information because the Hurricane Center will push out something the second this makes landfall yeah and then that's it's it's what we kind of talked about the last few days was this would be the story first was the landfall and we're getting that story on the ground from Alexis and Balin and then once that landfall occurs the story becomes all right now we move into the capitol city and we watch the weather deteriorate here into the evening hours and myself and Emma Kate earlier uh Brandy and JP were helping us reinforce the message of patience you know it's it's it's hard to sit home from work in school on a day where it's just raining and a little bit Breezy I could have been there today what's happening they said a hurricane was coming with time those conditions will go downhill in the capital city and that will happen as we approach Nightfall so what are we going to see in the next uh what 15 20 minutes where where Balin and Alexis are what do we expect to see in terms of the conditions I know that it'll get even worse I think balin's in the worst of it right now in fact I think probably in the next I'd say 30 minutes to an hour things should probably gradually get a little bit better for B things will probably get worse for Bri and Alexis out in Assumption Parish yeah Crossing that'll be important to get that Highway 90 Corridor kind of cleared of the heaviest axis of rain that's the first step to some improving conditions as I referenced winds will remain elevated but the important notation I like that view just for a moment Malcolm where we're seeing a little B wider strongest winds are going to be in this Northern eye wall because the really heavy rain and thunderstorm activity is mixing down to the surface even stronger winds the pressure field remain the same on generally the entire Center circulation of this storm so the winds are still strong on the southern end but it's without the rain to mix down even stronger winds from the clouds just above so got a new report from Oregon City sustained winds at 43 gust to 62 those numbers just keep ramping up got to believe you're going to see a hurricane Force Gust in there estimated here before time is up point and and you know these observations are taken at certain time intervals so we may miss one of those between those intervals but uh they're probably out there somewhere along the coast and we've already seen some reports of that right along Coast I wonder if if I know if you have it built in there Malcolm we just kind of set this up we we don't build the track in and talk a little bit about the timeline here moving forward and maybe even the winds we have that wind graph timeline that Baton Rouge and Morgan City is a good reference point uh we we will get to that momentarily here's the track and it also has the tornado watch overlaid because remember there is a tornado threat haven't seen any warnings yet fortunately but that could change as these spiral rainbands continue to move into parts of the Capital Area by far the greatest tornado throw would be along and east of the track that where the winds generated by the storm align with the motion you can see that yellow shading just east of that Center Line track from the Hurricane Center notice Baton Rouge not included in that tornado watch and and again I think this is worth talking about back to was it the 2 o00 update or the 3:00 am I crazy I believe you and I stood right here we watch that Center Line go over bat we all saw that right and then it shifted back to right back to where it was that was a really and the Hurricane Center doesn't usually fool around like that that was a weird move and it didn't make sense because you had this trajectory doing this and then they suddenly made a path that did that and then they went back to whatever almost all of the Hur stand by guys yeah yeah yeah let's go to Alexis and Bri right now in laville hey there guys yeah things are really picking up here in laville if you cannot tell already wind Gus are picking up and so is the rain we heard a Transformer blow up earlier near this area behind us just reminder we are in Assumption Parish about half an hour away from where Balin is in St Mary Parish in the Morgan City area our camera lenses probably has some rain drops on it so I apologize for that but things are getting very very intense we're already seeing some flooding in the area something very minor it wasn't anything crazy but things are picking up we showed you that cane that cane field earlier the longer cane is laying down and we did find out from a sugar can fer that if the cane is laid out flat like that it is no more good for harvest season so we're hoping that this storm does not cause too much damage to the agriculture business but right now in the middle of the storm it is really really picking up I think we're right near the eyewall near Morgan City we're about half an hour away from there like I said we have heard of power outages in Assumption Parish near the Napoleonville area so we expect that to move throughout the parish as this as this storm intensifies through throughout the day if you see here it's really picking up the winds are blowing directly at us and it's it's pretty intense out here I'm not going to lie but for now we're going to go back inside get some shelter and we'll come back in just a minute to check in with how things are going out here in Assumption Parish back to you guys in the studio okay well what we're going to do is take a quick break and we'll be right back with our continuing coverage of tracking FR scene we're hosting the EMS and this year they're going highbrow no they said eyebrow they want you to make bad jokes about your eyebrows which you're not doing why don't they go through proper channels my brows have their own agent what did I just say what when you're dealing with the aftermath of a car wreck you need local Hometown attorneys to understand the struggles you and your family are facing I'm attorney Gordon mccurnin we've been fighting for our clients in Greater Baton Rouge for more than 30 years our attorneys and legal staff don't just work here they live here their kids go to school here and giving back is so important to all of us we've recovered over $3 billion for our clients 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new Koda at Ascension equipment rental on Airline Highway and Gonzalez don't be a victim twice call me attorney pton Murphy at 928 8800 the storm station is tracking Francine we indeed continue our coverage of Hurricane Francine a landfall imminent across Coastal Louisiana here within the next hour actually we're estimating under that uh chief meteorologist Dr Josh Eis alongside meteorologist Malcolm Byron we have meteorologist Balon Rogers on the coast we're going to check in with him a little bit later on but it's been a while since we've done a full analysis of the situation here with Francine uh Malcolm kind of lead us off what we're looking at well we have Peak winds now at 100 miles per hour and uh recent hurricane center forecast have kind of Teeter tottered back and forth on whether or not they expect the category one or two landfall but really we're only talking about a 10 mile difference there sometimes they were talking about a landfall with 90 mph winds other times 100 milph it just happened to be right on that cusp between category one and two but it currently is a low-end category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds at 100 miles per hour and notice that pressure there it's dropping a little bit Yeah indicating a potential strengthening Trend yeah was surprising to us given all the features and factors that were working against it earlier uh the the 10 m per hour adjustment in wind speeds is kind of a a big whoop it's you know 90 you're not going to notice a huge difference in that in the damage that it does do so we won't focus on category or winds an interesting note certainly uh but we prepare for again the same impacts that we've been advertising for days here uh they are really unchanged by this uptick and Max wind speeds that's right here's a look at the center of circulation if you will I'd say this is maybe 10 to 20 miles out from landfall their St Mary Parish there's terone parish is likely going to make landfall to the east of Morgan City but Morgan City right now is in the eyewall itself maybe getting into some a region of lighter precipitation if you will if it tracks just right but right now Morgan City has been experiencing some pretty nasty weather and they're in the brunt of it now I would expect in the next hour things should generally subside but that should change for areas a little bit farther north yeah what's fascinating to me that we've seen this kind of uptick in winds Malcolm whereas the structure of the storm has looked worse and worse and worse with each passing hour so interesting that and it may just be that the hurricane hunter is only for the first time identified those Winds of 100 they have been there all along and they just weren't identified until now but we are seeing a storm that now would had dry air working against it it had wind shear working against it now we add friction to the mix interactions with land so um the National Hurricane Center you've heard them use the terminology for Rapid intensification we did not see that with this system but on the other end of the scale rapid weakening is a term they've been using in their forecast discussions on this which is expected after landfall not letting our guard down inland but I'm not surprised to see the presentation very quickly change with what this storm looks like overall and that will evolve rapidly into the evening hours right but we still have some very strong winds at the coast here in fact you see that bright green shading indicating strong winds I'm going to step off camera here and uh sample some of these wind velocities for just a moment uh using our computer off at the side here we're going to do uh Eastern St Mary Parish out towards Morgan City and I should remind you this is couple thousand feet above ground level we're actually sampling data from the Lake Charles radar typically with hurricanes you actually see the strongest winds in the lower levels of the atmosphere not like the typical low pressure systems that we would typically see let's say in like the winter time but this is a couple hundred feet or a couple thousand feet rather above ground level and some of these will be mixing down to the ground so I wouldn't be surprised to see some 60 to 70 mile per hour winds with that signature right there and we'll continue to sample these as the storm moves Inland this evening and what we'll see is while these wind velocities are higher just above the ground those numbers just like the weakening storm they will get lower and lower as the the storm moves Inland but it's worth keeping in mind that that's kind of the max potential of what you have as identified by radar and some of these rain bands the thunderstorm activity within them will grab these winds a couple thousand feet above the ground and mix that down to the surface with the heaviest rain so um you'll see those winds elevated certainly beneath this layer but this is the max potential getting down to the surface and I think you just kind of picked out where we have one of our other Crews right now in Lille yeah this is uh generally west of laville sumption Parish here 60 to 70 mph winds a couple thousand ft above the ground that number has been rising as the northern eyewall moves north towards assumption Parish I would suspect that that number would continue to rise potential there for maybe a few hurricane Force gusts at least tropical storm force winds at the very least yeah actually I think since you can scroll live here let's just for instance let's see what Baton Rouge is sampling right above the local area right now so Malcolm's going to step off camera and you're going to see him Pan the camera up here to the North and then he's going to use a little look and look there's not even much green there so you might have to look towards e or between the 10 12 Corridor it's probably to be really low I'm going to switch Radars here to the Hammond radar for Baton Rouge probably get better coverage out here different color doesn't matter what color it is we're sampling the the magnitudes of the velocities aoft and in Baton Rouge this is actually roughly about 2 to 3,000 feet above ground level things starting to get a little bit breezier in just a few moments we will show you some of the wind speeds actually observed at ground level in Baton Rouge right and those are probably of most interest to those watching at home right now I actually if I have the lineup memor R we probably should go there next let's talk forecast of the Winds now and what you can expect across the area moving forward we see what radar is estimating now we know the max winds are at about 100 miles per hour sustained with some locally higher gusts but let's go to the coast this is Morgan City North Northeast 44 miles per hour whoops switching around yeah we'll switch that back there we go north Northeast 44 miles per hour as that Northern eyewall is moving across St Mary Parish in Morgan City All Along The Highway 90 corridor from Franklin to Baldwin we're likely seeings and similar winds and now I think we're going to the forecast next right the forecast in that area and there we go and that's funny because it starts now so you see that line way up there that's a weird dip right there but that actually might be the center eye yeah the eye getting really close and then it jumps back up a little more as the storm pulls away and then it really goes down tomorrow and that's why we talked about too though that where you get a temporary calm in the eye that southern it might not be as wet it might not be as rainy but still windy it's still a pressure system and on the southern side even if that's a dry side you could still have some gust over 50 now we'll switch to to Baton Rouge there's our tower cam right now and it's a dreary scene sustained winds in Baton Rouge at 21 miles hour likely a few higher gusts on top of that and that would likely rise as we go through the night 76 the current air temperature with showers around this is the Baton Rouge wind Trend lower than what we expect near the coast because as you mentioned earlier we expect a rapid week and looks like we got some new data and they're jumping those numbers up a little bit more but at the very least tropical storm Forest wind gusts upwards of 50 maybe 60 miles per hour in the Metro and that continues through about midnight again because while we might deal with the heaviest action prior to midnight from a rain perspective even even as that storm pulls away on the southern and western side we'll still have some Gusty winds so it's not until about Daybreak tomorrow um continue to bring up that crucial 30 m per hour mark where the linesmen and the power Crews can get out there and get the bucket truck up and whatnot and get to work need to be under 30 and we should have sustained under 30 through most of the daylight hours tomorrow so Cru should be able to get to work pretty quickly I'm going to pull up the current map of wind speeds and wind gusts that way we can actually get the instantaneous burst of wind there Morgan City that was up to 62 with the last observation but now showing a 54 m per hour gust there Baton Rouge gusting up to 33 Gonzalez up to 32 New Orleans a little bit farther east of the center of circulation they have a gust of 41 sustained at 26 yeah and uh I said that I I wouldn't be shocked if we see some higher wind reports in New Orleans as compared to say New Roads for instance well new roads may technically end up closer to the Storm Center than New Orleans New Orleans going to be in that that Eastern side as I like Emma Kate's term the dirty side of the storm that's a little bit more active so this is a new update from the National Hurricane Center still almost a certainty of at least seeing tropical storm Forest winds in the metro area especially Points East in fact those probabilities have climbed with the latest Hurricane Center forecast for New Orleans maybe decreased a little bit I mean you see that 90% chance in New Roads and it quickly drops off West of Point Parish so to to remind you what this means that's the chance of a 39 M per hour sustained wind for one minute or more it needs to be one minute so uh you will see that at least once and that's all it takes to do a little bit of structural and tree damage uh especially to power lines that are weaker especially to trees that are weaker or weekend by the drought and the rain from the last couple of weeks then that made the ground saturated so it's not like you're going to experience this from say five to midnight constantly that's not what the 100% means it means at some point in that window you will see wind over 39 mph and uh shifting gears now and talking about the rain we did see a little nudge East in the track with the 4:00 advisory I'm not surprised to see that most of the computer model guidance shows a track somewhere between the Baton Rouge Metro and Lake pona train and I think along and east of that track that's where you'll see the highest axis of heavy rain as a baseline 3 to 6 in is possible but along that track maybe just Northwest the track that's where we could see some locally higher amounts I want to point out something really important on this map and we're probably going to see some adjustments to another aspect of the forecast because of it that's the river levels where are most of our River level basins coat Northern East Baton Rouge Parish am meat through parts of East feliciana St helina Northern Livingston Parish rain totals have come down tick fall also in this vicinity rain totals have come down where is they REM remain high the Tango River Basin and those rivers to the east of our viewing area getting closer to the Pearl River but all of these heaviest amounts generally fall over areas that don't have major drainage channels can be some standing water issues some Bayou some Creeks that come up but our key metro area Rivers the drainage basins are also to the north that are now in an area that sees a lower rainfall total than we were even expecting six hours ago thanks to just a that's why we say those small 20 30 m hour Wiggles and track means so much to so many aspects of the forecast imagine that 3 days in advance might have been off by 30 40 miles but when we get into daytime of the storm these little Wiggles are fascinating to watch through the day because they do have wide reaching impact so we'll keep an eye but I'll bet when our next River forecasts come out those levels which are already primarily expected to be below flood stage will stay that way or even go lower right and I think after the event too those River flood forecasts get much more accurate they yeah that's right they will um I think uh Chris told me we'll leave this up here but they have some video we could talk over you guys can take that whenever Malcolm and I'll take a look if you want to tell me what we're seeing when you bring it up we certainly have a look there uh I see oh okay we're seeing uh from dlac tabone Parish okay so this is just to the east of where we saw meteorologist Balon Rogers in Morgan City and uh southeast of where you're finding Alexis mariny in laville um that's pretty intense and that goes to show you Malcolm I think that speaks to think of the safe spot Bal got himself into in a parking lot near a sturdy building building that is very not it's so easy to underestimate the power of water yeah and the wind just exerts that drag on the water and just pushes it that's why storm surge is one of the deadliest part of hurricanes is because sometimes it's easy to misjudge just how powerful Rushing Water can be yeah I this this is hurricanes tropical storms they are a coastal event and that is clearly an exposed Coastal area with Rushing Water it's why you're often urged to leave those locations system what say heed heed fur it's not farther Inland in Morgan City surrounding himself by sturdy structures to protect himself from the wind and any large bodies of water that could quickly inundate his area he didn't even want to leave the levy protected area and that is the reason why right and that says something because we know Balin as a daredevil stormchaser but he he knows when not to mess with the weather and today was one of those days and that video from dlac kind of shows that we get back to the forecast now and we're taking a look at Satellite Malcolm I know you've got plenty to say about this but we've seen such a transformation in the last three or four hours yeah it's interesting uh what these color Contours represent are the temperature of the cloud tops way up high in the sky and the colder the cloud tops the higher they're getting the stronger the thunderstorms and we see a lot of these Reds earlier on uh this morning and then they began to weaken and we thought okay is this the beginning of the end for the storm is it going to continue to weaken and I don't know if you noticed this here but that explosion of convection and thunderstorm activity right on Shore and at first we were trying to figure out why is that happening because you would think once it interacts with land it should weaken but I I think there might be some frictional uh convergence right along the coast that might spark some more of that thunderstorm activity so what what Malcolm basically saying there to take that term in another way is that you see these winds rushing Inland they're hitting land it's forcing them to go somewhere and that's rising and the rising motion generates new shower and storm activity because if you talk about friction in some ways harming the storm look at the early going while the center was still offshore we had pretty healthy cold Cloud tops here and immediately fall apart upon hitting land but that Central circulation yeah is where we're seeing that blow up of new convection and maybe you know that blow up of convection is an indicator of why we saw that 100 m hour jump in winds or excuse me 10 m per hour jump in winds to 100 miles per hour and the Northeast motion um we've seen I like that we have the track on here cuz you can see really we had the nice beine Northeast over the last 24 hours but there have been some distinct Wiggles here in the last 12 hours or so and we do eventually expect a northward turn to this as this begins to interact with an upper level disturbance which is actually sitting way over here that should eventually pivot this off towards the north so while it may move Northeast for the next couple of hours then it may make a northward turn maybe up towards uh let's say the Florida Parishes out into Mississippi yeah and even even paralleling I55 at some point later on this evening we'll have to keep an eye on that uh one of the big factors that's been working against this system we've talked about wind shear now friction because we're getting close to landfall and it's the dry air that's working on this system from the west and I don't doubt we've been talking about the dry air coming on the southern side wrapping Into the Storm Center eroding it from within but I don't doubt that this dry air also hitting the Southwest uh coming from the southwest hitting the northern side of the storm is why you've probably seen on some of our radar images and notice especially north and west of Baton Rouge some of that rain activity is really starting to dry up and struggle right now so uh this is going to be a very lopsided event in terms of impacts and the presentation on radar and uh Malcolm's going back to that right now we have a landfall yes we do have a landfall Francine has made landfall in Southern Louisiana in the Parish of tabone about 30 miles South Southwest of Morgan City is a category 2 hurricane maximum sustained winds are estimated near 100 miles per hour a station located on Eugene Island recently reported a wind gust of 105 milph with a minimum pressure at 97 he said South Southwest of Morgan City so they're calling the landfall right about on that that point there part of tabone Parish that'd be South Southwest it's hard to see exactly where that Center circulation is because we don't have a closed eyewall there but clearly that Center uh moving over land right now continuing North so if that's Center and we know we have a Northeastern movement I'll just draw with my hand here we are going to take well so that where that that estimated wind speed of 100 miles hour was I mean stand by Balon and Alexis standby Morgan City Amelia Supreme laville those strongest wind gusts in this this southern part of excuse me the southern part of the inner eye wall here and the core of the storm they're heading right for you uh moving to the Northeast at about 17 miles hour we should also have a track update as well I'm going to pull that up here um there's the five o'clock advisory still Peak winds at 100 miles per hour zooming just a little bit closer there the radar is still this is the current live radar you can see very heavy rain over parts of uh Western St Mary Assumption Parish moving North into St James assumption Parish before too long in the track between Lake pona train and Baton Rouge where it was all along yesterday we had that bizarre shift earlier I want to make a really important Point here this cone is really tiny that's because the storm is initializing right here now there it's always wider farther out in space in time and with this cone being really tiny you go ah baton rouers are on the western side of that cone now might miss us will not miss you the cone is where the center will go not where impacts will be felt impacts will be felt to the west and much more so to the east so everything remains on track from a forecast perspective this is projecting exactly where that Center will go which is through assumption it looks like St James uh and then into a eventually Central living I think we should emphasize as well we often talk about the east side of the storm being the dirty side the west side is not the clean side though I mean if the center of circulation tracks let's say through Ascension in Livingston Parish bat Rouge is still just miles away from the center and you're going to see northwesterly winds whipping on the back side maybe slightly lower than what you see on the east side but it is still going to be strong still could do some damage yeah I think maybe a good way it's the Eastern side could have slightly stronger winds and the it they will sprawl out farther to the east on the Eastern side of the storm so the the tropical wind extent will go less further out on the western side than it will on the Eastern side that's really the main difference there but yeah just because you're immediately west of Center doesn't mean you're off scott free well uh that's the latest track update from uh the National Hurricane Center we will get another update an hour per uh their statement six o'clock we should get another position update as well as a track update so with all that being said what I'll say is Malcolm and I are about to step off set here we're going to go update this with that landfall information we're going to make sure that gets pushed out on this if you're following along with the storm Station weather app our on air updates will continue and those uh new advisories likely the land follow you probably already seen it that comes out on our WBZ weather uh X and Facebook platform so that's kind of the wrap right now we're not going anywhere we've got plenty more to talk about analyzing the storm as it gets closer to Baton Rouge and we have way more in the field from our live Crews sprawled all about Southeastern Louisiana we are going to take a quick break we continue tracking Francine after this hey we're big DM Bubba wake up with us every weekday morning on 100.7 The Tiger download our free Tiger app and take us with you anywhere in the world the only country station in town 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customers get a profit boost every NFL game day FanDuel America's number one sports book tiger country is 100.7 The Tiger in the car on 100.7 FM or on the 100.7 The Tiger app 90s country and Beyond 100.7 The Tiger there's DNA then there's heavy duty DNA H DNA it's engineered into every aspect of the GMC Sierra HD with the pulling power to prove it tow hitches of the world prepare for Glory get 5.9% APR for 84 months on Sierra heavy duty Denali models that's over 5,300 in average Finance savings the storm station is tracking Francine all right hurricane Francine has made landfall as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds about 100 mph about 30 m to the to the west of Morgan City yeah meteorologist Bal Rogers is right in the thick of it Balin bring us up to date well I tell you what sovia we are seeing the strongest winds that we have seen so far uh with Francine this is actually some of the strongest winds I've seen in my life and I've been in many different hurricanes this flag is actually getting completely ripped the shreds when you get right gust there is tons of winds out behind me uh we're seeing gust I mean it has to be hurricane Force at this point I mean these winds are absolutely insane we are right in the middle of the inner eyewall right now and we are just getting blown around in these hurricane force winds these are the strongest Winds of the storm right now and I'm really having a brace uh for these winds as they do move through our area so we're seems like that we're gusting over 70 miles hour now there's a lot of damage everywhere uh this Tower up over here is making lots of noises as it does the now like I mentioned this is some of the strongest winds that I have seen in life and it just just constantly gotten worse pretty much with each and every second I'm going go and put this hood on here try to protect myself from some of these winds uh it has been very much going downhill here in Morgan City um continue to have to brace for some of these gusts uh which like I said I would imagine are over hurricane Force at this point uh the trees are really taking a beating uh lots of tree limbs uh big giant tree limbs have been coming down now and it is just this city is taking a beating I've been hearing a lot of sirens a lot of emergency vehicles try to respond uh lots of Transformers exploding as well you just hear a big explosion sound and that's basically the Transformer completely overloading uh because of the force of the Winds pushing on the power line so we're definitely seeing power outages now and we're just seeing a lot of impacts now in our area or in Morgan City and we're going to continue to just be right in the brunt of this storm uh at least for the next 30 minutes or so until we do eventually hopefully get into that eye uh we might actually barely skirt the edge of the eyeball on the western side but I tell you what these winds have been been ripping here seeing a lot of damage trees are really getting damaged here power lines getting damaged and we're just going to continue to see this Relentless rain and this Relentless wind in our area it has been very bad here in Morgan City and I don't know we might even see stronger gust we got a very big gust coming now I see it coming in the distance I'm going to brace for it here it comes very big gust coming through right now you pretty much have to squat down and brace for these winds as they come through if you get taken off guard by these winds This Will Blow you over these type of winds and I'm actually even shielded from the hardest of the Winds right now I got this big uh brick governmental building right now that is right in front of me that's a big one and a lot of the winds are blowing up and over that building but we are seeing some winds come around the building and up and over it and blowing me around a little bit but if I was to step a little bit farther out that way I don't know if I could stand up in this this is very intense winds some of the strongest winds I've definitely seen in my life and uh Morgan City is taking a beating here I hope everyone is sheltered behind some sort of building inside your house and uh Sheltering from these winds because this the type of winds that could blow out windows as well I mean this is extremely intense here in Morgan City and that's another one of those that is very much hurting as these rain pellets do hit me in the face yeah that that's a good sting to it that's a very good sting to it yeah this building is trying to protect me not doing a totally a great job at the moment as we're seeing some of these winds go up and around this building and we're just continuing to seeing Relentless rainbands uh you can actually look off behind me and see some of the Winds going through this parking lot uh this boat was about to just take off a second ago and some people from the Army actually had to go and secure it uh so they could use it later when they do unfort okay we're starting to see some damage now just had something come off this roof I might not be able to stay in here for too much longer yeah just saw something fly off the roof here right in front of me so this might get a little dangerous here standing out here we probably going to have to take shelter here very soon I thought these winds would calm down a little bit as we're getting close almost into the eye but my goodness they're getting strong look at this gust coming right now this is some of the strongest gust I've seen in the system here it comes big strong Wing gust right now going right throughout this parking lot tons of noises right now we're getting P City we are in the heart of hurricane Francine it's very hard to stand up out here in these winds and although these type of winds are not going to come to Baton Rouge and Denim Springs the left almost got taken off guard there but the leftover from this iall will be coming to you and you will need to not be on the roadways get we're not expecting these type of winds uh getting all the way Inland to Baton Rouge Denim Springs because the system is going to slowly weaken as it does so but those winds will start to spread out to more areas around Southeast Louisiana are begin going to begin to experience those above tropical storm force winds and we are just in the brunt of it here see those hurricane conditions and I'm going to walk over here for a second uh because we're seeing a good amount of tree debris uh right over here in this area as we continue to see the winds really ripping apart some of these trees it's just like these big gusts that come through they rip apart some of the tree you see these big tree limbs that come down around the area and uh so far I haven't seen any complete trees here and I see one right over there big old tree limb might be just out of view of the camera uh pretty is across there so giant tree limb but we are in the thick of it here this is very intense and uh if this building was not right here in front of me uh I would not be doing so well right now cuz this wind and rain is very strong even though I'm partially sheltered by this building yeah that's another one of those big big gusts that's moving through our area uh you can actually even look off that way and you can see some of the the trees that are really bending around in the area so it is getting very intense here I really haven't been able to look at radar lately my phone has gotten pretty water logged here and so I don't know actually how close to the eye we are hopefully we get into it soon because Morgan City is taking a beating right now so uh yeah live in Morgan City my goodness it is getting bad here hopefully people will sheltered Palin Rogers WBZ Channel 2 all right Palin Rogers get to some shelter but just looking at those pictures that was pretty dramatic and you could actually see that he was is really steadying himself there and you know as he said if that building were not there you know to kind of shelter some of the gust of that when the force of that wind he might shielding him from the wind yeah and whenever he starts talking about debris flying off the roof it's time to get under some sort of structure as well um we've been talking about power outage as well just a quick note that we just got about 50% of St Mary parishes without power about 9,800 customers of 19,000 electric customers will continue to monitor that yeah and um um he he thinks that there's an even worse scenario to come as far as the weather goes and the rain and the winds and all of that within I guess in the next half hour he's in the as Josh in Malcolm and saying he's kind of in the thick of it right now and that will continue to get better for Balin so we're clearly going to check back in with him as the situation allows let's head to Ascension Parish with news2 Sarah grey bar and check in with her yeah I'm I'm in Santa out in Ascension Parish I'm looking straight through a fire Bay and I can actually see sheets of rain coming this way I don't know if you could tell it's not super bad right here only because I was being blocked by the fire department building but as you can tell the rain has definitely picked up since earlier today we got out on the road around Nish and at that point it was lightly sprinkling there was barely any water in the canals in the coverts but the water levels have definitely risen as you can see behind me this is the Overflow Pond behind the fire department the levels have risen 2 and 1/2 3 ft since the beginning of the day according to the First Responders I spoke to do you see that gold car right there on my left I was told that according to the fire department they expect the water levels to continue to rise and reach up to where that gold car is so this is not the type of weather that you really want to be out in this is definitely the type of weather that you want to stay home stay dry hunker down and stay safe through the storm speaking of someone who knows a lot about storms I have fire chief James LeBlanc with me here you told me that you've been doing this job for decades can you give a little bit of what you think of the storm yeah so I think now you're starting to see what we've been expecting all day today the uh the the gust are picking up the winds are picking up uh we do have some trees down uh Ascension Paris government the Sheriff's Office our homeland security offic is all on target they're they're they're all man they're all working hard uh this is the time where like you said this is the time where you need to stay inside all right this is the time where you're going to see trees down you're going to see wires wrapped in trees always treat those wires as as they're hot uh that don't don't keep the kids inside uh generators is a big thing for us make sure that the generators are not in a closed area so it doesn't cause any carbon monoxide to get into your homes but this is basically what we've been waiting for all day and it has arrived you know we got our prayers for for Morgan City where uh where May landfall with a cat 2 so now Ascension pirat is going to start really feeling the effects of it and you are correct this is something that we deal with all the time we know exactly we're prepared for it we've been preparing all week um sandbags are ready uh boats are ready High uh high water vehicles are ready so uh if you don't have to be outside stay inside because this is this is the peak it's starting to be the Peak absolutely absolutely and you know we have all these First Responders here in the bay with us what are they waiting for so all of these uh so this is a volunteer department with about 25 to 30 people here and they're waiting to go help get trees out of the roadways they're they're they're ready to help uh with the sandbagging operations they're ready to help with the elderly they're ready to help the Parish government with any shelter openings they're ready to just do their work that's what they do that's what they always do it doesn't matter if you're from Ascension Parish if you're from Baton Rouge it doesn't matter if you're from bargan City all these fire departments do is wake up every day and go to bed every night doing nothing but taking care of their residents and that's exactly what they here to do is take care of their residents yeah and off camera we were talking you've been doing this job for decades is this hurricane is this storm where you thought it was going to be at yeah so I I've I've been expect what you're seeing now is what I've been been expecting all day and uh we're it's going to go through the night and uh we'll be ready all night long to respond and keep our roadways open with our Sheriff's Office with our Paris government and we're going to do whatever we can to keep our residents safe but they can help us by staying inside and hunkering down and and let us let us do our job out here and you just uh stay inside and uh do everything you possibly can tonight to not eat all the snacks because you're going to need them tomorrow okay all right of course thank you so much live in Santa Mall Sarah gbar WBZ news2 all right Sarah thank you for that and I do just want to pass along this phone number for any emergencies that are not 911 type emergencies in Ascension Parish the number to call it's the citizen service number it's 225 4501 1200 we're starting you an update on uh Power issues in a lot of these parishes I I can tell you that uh dico is reporting especially in Ascension Parish about 7% of their customers are without power so there's about 15,000 customers served in Ascension Parish right now about 1,200 are without power Livingston performing pretty well thus far about 48,000 customers there in Livingston Parish about 1,500 are without power if we look at the Statewide map if I can uh pull that out uh looks like an X out of it so uh on the Entergy side we're look I tell you what assumption parish is is taking the brunt of these power outages as we talked about about 4,000 customers there without it's only going to get worse from here and we'll get maybe back uh later with uh Bri and Alexis there I can pass along some information regarding there's the power outage uh map there for you but I can um I can update you on some other additional information we have about class uh classes cancel classes for tomorrow LSU has announced uh that classes on campus and online are cancelled Thursday campus is under a shelter in place order until 1: p.m. tomorrow um LSU saying announcements concerning Friday operations will be made after the storm has passed and the impacts are assessed let's take a quick break we'll be right back at Gordon McCarney injury attorneys we've been fighting for our clients in the Capitol region for over 30 years we've recovered over $3 billion for our clients now your local Hometown attorneys are ready to go to work for you just call me get it done we're hosting the EMS 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for it but isn't it worth one phone call to demand that your rights be protected h on the job demand deadly deer there are trucks and then there's the GMC Sierra available with the connected Driving Experience and the world's first six function multipro tailgate GMC Sierra it's the truck or get $3500 purchase cash on select GMC Sierra models or get a total of 6,000 purchase allowance when you trade in an eligible vehicle see your byou GMC dealer the storm station is tracking Francine Josh and Malcolm talking a lot about that that outer eyewall that is we showed you balen Rogers experiencing that that of course is still tracking to the north and to the East and it's kind of right on top of laville yeah and that's where we fine Bri Andress and Alexis Mary bring us up to date guys on what you are dealing with right now guys I don't know if you can tell but I'm completely soaked in water this if you've ever been to the otet aquarium there's this big hurricane machine that you stand in I'm going somewhere with this and you just standing there and get whipped with rain and and all this stuff that's exactly what this feels like it's intense um you can see behind me that I mean it it the wind is just kicking us um it we were just sitting here and being blown at the rain is hitting me directly in the face um about 5:00 laville parts of laville lost power um that was after I we heard a Transformer explode right after our last uh time on air with last time we heard from Bri um we heard a big pop we thought was a firework and it would be weird to be doing fireworks in the rain evidently so it it turned out out to be a Transformer and then a couple minutes later we lost power here where we're at um but we've talked a lot about the sugarcane Fields because that's really where the heart of where we are we are seeing so many sugarcane Fields behind us and they are just drenched um the Bri knows the proper terminology but the rows of sugarcane I don't want to get cancelled on Twitter or anything like that but you can see the the water is rising um on those rows the sugar cane is it's really just pushed over um like the storm just took it and just laid it right over and those are tough stocks too those are really tough to knock over and the storm just did it um like it just pushed it down like dominoes um we're seeing these trees over here which are bending um I want you to see these over here right next to me um a couple hours ago you would I I would not have told you that these trees would be able to do what they're doing now the way they're just swaying back and forth um like one of those uh used car things that goes back and forth look guys words aren't coming to me it's storming out here um but but there's so much to see out here there's so much water it's picked up so much intensity in the past couple of hours and the rain is just intense we're watching you can't see it from here but there's a roof that I see see right next to me and as the water hits it it's going up it like a backwards water slide um the rain is just going right off just flying right off and it's in a big stream um all the gutters are just pouring out rain so whatever Bal saw I think we're getting I think we're getting a lot of that now it's it's it's a little frightening but um really intense to watch wow you can see that just see that wow it's it's beautiful but kind of scary to watch you can hear the wind I think that's been the most intense part of all of this is every few minutes you'll just hear the whistling um that wind catches something and just goes so it's a bit Eerie out here guys again visibility is low stay off the road stay inside we just saw um some emergency workers passed by on the highway behind us so stay safe out there uh I'm going to throw back to you guys in the studio live in laville in this hurricane Alexis Mary WBZ new to say boy that was pretty um pretty powerful to actually hear the win whipping through there yeah yeah and also um she mentioned the Transformer she actually heard a a Transformer a Transformer Transformer blue um and we have information that about 4,000 households are without electricity there about 10,000 total track so almost 50% of assumptions without power obviously that that number is going to Trend up yeah I I also want to uh let you know that in Zachary we just found out that there is a curfew dusk toon I assume uh for Zachary for a full list of of curfews um and shelters um you can go to our website we've got all of that listed at wbrz.com all right let's get a check of the latest with meteorologist Malcolm Byron well we just had a landfall recently Category 2 landfall with Max sustained winds at 100 mph that coming with the 5:00 update from the National Hurricane Center near Eugene Island tabone Parish that's the current position of the storm there you see Morgan City very close to the center of circulation as we've seen with balin's live shots very high winds in this region blowing from East going towards the West it does look like that eyewall is continuing to lift North even seeing some bursts of Reds right here on the radar indicating some heavier precipitation that's moving into assumption Parish so I wouldn't be surprised if the rain rates in the wind picked up even more for Alexus and Bri out in that location so of course we of course are concerned about their safety there but they are taking as many precautions as they can here's the wide perspective worst part of the storm right along the coast right now that Northern eyewall moving into assumption even St James Parish right now wouldn't even surprise me to see that venturing into uh Ascension Parish as well moderate rain in Baton r we do see some of these lighter rain bands way up farther to the north uh and then we see uh some lighter rain also up into Southwest Mississippi I think with each successive rainband things should generally get worse just got a new power outage update there I'm hearing some gusts outside right now too so gusting uh pretty decently in Baton Rouge right now almost shaking the building right up over there a tabone parish about 65% of the parish without power lefou Parish about a third of the parish without power over half a St Mary Parish losing power those numbers also going up in Assumption Parish we'll limit these numbers just to our parishes in the wbrz coverage area and you can see those numbers starting to climb even in the metro area Livingston Parish over 2,000 power outages 2,000 power outages Plus in Ascension Parish and these numbers likely to climb as the worst of the storm continues North there's also a flooding risk with this as well specifically for St Mary Parish it's going to take about 3 to 4 Ines over a 6-hour period to cause flash flooding and many spots we have already seen that these are some of the rain totals since midnight where you see some of these blue shadings just south of Morgan City that's where Doppler radar is estimating perhaps over 5 inches of rain has fallen on average in southern St Mary Parish we've seen anywhere between three and four Ines but remember that's an average many spots within that seeing over that average there is the current radar perspective we've also overlaid warnings on here and you can see flash flood warnings in effect along the Highway 90 Corridor that's been in effect for several hours now but that will continue to be in effect for the next several hours until 9:00 notice rain intensity is letting up but a little bit farther to the South that's good news from a rain a heavy rain perspective but there's still going to be a lot of wind even though the rain intensity lets up we go farther to the north we don't see any flash flood warnings yet it would not Shock me though if one got issued later on down the line for assumption in St James Parish as the northern eyewall continues to lift North through the region that's the northern eyewall notice where it's going next Ascension Parish so we're talking communities like sarento Gonzalez praireville gismer Baton Rouge could get pretty close to that Northern eyewall as well and see some pretty strong winds as we go into the evening hours especially getting past dark but for now just some lighter rain with Gusty winds here is the projected track from the National Hurricane Center again this is the 5:00 advisory so some real recent data here likely seeing the center of the storm tracking between Baton rusian Lake ponter train this is what the computer model guidance has really been locking on to recently it will continue Northeast at a pretty quick rate I mean right now it's moving at 17 mph that's good news from a heavy rain perspective because the system will not linger for several days on end however it may tack on to some of the wind speeds generated by the storm especially on the east side where the winds generated by the storm out of the South aligned with the storm motion that storm motion adds on to those wind velocities making things a little bit worse for areas east of the Baton Rouge Metro even getting out towards New Orleans let's show you what the current wind speeds look like right now Baton Rouge I did hear some gusts just outside earlier a few minutes ago yeah we're gusting to 38 M hour at Metro airport with the sustained wind at 22 miles hour reminder a gust is the instantaneous burst of wind the sustained wind is the uh wind lasting for a couple of minutes or two there you see Morgan City a sustained wind at 44 miles hour that's tropical storm Forest right there specifically for Baton Rouge we will likely see our winds Peak after dark likely getting up closer to midnight sustained winds perhaps in the ballpark of 30 to 40 miles per hour Gus over tropical storm Force then we go down in wind speed in the overnight hours leveling off tomorrow morning key number is 30 miles hour that's when the lineman and power Crews can go and restore power so if you happen to lose power this evening you likely won't get it back at the very least until tomorrow morning once those wind speeds finally subside here's something interesting in Morgan City though way off on the leth hand portion of your screen you see this line Morgan City is experiencing the strongest wind speeds right now and it will still be strong in the next couple of hours we can still see 70 to 80 mph gusts even by 8:00 but those numbers quickly ramp down as wind shift out of a new Direction and The Storm begins to pull away and by tomorrow morning I think we'll be talking about a significantly less wind down by the coast rain timeline peing in the next couple of hours notice rain coverage going down as we get closer to midnight that's the interesting thing most of the rain is on the Northern side of the system so even as the rain May let up an intensity the wind sticks around so when the rain lets up you're not necessarily done dig get an updated expected rainfall map here and notice the highest axis of heavy rain shifting off to the east taking aim at areas like H Tibido New Orleans sidel parts of the NorthShore that is due to an Eastward nudging track from the National Hurricane Center Baton R is just on the western Fringe of this still could see Heavy Rain on the order of 3 to six in I think to the west of the center of circulation that might be closer to the lower end of that range but we could see locally higher amounts especially along that track big question we've been getting is what are the river levels doing a couple of gauges are forecast to get to minor flood stage that's nothing out of the ordinary I want to note that no River forecast gauges are uh projected yet into major flood stage that is not going to be an issue with this storm as things look now this is a fast moving system which really helps us out you can see Mississippi at Red River Landing not even close to getting to flood stage as we go into late week as a lot of the water is not empty into the Mississippi locally a chaal river you might see the river levels rise a little bit but not necessarily up to flood stage Tang Robert is forecast to get into minor flood stage that is one of those gauges that might swell just into that minor status notice the am at Denim Springs flood stage at 29 ft forecast get to 28 ft at Saturday so there's still a little bit of wiggle room with how much rain we need to see to actually get us into that minor flood stage but again as far as impacts go uh this is a small potatoes compared to what has happened in the past let's talk about the tornado threat mainly east of the center of circulation notice Baton Rouge not even in the tornado watch these yellow shaded parishes are in the tornado watch including Tango Livingston Ascension St James assumption these are areas east of the center of circulation that's going to be until 11:00 tonight as some rain bands continue to pass through there's a lot of wind shear in the upper levels of the atmosphere and some of these tropical thunderstorm cells could get a little bit of spin to them and we might see brief spin up tornadoes fire and we haven't seen any tornado warnings yet but if any do come out we will be bringing it to you right here on WBZ speaking of storm surge that's a big issue right along the coast we could be talking about 5 to 10 feet of surge east of Vermillion Bay going out towards Port Bashan Northshore could be dealing with a couple feet of storm surge as well and then as the system pulls away winds shift out of an opposite direction and uh well opposite facing Shores could be dealing with the storm surge then we're talking the Southshore getting in towards uh Barrier Islands as well on the Northern facing Shores let's talk safety for just a second as far as driving goes only drive when necessary even when I came in earlier this afternoon I was already seeing ponding on the interstate I had to slow down to prevent myself from hydroplaning and especially when the high winds arrive in the Baton Rouge metro area you need to look out for things like trees branches power lines debris and if you do come across any flood waters not a good idea to drive through that obviously because it's really hard to judge How deep the water is and if you happen to be out and about walking who would really want to be out and about walking but uh know that flood waters can have live power lines in those and well last thing you want to get is electrocuted right uh as far as lighting goes use battery power lighting uh don't go into flooded structures and this is really important generators use only an outdoor ventilated spaces we see it all too frequently with carbon monoxide poisoning we definitely don't want to see that we're going to wrap things up here from a forecast update perspective in just a moment but we are continuing our coverage on air we also are updating things on our app we've been doing that literally all afternoon wbrz weather app you can find out first the latest happenings in the tropics you can also watch us on air you can also find out things if you lose power through the app as well we'll also have updates online and on social media we have much more coverage continuing right here on WBZ but for now we're going to take a quick break Ashley's fall semiannual sale is going on now for a limited time hot buys are $9.99 and under or pay nothing out of pocket and still get 0% interest for 60 months spend less and get more during Ashley's fall semiannual sale when you walk through the door at prescriptions to go you can feel the difference right away You're greeted with a smile and treated like family with individualized customer care so come see us today and let our family help your family at prescriptions to go real golden Shake real people real reactions to Our Lucky 13 deal get 13 golden tenders and four fresh baked rolls for only $19.99 10 out would recommend Lucky 13 only 19.99 this chicken beats it all bad wreck with an 18wheeler I'm attorney Payton Murphy call the Murphy Law Firm now with the Capital City's largest team of degreed meteorologists you know where to turn before during and after the storm watch the storm station only on WBZ Channel 2 did you know that prescriptions to go has a mid city location get the same grade service you're used to in a timely and professional manner from a pharmacy that cares about every customer individual needs so come see us today and let our family help your family at prescriptions to go on government Ashley's fall semiannual sale is going on now for a limited time hot buys are $9.99 and under or pay nothing out of pocket and still get 0% interest for 60 months spend less and get more during Ashley's fall semiannual sale the storm Station tracking Francine to keep you safe the storm station is tracking Fran scene welcome back to our continuing coverage of tracking France scine and I do want to let you know about some curfews we've got the complete list on our website at wbz.com but just add it to that list Iberville uh that goes from 6p until 6 a.m. also there's a curfew in Zachary From Dusk to Dawn a meet also has uh curfew and Livingston Parish a complete list is available on our website we also want to get to news's best cly she has been roving around the metro area checking out damage and she is right in the thick of some wind and rain right now best can you hear us I can hear you Shing hopefully you can hear me we are driving at the uh Highland Road park right now and things are pretty quiet for now but we have seen a few wind gusts looks like a couple kids are playing in the puddles over here uh don't recommend coming out and doing that but as I said right now it is pretty calm other than the wind gust there aren't a lot of uh big bursts of rain that we've seen yet I wonder I wonder if we could talk to these these two let's see okay we'll talk to them later look at them there they go oh man Highland Road Park all right so like I said in Baton Rouge you've been driving around we just went down Burbank uh there are not many people on the road because you shouldn't be on the road right now but the roads are definitely wet it's been raining all afternoon and morning and they're holding water but not too much rain no much not any surface flooding that we've seen right now trees are starting to sway a little bit more than they have the wind is definitely picking up and it looks like that's just going to keep getting worse based on what uh our other reporters are experiencing farther south but for now it really is just moderate rain moderate wind and we will continue to keep you updated here in East ban Rouge Parish and the uh Capital Region but for now I'm going to send it back to shing and Sylvia all right best thank you I think she brought up a pretty good point there while you may not see it here in batner just yet as we've seen from our crews farther south we're going to get it here at some point in the near future right they uh as uh as Josh Dr Josh and Malcolm explained that the storm is moving taking a North with TX so as it leaves from St Mary it's going to continue its track assumption Parish we've seen uh with Alexis Mary and Bri Andress as well they're dealing with it as well um and we're going to send it back right now to Balin who is in Morgan City for an update okay Sylvia we are absolutely in the worst of it so far we are seeing some very serious gusts right now and it is getting very bad here in Morgan City I am constantly having to brace myself from these winds this is really crazy here definitely 100% within hurricane Force now uh these are some extremely strong winds okay here comes another uh very strong gust I might have to brace myself here in a second uh we're seeing those gusts over 70 mph really having to brace myself as the winds really start to Pummel our area there's another one okay yep this is getting very bad here I just want to let you know it is extremely hard to stand with this and I'm not even hearing or seeing full force of the Winds this last several hours I got this building right in front of me that is shielding me from the full force of the Winds but still some of it is hitting me as it whips around this building and everything around me is taking a toll you can hear all these creaks and exploding this Tower making these horrible whining sound at these very strong winds hurricane force winds are moving through Morgan City I tell you this is the strongest winds that we have definitely seen so far in the system my phone is completely bricked I don't know if I broke it or what but it is completely water log I have no update on where I am at on radar but it doesn't even matter I can just tell you right now that we are getting the absolute worst of it in Morgan City this flag is really taking an absolute beating right now uh is actually completing completely getting shredded as the winds do rip through the area uh yeah these are extremely strong hurricane conditions and this is what you expect with the eyewall of a hurricane you see incredible rain rates as Josh mentioned earlier around 8 Ines per hour which is pretty incredible in a bad way and then you see the winds on top of it which could are blowing 70 80 90 plus miles hour I'm telling you what it is doing some damage around Morgan City like I mentioned don't have an exact update on radar I don't know if we're going to get into the eye or we're going to skirt the Western Edge cuz I haven't been able to look at it but all I know is this is some of the worst conditions we've seen so far we had some gusts earlier we're actually pretty scary to see cuz they were extremely strong and trees started coming down everything was creaking all around you hear emergency lights it's like a war zone right now in Morgan City and I tell you what it's actually getting uh darker out here so that is interesting I'm wondering if some of the worse winds are uh Yet to Come CU over the last minute or so it's like the sky is really darkened up uh you can see these rain incredible rain bands just moving throughout the area and the wind the wind my goodness uh I've been in many hurricanes before and uh this is the Cat 2 this is definitely some of the strongest winds that uh I've seen since I started chasing some hurricanes so this is extremely intense here and uh emergency crews are doing all they can to Y just going to have to stop for a second that was a pretty good gust but emergency crews are doing all they can I hear them the sirens off in the distance trying to assist people we've even had to assist people who have come up to this building to take shelter uh I don't know what happened to their home if their homes were damaged but there's been people that have actually driven up to this building and taken shelter inside I guess because how strong the winds have been but bottom line we're getting pummeled here in Morgan City one interesting thing is the outer bands honestly were not that bad especially in comparison to this I mean we really only gusted to maybe barely tropical storm Force but as we got into the outer eyewall and then especially as we gotten into the Inner eyewall Man the conditions have rapidly deteriorated here winds might have actually it's hard to say this but come down a little bit it's actually lightening up outside it was getting pretty dark but it's starting to lighten up I wonder if we're actually getting into the eye of the storm which would be a good relief uh these residents could take a break from the Beatdown that they are getting right now um but I tell you what in Morgan City we are getting the brunt of Francine uh it has been very bad here there is tons of damage and we haven't even gone anywhere I'm just looking around me and I see trees down everywhere bunch of Limbs down this flag's getting a little shredded and we're probably not going to know the full extent of the damage until all the winds do subside and we get to uh look around and we'll definitely show you if there's any major damage around the area but live from Morgan City meteorologist Bay Rogers WBZ Channel 2 all right Balin thank you for that yeah he says that uh it was a rain rate of about 8 in per hour the winds blowing 70 80 90 miles um he's really in the in the full extent of it right now I'm looking at the WBZ weather app here if you don't have it get it it is fascinating that I'm looking at Morgan City you can see the the southern edge of that eyewall is now passing over bal's location meaning that he is going to have a cal and I think he alluded to that he said that the skies were kind of getting a little more brighter it was darker at first so it looks like it's going to be a little bit more we calm for bin here over the next 30 minutes or so minutes or so we'll get back to him as soon as possible so we'll send it a little bit further down the road uh to Bri Andress who is in laville for a look at what is happening only about 30 minutes or so from where Balin is bri can you hear us yes hey guys I can hear you we're kind of experiencing the same situation that Balin is we like you said we're only 30 minutes away from Morgan City in laville in Assumption Parish about over 4,000 people in Assumption Parish have lost power including us the home that we are staying at riding out this storm has lost power the wind and the rain is getting to me I am soaked right now I'm going to step to the side you can see these very large trees they are blowing in the wind they might even break it won't be surprising to see some branches break on these trees okay big gust of wind there like bin I have to brace myself try to stay in one spot not get blown away this storm is nothing to play with take this seriously if you haven't already because this is very dangerous to be out and about in these conditions thankfully we have shelter we're okay we're safe but this is the worst of it it seems like it seems like this might be the worst of it hopefully it starts clearing up our area area soon okay big Gus Big Gus big wind Gus these wind gusts are nothing to play with guys like Bal I've seen many hurricanes in my day growing up in Louisiana but I've never experienced one from this perspective covering a hurricane in the conditions in the elements and it's pretty intense I'm not going to lie so stay inside and if you don't have power please reach out to your local call 911 if it is an emergency go to our website try to you know get get those resources that are provided to you I'm going to send it back to you guys in the studio because this is really intense and I need to get inside all right is she under that Northern eyewall that Balin is experiencing well cor so what balin's feeling kind of the tail end of bre probably going to have that I would assume for the next 20 or 30 minutes like as the crow flies she's about 17 miles to the northeast of of of balin's location so that that outer eyewall is kind of pushing that way toward toward where Bri and Lexus Marin are right now Heavy Rain high winds all of that and it's just incredible to see them standing there trying to hold on to air basically as they're uh giving their reports and I can just promise you guys we're getting some emails about it just that you know wishing them well that they stay safe and so they absolutely are doing that we are bringing you the information but we uh absolutely want to make certain that our crews are safe through this and so what they're experiencing right now in labille of course that's going to continue pushing farther inland we have crw and Ascension Parish we're going to check in with Sarah gry bar momentarily we also have best cly who's roving the streets of the metro area in Baton Rouge for any issues that we may have there Livingston we'll also get to Joe Collins and David Hamilton momentarily in Livingston Parish we're GNA take a quick break we'll be right back Ashley's fall semiannual sale is going on now for a 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Buu GMC dealer Ashley's fall semiannual sale is going on now for a limited time hot buys are 9.99 and under or pay nothing out of pocket and still get 0% interest for 60 months spend less and get more during Ashley's fall semiannual sale the storm station is tracking francene all right welcome back our coverage tracking hurricane CR scine continues across the capital area tonight we've got a 6m advisory on Hurricane Francine Malcolm did you just grab that print out by chance he's coming to join me on here I figured that was imminent right as we took the air here obviously with the storm now Inland winds are down about 90 uh 10 miles per hour to 90 miles per hour and it's moving to the Northeast at 17 that's unchanged Malcolm I'll let you maybe expound upon that a little bit and we'll also comment we're going to take a little radar tour here at least with the wide picture first we thought maybe there's a little wiggle here but I mean that's to be expected it's tough to tell when you have a decaying eye exact motion one thing we know for sure is that has made landfall did that at 5:00 and now it is moving Inland over Southern Louisiana and we are already starting to see that rapid weakening last advisory we had Peak winds at 100 miles per hour now down to 90 miles per hour still moving very quickly off to the Northeast taking the impacts along with it we do have some wind gust reports here a weather flow observation in duac uh recently reported a sustained wind of 68 miles PR hour Pete Gus to 97 yeah yikes uh let's see and Patterson austa to 59 mph and fact we were trying to look at some of the observations at Patterson Memorial airport and uh couldn't see anything yeah the sensor might be down yeah and that I remember that happened with hurricane Ida in hom we were getting we got wind gust AA well into the one teens I think or 107 that was the last we knew before electric was lost so that's say couldn't deliver a message back anymore uh point this out too just before the break not amazing live coverage from Balon and Morgan City I mean catching the brunt of this and then laville with Bree and Alexis and Bal was like all of a sudden what's going on here does appear that he's getting into what's left of an eye the center of circulation that's why the rain rates let up just like that clearly still dealing with some wind and we'll catch the backside too of this eyewall as well and deal with some more wind but at least like I think he said a chance for the folks in Morgan City to breathe for a few minutes right and this whole eyewall structure here it's not a closed ring there is an opening on the southern end indicating a storm that doesn't have the best structure in the world still the rain all on the Northern side of things I think it's very interesting seeing the westward extent of the rain just getting west of the Baton Rouge Metro right now yeah it's having trouble it's running into dry I'm going to show in a bigger perspective in a little bit that dry air again that's working on the system but yeah this that's why I really think this Corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans maybe more specifically Lake pona train this is where the Wallop is coming in the next couple of hours so let's go ahead and uh zoom in a little more tightly there on radar that Morgan City points off just a little bit from the highway uh but you can tell where we are kind of getting our bearings there's Highway 90 with aelia right here Morgan City would be right here laville and Southern sumption Parish Napoleonville farther to the north and that little Gap slow down in the rain where that eye is starting to move into that area uh meanwhile that what Balin just experienced is what we saw Brie jumping off the air because she getting a little spooked by the winds picking up there in southern assumption parish and that would be eyewall she's dealing with we were also remarking on the fact that I mean the shots that we saw all in Morgan City were impressive and that was on the western side of the eye you look at communities like H they're closer to the Eastern side of the eye so the impacts may be just a little bit worse out in that direction and we'll say the eye does appear to be moving over H very shortly so maybe a little bit of a brief break there yeah yeah you I think you hit it right on the head there it's that that Eastern side here where you have not only the wind speeds as they are but the forward momentum too so that's why it's so much uh perhaps worse from the images and video we're seeing on the xplatform social media coming in in that hom area in tabone Parish all right let's get into the Metro now what are we dealing with this is probably the uh of of the three we've seen three today one rainband another in the middle right here then the eyewall farther to the South we're getting into that middle rainband now where things will likely intensify a little bit in Gonzalez and plaman here within the hour and then eventually Pon in Livingston maybe two hours from now winds are going to pick up Rain rates are going to in increase so it is definitely time to uh park it in a safe location I would say if you're in Iberville Ascension St James and Southern Livingston Parish right and uh with the center of circulation it does appear to track just a little bit east of Baton Rouge of course as we get closer and closer to the you the evening hours the the possibilities for you know where the track will go get smaller and smaller and I think it will pass just to the east of the Baton Rouge Metro now but Baton Rouge it'll be a close call and you said and but Balin Morgan said we're on the western side that's right Baton Rouge may be just on the western side but that that doesn't mean nothing happens and I think it's fair to also mention I don't think we're going to see the same thing in Baton Rouge that we just saw in Morgan City because as this moves Inland we're already seeing the weakening Trend now and that's maximum sustained winds that weakening Trend will continue but tropical storm Force gust that's 39 miles per hour above still on the table for Baton Rouge yeah sure is we look across the capitol area now an observation's going to poke out there near Malcolm 22 is our sustained win within the last hour may have been a gust higher within the hour rain rates have been moderate outside we have a a window outside in our weather office and I do occasionally see the trees moving a little bit more than they were earlier today we're getting some gusts here outside of our studio occasionally and Jos we have tropical storm Force Gust in Baton Rouge up 39 39 so that's the gust we were showing I'll go back just to to point it out the sustained 22 gust 39 yep and um believe I I took an email from the blue bonnet area and was seeing some social media posts as well that power starting to go down in some isolated spots in Baton Rouge already right and that will continue to happen in the evening hours sustained in Morgan City is 44 definitely higher gusts as Malcolm noted that station went down so it's going to be hard to give you additional gusts from there but our wind timeline should show a little bit of an ease up a steady ease up and wins from this point forward maybe quicker in the next couple of hours but then it more steadily ramps down into the night and by tomorrow morning dealing with a sustained wind at 10 miles per hour that is definitely something we can handle yeah and in Baton Rouge it's the ramp up is still ongoing winds will increase over the next few hours I would say you're kind of at this point six o'clock now until midnight is when we'll likely see the most extensive winds in the Capal area and I would say the metro area Gonzalez to Denim Springs included sustained where we are now at 22 may it as high as about 30 to 35 and those gold numbers represent Peak gust potential we could have a few over 50 I wouldn't rule out one North of 60 miles per hour in and around Baton rou and certainly east of the city Josh I remember several months ago and these were just ordinary run-of-the-mill thunderstorms uh in the springtime uh they were non severe they produced 40 mph wind gusts and that was enough to just topple trees in the Baton Rouge area we've had all the rain this morning all the rain last week you get a sustained wind not just that instantaneous burst but a sustained wind at 30 mes per hour even if that is subtropical storm Forest that could still be enough to cause some tree damage yeah well I'll take it you know a comparative step further than that go back to June we had our severe weather events there Squall lines rolling through the area would provide these tiny bursts of strong wind where we'd have a neighborhood or two with trees on some power outage this is a widespread swath of 40 m per hour winds and gust that high it's why you see more extensive damage in a tropical event more wide reaching damage in a tropical event comparatively rain is the other impact this is a big shift from what we saw just 8 12 hours ago yes uh to the east likely with where the track goes as well uh we've been seeing that track hug baton rou for I'd say the last 24 hours or so and then with the 4:00 advisory it did nudge a little bit farther east taking heaviest rain with it you see that blue Corridor right there out towards Lake pona train Northshore New Orleans Baton Rouge on the western fringes they still seeing a lot of rain could be on the ballpark of 3 to six in but where we expect the locally higher amounts very close to and on the side of the track and importantly you mentioned this a few minutes ago we talked about an hour ago a lot of this now is going to fall south of our River catch basins for the am as well as the the tick fall the Tango may still take in a lot of water the co meat will still rise pretty rapidly even with a smaller amount of rain but that's a good shift for River levels back to radar here and I want to show you just the kind of the static view of our area and the current position of the storm remember that landfall uh near Eugene Island now it's moving Northeast at about 17 uh generally through Southwestern tabone parish and we look to shoot that Gap as this storm should start to get a little bit more of a tug more due north and Northeast uh as we move into the evening hours between Baton marouge and the lakes is the likely path for the storm and where we should see that swath of higher winds and heavier rain there the rain bands I referenced we had number one earlier it's kind of weakened as the storm is weakening number two right here moving into the uh metro area in the next one to two hours and that eyewall where you will experience the most intense winds later on today and it'll be rough defining an eyewall with a decaying storm like this but basically the northern fringes of the center of circulation is where we'll experience the worst conditions looking at this what's coming to mind is this looks like a I mean it's a big storm but it looks a little compact right now because you can see the western edge of the rain just west of Baton Ria I mean there are dry spots in point cap Parish right now but as storms tend to weaken their Windfield tends to broaden out it'll be interesting to see if the rain extent will also broaden a little bit more yeah that that's a great point on the broadening of the uh wind field and I think it kind of leads us into where we're going to go next and talking about the track and the east side of the track um here's a close in look at what the National Hurricane Center has once again shooting the gap between Baton Rouge and lake ponter trrain and by 1:00 Thursday morning so this storm is north of the state line just after midnight and at this point let's just game this out 1:00 if this is the center's position you likely have winds still extending down to about i12 this whole area will likely be dry by that point all the rain is going to be into Mississippi by maybe a leftover shower but this big Shield of prip as well to our North by that point with just some breezes left over in the wake of the system still plenty of wind even after the the rain ends I did just step off camera a couple minutes ago and did receive a uh wind gust report at uh New Orleans airport 59 mph they're on the Eastern side of that track still uh out gusting Baton Rouge at the moment but further south and closer to the coast too so experiencing that first we have that tornado threat I think this is subtly getting mitigated I just checked in with the Storm Prediction Center they are noting that with this tropical system and the rain shield out ahead of it we haven't had an opportunity to warm very much and tornadoes even if they're associated with tropical systems still need some warmth and the lower 70s where most of us are today might not quite be enough to get it done the threat is not zero but this threat's a little bit lower because of that frankly most of the Spiral rainbands are even farther to the east getting out to Coastal Mississippi which they are included in that tornado watch yeah so they'll watch that in those areas and then finally you talked about that broadening Windfield Malcolm this is this is the National Hurricane Center's model at 700 p.m. tonight you can see where they're rejecting the hurricane Force Windfield that's about right an hour or so from now within this area Southern Ascension assumption St James parishes Northern tabone and Northern lefou Baton Rouge may be in the tropical storm Forest Windfield but you'll watch how while the hurricane winds may kind of contract as the storm weakens that's to be expected the tropical storm Windfield remains Broad and still encompasses a lot of our viewing area including Baton Rouge including New Roads including St Francisville through the 10:00 hour tonight and maybe a small corridor of hurricane force wind gusts I would say near Lake Mora and lower Livingston Parish into that 10:00 hour this won't be happening constantly either looking at this it makes it seem like you're going to see tropical storm force winds all through the night rather where that shaded area is it just did notes that there is a chance to see that within that certain time window yeah if you've been with our coverage I think there was a visual example of that Balon would stand there in Morgan City he would brace himself for a minute take the gust and then it would ease up and that's what we'll experience tonight the wind will e and flow a little bit could even see them coming in the distance right you see the sheet of rain we could too if it's still light out we have until about 7:15 of course all right now we'll go out and take a little bigger picture look at this still seeing a somewhat messy presentation on satellite but plenty of cold Cloud tops indicated by the Reds and the pinks here that we have a heavy shower and thunderstorm activity moving across the metro area at this time and certainly closer to the storm's Central circulation we want to look a little bit wider here on satellite and see what's happening around the storm this been something we've been watching today yeah and you can see daylight decreasing off to these so we won't have this particular satellite image for twoo much longer but if you look closely you might notice some high clouds right there and they are drifting from Southwest to Northeast and this is something we've been hinting at for a while now even for last couple of days that soon uh or as the storm approaches the coastline makes landfall it'll be interacting with some wind shear wind shear sort of tearing the storm apart if you will that's why it has such a messy appearance on satellite imagery because it's interacting with that sheer and really struggling to survive and that and the dry air which wrapped into the center earlier and that's why I was a little surprised to see that uptick to 100 just before landfall because the center was already ingesting some of this dry air one note about this and we're kind of getting to the point where all of these factors will become moot into the evening we'll focus primarily on radar this is interesting from the perspective though you remember Malcolm pointed out just a moment ago you saw it on radar north and west of Baton Rouge on the western side we were seeing that rain shield Decay a little bit well this is contributing to that too rain still needs moisture whether it's associated with the tropical system or not and it's kind of being evaporated in some of this dry air working in on the western side and sometimes with really strong hurricanes you can actually see them Shield themselves from dry air because there this Vortex it's closed off from the environment but this is not one of those systems right it's it has vulnerable it is vulnerable it has uh opened the door for weakening so we'll continue to watch that Trend into the evening and finally I think I'm kind of wrapping up on our playlist here before we're going to send back to news but here's the wider image once again on that track you saw we had the 1:00 a.m. just north of the state line and then by tomorrow afternoon this is a Remnant low believe it's going to lose its tropical characteristics uh north of I20 by tomorrow afternoon and we will certainly be much improved by that point all right we'll continue tracking Francine tonight we'll continue with the radar playlist as we go into the evening hours we're going to step over to the desk at this point um and and what we are are going to be watching carefully is the impacts as they start to go down down hill and Baton rou here moving into Nightfall and just beyond I thought what was interesting that you guys just talked about is how the uh the wind shear is kind of playing a factor into the what is that the the Northwest side of this am I crazy or did I see the the that band that was kind of going over uh some of the other parishes just completely dissipating over East bat Rouge not crazy that's what we seeing is that going to happen again moving into the evening it's a trend to watch I mean as this storm weak like we talked about the world V vulnerable is likely a good one we will see more more cracks in the armor there as it were so we will see yeah especially on that Northern western side on the southern side this thing's going to get really lopsided we talk about the right front quadrant being the strongest in a hurricane it's also going to be the longest to survive and remain intact at this point with this St not there's not going to be a lot of symmetry the storm here's some video from Morgan City yeah you can see there uh Bal was referring to to the wind gust there a lot of uh tree and vegetation damage right here I think this is Lake pord this is probably looking north of Morgan City there on the lake you can see the uh some White Caps there on the lake as the water's pushing there Inland but uh Bin kind of referred to it I I can't wait to check back in with him to see what the conditions are there because last we saw from bin I mean he was kind of in the thick of it well that it started to get a little better towards the end but that Western eyewall still got to come towards this location yeah and these I mean these are uh I think I'm looking at cypess trees there they are built for these elements in south Louisiana and they're just taking a beating from this wind as well um yeah it's pretty impressive a lot of lot of limb damage down there we we'll see that spreading Inland and getting to a lesser and lesser extent the farther it goes but especially close to the center of the storm I would say look out for for some tree damage to this extent in in St James assumption even Southern Ascension Parish in the next hour this why we take category one and two storms seriously yeah you answered my question is that heading toward Alexis and Bri yeah sure enough is Malcolm brought this point up is very important remember the storm is weakening along the way here to the north so the extensiveness of the damage will get lesser and lesser the breadth of it may get lesser and lesser but the capability will remain for this to happen all the way up to about the metro area and maybe even eventually the state line of Mississippi but it will get closer more likely to the center as that moves Inland speaking of the center of circulation let's talk about that track we'll get to that in a second I believe this is the sunshine Bridge Crossing Ascension Parish there you can see they're getting whipped around a good bit with the rain yeah that's uh I mean and I'm glad to see no cars on the road right now that's why we you know local officials they a lot of them haven't imposed specific curfews but uh it's a good idea to remain in tonight there's unless you're an emergency responder have an emergency yourself that's why we want you to stay inside tonight I'm told this is the Donaldsonville side looking back toward ascen I think I just called out Donson when we up there a moment ago that they were going to be starting to get the northern edges of that eyewall the northern part of the center of circulation so we'll have to check but there's 's good chance we're looking at 40 50 m per hour winds in that area now so this is out of here about six hours yeah give or take I said Metro bat still be feeling the wind but the heaviest will likely be past and the rain will be letting up by then but yeah we we got a long evening ahead of us one more question about the track I know you guys said that you expect more of a northern turn here soon is there any indication that's not going to happen it's going to kind of continue on that there is some guidance out there that suggests that we were talking about that last night that some computer model Guidance just kept pushing farther and farther east in fact some guidance even as far east as New Orleans even going out towards Southwest Mississippi or excuse me Southwest uh Alabama um it's something to watch but I do think it'll be relatively close by yeah you see that cone of uncertainty now it's super narrow I mean the storm stays within that this path of the center right so effects are going to be felt outside of that but but the center is very likely to stay within that cone whether Wiggles as far west as Baton Rouge or as far east as Lake morpa and the grand scheme won't make a major difference maybe as far east as Lake pona train but I think that's about as far east as it would go yeah wow wa hang on Kevin there's another view you want us to see no okay this is French Quarter French Quarter Bourbon Street anybody want a hurricane tonight not that kind not that kind not that kind I mean it really doesn't look like they're dealing with a whole lot in New Orleans at this moment but they did have that gust up to 59 miles per hour at the airport recently you keep I I think those shots too can be that guy he may have had a hurricane or two he's having a couple uh sometimes the buildings kind of block you know we saw those exposed trees in in uh assumption parish and St Mary Parish this there's a lot of building protection here so you can get the winds whipping through the streets and through those buildings accelerating them sometimes but I think that shot could actually be a touch misleading to what's happening there yeah okay all right I think we are going to take another break and we'll be right back [Music] hi I'm Jacob with a pest control pest can be a nightmare protect grandma with Arrow's $20 initial Pest Control special and our eco-friendly Termite Control starting at just $349 call aest control to schedule your free consultation today name brand furniture at low low price best prices on furniture always comes from the country serving you and your family since [Music] 1959 real Golden Chick real people real reactions to Our Lucky 13 deal get 13 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Brothers Ford where Ed car buyers go to get it all as always no unexpected fees click call or get to Robinson Brothers today this business News segment is brought to you by Robinson Brothers Ford Lincoln the storm station is tracking Francine we continue our team coverage as WBZ tracks Francine through South Louisiana we have Crews scattered all throughout south Louisiana you can see them here Joe Collins David Hamilton waiting standing by in Livingston Parish Bri andreis and Alexis merid in laville also going to check in with best cly she is roving bat and Rouge looking for damage at this time I I know they're yes they are charging their live we also have Sarah gra bar in Ascension Parish Balon Rogers in Morgan City we're going to check with him in just a moment so let's start then with Gabby and Gabby Davis and Jack Shimmel Jack bring us up to date on where you are the mayor's Jack shl here with Brad Harris the public information officer for the Department of Emergency Medical Services obviously the iall is starting to hit now um you know what has your preparation been like and and you know where are you guys out right now we're in disaster Staffing mode right now so we have some additional resources some extra Staffing extra ambulances on the street right now that are ready to respond got you and and you know we talked about this a little bit earlier but as the you know winds get stronger and everything like that you know what are you guys able to respond to and what are some of those parameters there we're watching the wind speeds closely um obviously our ambulances are um large vehicles that could be affected by the wind speed so um if they get to a certain amount we're going to tell our units to stay off the elevated roadways and if they get around 50 miles an hour then we're going to delay operations and what message do you have to people out in the community you know when they're reaching out to you guys or just in general as this storm approaches uh make sure that you only use 9114 emergency um calls and then if you have any other types of uh calls that you would like to make such as trees down debris in the roadway Etc that would be for 311 not 911 and um just know that if you do call 911 for an emergency we will respond um even if the conditions do deteriorate we will respond to all of the calls they just might be delayed and if we were to get lucky here in Baton Rouge and maybe some of those winds move East um you know how can you guys respond to you know other parishes and in other situations we're working in conjunction with the fire department we have Urban search and rescue team and our Medics will be assisting them to go into um heavily affected areas if necessary is there anything I'm missing that you wanted to touch on uh to let the community know about anything thing now that's about it uh I think just definitely call a 911 for emergencies only because they're going to get inundated with calls after the storm hits that's Brad Davis with Department Brad Harris excuse me that's Brad Harris with the Department of Emergency Medical Services back to you guys at the desk right Jack shimel thank you for that and again he said you hear Mr Harris say there if you call 911 uh for an emergency they will respond however it may be delayed let's go out to Livingston Parish David Hamilton standing live with an update there David Michael like I am standing out here in Livingston Parish and as you can see man it's starting a pick up here the wind is blowing as you can see like if you see right behind me the flag is blowing like it's got 50 60 miles per wind but I don't know that exact number but I tell you what this wind is blowing kind of fast it is kind of blowing fast out here it's picking up a lot and you know a lot of people you know a lot of people say you know you can't tell water with but I can tell you what I know I'm soaked right now um I've talked to people like up there in the eocc building which is right behind me and what they're saying is um they're still out here they're still up there you know waiting on something to happen or if anything does happen hope they say hopefully nothing does happen but they are waiting for anything if residents do need help we did have one tree down in living in the parish near a house and there go that went picking up once again and as you can see right behind as you can see those trees are blowing those trees are blowing and like I was saying they are still waiting on on anything they up there waiting and another thing Livingston Parish also said there is a curfew for the parish from Dust to Dawn that means as soon as you see that Sun come down you need to get inside and probably sometime during the noon tomorrow you can come outside but right now they need all rins to be inside as long as you can if you can help it because this storm is something they don't want nobody to play with we all have L lived in Louisiana but you know we all have to take that precaution regardless of what there is to come and another thing they also wanted us to wanted people to know just like they said like just like they said make sure you make sure if you do need help make sure if you do need help you know you can um call them if need be but that's all I have right now on Livingston Parish back to you at the desk all right David Hamilton thank you for that again um the takeaway from him is that in Livingston Parish there is a curfew From Dusk to Dawn we are waiting to get new information about uh any kind of outages there but we do know about some in our area yeah I will say as you're seeing the map here everybody's familiar with the Energy outage map all that red those are uh properties homes that are without power and you can see that it looks like lefou Parish kind of has the brunt of this right now not just lefo but parts of assumption parish as well I'll read out some stats here 24,000 residents out with lefou uh you're looking at about 5,000 in Assumption Parish that's about half the parish without power switching over to the dico side of things um David mentioned it Livingston Parish fairing pretty well at this point only about 2% of customers there are without power but as Josh has told us all night just stand by David you're going to experience a lot more than what you've seen thus far okay all right so next we will go to Josh and well Josh Dr Josh just for an update on what is going on with our weather just as we stepped offet a little while earlier I think it was only 10 minutes ago the National Weather Service triggered a flash flood warning a new one we had that one in place for St Mary Parish but new warnings have been issued for southern areas like assumption parts of tabone parish as well and that's because they're experiencing those extremely heavy rainfall rates on the northern part of what we're calling the center of circulation or the Northern Eye wall at this point let's go ahead and tighten up our radar View and check out some of those sections that new flash flood warning is live until 8:00 for lusian tabone highlighted here but you can see this does also include parts of central assumption Parish there's Supreme lavity Ville within that warning as well we actually took an email from news tw's bandra saying seeing some water entering homes in that area we're attempting to get some footage some pictures or perhaps some video from that area but this is as that very heavy rain continues to race North through these sections the good news the good news about this flash flood warning if there can be any about a flash flood warning is look at this heaviest rain look where it cuts off already into so whatever has fallen as this wraps up in the next 30 minutes or so here we will not add a whole lot of additional rain to what has already come down in those sections that's really important so bad that we have water entering homes bad that we may have some flash flooding in streets and poor drainage areas the good news is we don't figure to add a whole lot of additional right now in the metro area that's certainly something to watch into the evening hours we are getting closer to dealing with the brunt of Hurricane Francine and we're seeing maybe the northern part of that Center of circulation in iow start to make its way to the 1012 Corridor Now look for the winds and the rain rates to pick up in the city of Baton Rouge here within the hour that's just starting to happen now and gismer and sarento as well as Gonzalez and standby and Southern Livingston Parish for that to occur as well sampling some of the wind speeds just above ground 66 miles per hour in Iberville Paris so there's a gust potential that high there still in the 80s near Pier part and Central assumption Parish these numbers these estimates will continue to come down with time time as the storm weakens moving further Inland but still some Hefty Duty wind potential out there this evening in addition to that very heavy rain this is going to be the corridor to watch as we head into the evening hours where you see that dark shade of orange and red and this will move to the Northeast kind of jogging through St James Ascension Livingston and Tango Parish I would say this is where we're going to maximize an additional flash flood threat as we move into the evening hours so not eliminating that from possibility in Baton Rouge but I'm certainly more concerned with a corridor just south and east of the city I'm trying to trace it out with my hand here Between the Lakes between this part of the path here kind of bisecting uh on a diagonal Livingston and Ascension Parish and to the east of that one more time there's the track I think that's actually a really good line I work my hand there on that hand Chester this line pretty much covers it along east of this line where this swath of red and orange on radar is expected to move to the Northeast as we head into the evening hours right Within that area is where we would likely see the additional flash flood threat again wind's a problem too just had that new flash flood War we wanted to pass along D you to hopefully you are in your safe spot now no more moving around tonight roads becoming increasingly dangerous as we lose sunsight sunlight pushing toward the 7 o'clock hour here and uh yeah bad news that we have water entering homes in parts of assumption Parish so uh that's the the live shot looks like right now on radar the live shots out in the community certainly suggesting that Balin Bree Alexis you know the coastal parishes bid off everything they could chew tonight with hurricane Francine not disappointing as a category one hurricane we do have some video that we want to show you from us I've been able to look at some of these pictures and I while we're trying to get to it it looks like to me wind driven rain pushing there you go pushing under a door I don't know what type of waterways or tributaries there are surrounding the location in laville of where Lex and Bri are but uh It's just tough to say right now if that's just not wind driven rain pushing out of the door and getting inside or if it's perhaps surge coming up I just don't know I I I'm I'm kind of with you and looking at those pictures Michael given given the area and the landscape there um yeah that does kind of look like what could be going on there just seepage um from the heavy wind driven rain yeah nonetheless it's something that I mean it such an inconvenience for those homeowners I mean you don't know if that's speaking of someone that's dealt with uh flooring issues over the past year noes matter how it's happening it's not good yeah right so just to be able to mitigate that and get it cleaned up and if you do have to possibly get your insurance involved in something like this two on your side has been all over this the past couple of days and uh check out our website wb.com for any type of uh advice you may need dealing with 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weekend warrior mode or you don't see that everyday mode how about out of the office mode or even are you out of your mind mode want a mode for everything get this ultra low mileage lease on this 2024 terrain SLE for around 3508 per month with zero doit signing plus current eligible GMC leses get over 1,700 additional lease cash see your Bayou GMC dealer this new segment is brought to you by your biob Buick and GMC dealers the storm station is tracking Francine we are about 25 minutes out from the 7:00 update just a recap we are waiting to hear back from our crews we got Balin Rogers down in Morgan City the brunt of the storm has passed him we're also going to get with Sarah gyar and Ascension Paris Joe Collins David Hamilton in Livingston Parish we've got a huge list of folks that are waiting to give us an update on where they are best cly uh last we saw her was along uh Highland Road Park in Baton rou so let's check in with her now to see where she is and what's going on there we have been hearing from uh Josh and Malcolm of course we're starting to see things a little bit here in Baton Rouge we're starting to feel some of the effects earlier when she was at the Highland Road Park she showed some little bit of rain there a little bit of wind there some folks uh out in the water should not have been that'll certainly pick up here in the next hour or so but uh that was kind of the the thought process here we' be kept best CLE and Joe McCoy here in the metro area they will run to anything that that that we hear from our law enforcement Partners to to to bring you the latest as soon as that develops as we expect those conditions to get to uh pick up a little bit with the wind and the rain I want to show you this uh we just got this in from the St George fire department they are ready to help during this storm and they're being assisted by agencies from out of state take a look at this the Tennessee Task Force One it's an urban search and rescue team as well as the Missouri Task Force One they are staged there at the St George fire department on Airline Highway they're going to lend a hand if and when needed to our community the fire department says their crews are continuing to run calls at this time take care of this community and they're going to prepare for everything Francine has to give us in the coming hours it's always a blessing when you see folks coming in to help and then you know of course we return that as well it's a great uh reciprocity because whenever these these municipalities are dealing with what they may have that they're in Tornado Alley so that that very well could be something that St George Went assisted with absolutely in the years past and now here they are helping us and we appreciate it thank you let's send it over to Dr Josh iches once again for an update all right thanks very much Michael Sylvia to bring in meteorologist Malcolm Byron here and uh just put in a few Graphics together update on the latest situation heading in the evening uh Malcolm want you to kick off we were talking about a few moments ago is we're looking at current winds and then I think we're looking for those winds to start to pick up in the Metro that's kind of the next next Lane we're watching is impact now that we've had landfall and I think it's easy to look at this Morgan City number and go Wella that's maybe a little bit of an improvement it's said that for a while now in fact I haven't seen any data come out of that sensor for a couple of hours now so it it stands to reason that that sensor has gone down but still some high winds along the coast picking up though in Gonzalez what they peak wind gust at 41 milph very similar in Baton Rouge what they gust at 39 sustain winds in the ballpark of 20 to 30 milph little higher in New Orleans we've seen the gust go as high as 59 but it's up to 53 at the present moment with a sustained wind just under tropical storm Forest that would be 39 milph at 32 yeah and the gusts we saw along the coast earlier were certainly much higher than this you talked about tropical storm Force but I I do think we've seen some hurricane Forest wind gusts out there tonight and obviously identified at landfall near Eugene Island was one around 11 10 five earlier today now we shouldn't see numbers that high as friction continues to slow down the max wind speeds of the storm as it continues to advance Inland for tonight but we will start to see these numbers increasing in the metro area the white numbers sustained and these gusts could come up too I think you have that future cast heat up right let's go ahead and take a look at that um we go into the this is now again look at the time over Malcolm's shoulder there we'll move this forward and you are going to see where the max wind sustain could and where the gusts could be and they start to increase as we head into 8:00 and I think it's uh you look at some of these numbers and you go whoa that's very high these might be on the high end of things but it's a reasonable worst case scenario and you see that yellow number next to Gonzalez that's a 74 mph wind gust by 8:00 that's as that Northern eyewall moves into the southern part of the Baton Rouge Metro that's a hurricane force wind gust right there so it's what we've been saying all along at the very least tropical storm Force conditions are possible maybe upwards of hurricane force winds that's why we got the hurricane warning added to East Baton rou Parish yesterday and if I'm if memory surfac me correct I believe Ascension is included in that Hurricane Warning again reasonable worst case scenario that means we could just barely sniff out hurricane force winds in that area that would validate the need for the hurricane words it's close enough that we needed one and you mentioned yeah 8 o00 I look at a clock over to our left here it's 6:40 so we should really start to see those winds picking up now into that 8:00 hour this has been a hurry up and wait game in the metro area all day today buts do deteriorate here very rapidly in the next few hours something else to notice here is look at the wind arrows here you can definitely see that there's a cyclonic circulation right there this model taking it right through here between Lake Mora and Baton Rouge and the farther away you get away from the center of circulation the lower the wind speed so that 74 m per hour Gustin Gonzalez assumes that you have the storm tracking very close by which would be an assumption I'm in line with right now based on the track I think that's a very uh reasonable that part of the center is going to track through Ascension Parish and as we advance this into the 10:00 hour you can see that we hang on to some pretty intense winds even into the middle of the night here and that's because while all the rain may continue to be displaced farther to the north the winds will remain stiff through that Central Central circulation even if it's a broad open kind of ragged looking Center we are going to still deal with some significantly Gusty winds because of the much relatively lower pressure to the areas around and while things may get worse for areas nor nor tonight they get a little bit better along the coast I mean we're talking gust up to 100 miles hour along the immediate Coastline that will not happen coastal regions closer to midnight and look at this I mean New Orleans there's Slidel 56 Hammond 57 gulport 46 and that's blowing over pona train right right causing storm surge problems on the North Shore yes and that's why we have that that forecast is about 2 three ft so those Nearshore areas would expect some in inundation as we head into the evening hours tonight and even as we roll future cast to 2 a.m. still talking about 20 mph winds in Baton Rouge that's about where we are right now we've had some gusts as Malcolm noted to Tropical Storm Force still tropical storm Force gust potential of 41 the 2:00 hour in the morning we'll hold on to that into say baloa and mome through that time as well reasonably also Hammond it falls lower than this estimate here but we' keep those winds elevated uh pretty much along in north of i12 just beyond midnight tonight and into tomorrow uh by tomorrow morning those winds start to ease enough that our our linesmen and utility workers are able to get out and take a look at what's happening and Survey the damage to the infrastructure on the area and hopefully get those repairs started by that time we'll pull up current conditions right now still have a little bit of daylight if you look outside you're going to see how fast these low clouds are moving sustained wind still at 25 miles per hour in Baton Rouge and actually this look at the pier there and look at that Center Line on our monitor I haven't seen the tower camera wobbling this much yet today and that's to be expected as well that's right and then I want to step off real quick here and take a look at the current Morgan City Impact I know when we were out with uh Bal Rogers Live shot uh goodness I don't know how long it was ago uh things started to get a little better there maybe a slight reduction in wind speed and rainfall rates but in Western St Mary Parish this is the western edge of the eyewall and it may start to push East just a little bit it's doing it slowly because remember the storm is still moving generally due Northeast yeah there'll be like gu what what Malcolm saying is there's a net movement eventually that this this eyewall would scoot on by Franklin and Morgan City on his tail end starts to clip Morgan City hanging off to the northeast tonight with that storm peeling away but uh Balin experienced in Morgan City as the residents there did some reduced rainfall just about an hour ago and and the winds tried to die up a little bit as those rain bands move on so um we're probably trending in the right direction there but not out of the woods in St Mary Parish yet and it certainly took a toll on power I saw uh just before we got on the air it looks like uh 65% of St Mary Parish is without power at this point not surprisingly Michael mentioned this not too long ago but we are going to get another update probably in the next 20 minutes or so that'll be the official 7 o'cl advisory I anticipate there might be a little wiggle to the exact position of the system now right now it's over tabone Parish but not far from St Mary wouldn't be surprised if St James got clipped by the center of circulation that's where the current track does take it down yeah and uh this is you know interestingly I think we're really going to have to look out again in the short term here for Northern assumption Ascension Livingston certainly Baton Rouge but this area for sure if we're just tracing out where the strongest winds have been Central St Mary Parish through assumption parish and then you assume the northeastern motion of that storm you can almost use my hand as a line to draw that swath of where the strongest winds are likely to occur and that would be just on the Eastern side of East Baton Rouge Parish Ascension and Livingston as we move forward here unless this storm were to make a a dramatic deviation from that northeastward motion at 17 miles hour Josh if you could mark on the fact that point could be perish there's barely any rain in just a moment I'll get the rainfall totals up here yeah actually you know what get that prepared and actually the next thing to go through is we'd look at that on latar water vapor we can show how that dry air is working on the Northern western side Michael noted this too we saw these these rain bands kind of pinwheeling through the metro area earlier today and seemingly kind of falling apart over northern and western sections this is the rain so far today or excuse me the rain yet to come in this system you'll notice we're not going to tack on a whole lot of additional rainfall north and west of Baton Rouge the heavier tallies are going to be south and east of the Capital Area and that's where we could see maybe five six seven inches of additional rainfall this is where some flash flooding is ongoing in parts of assumption in St Mary Parish so once again reasonably with that Northeastern motion and track adding those heavier rainfall totals into areas of assumption Ascension Parish St James and Livingston Parish could be next on deck for some flooding concerns as well I'll pull that water imagery up real quick and then I think we can take a look at some of the rain totals yeah yeah I think the water vapor next to radar would be an interesting contrast if you just from even from this Vantage Point um if you if you go in tight there Malcolm let's take a look at this I'll explain for a moment the next thing to click on to would just be with that same camera view just click on the radar and we'll see how where this dry air is moving in yep you can see how it's cleared out Western Louisiana even areas north and west of Baton Rouge thumbing back and forth between the two of them you can see really see how that dry air is working on the northern and western side of this system and and really it's making it difficult for the survival of this western side of the eyewall that's starting to erode now as well so we should continue again to favor this Northern and Eastern quadrant of the storm for the heaviest rain and Gusty winds moving into the evening hours here look look at some of those reflectivities here on the northeast side of the eyewall just north of H more intense than earlier actually gracious oh yeah I mean see some pinks in there yeah yeah those those uh the scale the legend right there Michael pointed this out too Michael's like kind of our like backup meteorologist tonight he's calling all this stuff out for us so if one one of us go down Michael's going to step in but he noted how we saw some pinks and some whites as our radar reflectivities are kind of maxing out here and that tells you we have tropical rain rates Even in our heaviest summer thunderstorms we don't often see those Shades but tonight we do because we have really intense rainfall rates moving across Southeastern Louisiana I'm putting up the information I'm reading the information here on the flash flood warning for Central and Southern assumption in southern St James parishes that goes until 9:30 but they remarked that 1 to 2 Ines of rain has fallen and additional amounts of 2 to 4 in are possible and that's really impressive because if you look South there's not a ton of rain that means that two to four inches would have to come just from the sheer rain rates due to that particular part yes when we first uh broadcast the warning maybe 30 minutes ago that's what I talked about that that is the good news we're not adding a whole lot of additional but this is this band right here is probably a short fused 1 Hour Quick hit of five or six in is what you're seeing uh actually live radar we could probably query the rainfall rate on that right now if we go into that band switch radar modes here but we can definitely do that I do believe that the radar has been underestimating things slightly um but we will see what it suggests right now we'll switch to the live radar we'll have to toggle off the warnings so we're again we're F just so you're getting your bearings of what Malcolm's doing here zooming in on that Northern eye wall the northern eastern part of the eye wall and where we have that flash flood warning he's pushed into where that band is moving and he's taking a look just he's just clicking around the map in some areas and estimating the rainfall rates and there you got I think that that's probably a little bit more accurate 3 in per hour that that would account for yeah if this does this for an hour or two you're getting that fast four five6 in we have not seen you know as bright of Reds like these throughout the course of the day right it's just this particular part of the storm that's where we're seeing the highest rain rates you mentioned it earlier we've SE one rain band followed by another then another and then all the way up to the center of circulation it just gets a little bit worse yeah consecutively heavier and this is it this is the big game tonight and okay we'll point this out and we're going to be able to pull these up in our system here in the the near term but we're going to start to have some DOD cams along I 10 here and uh boy it is time to to shut down any plans you had to use I 10 between New Orleans and Baton Rouge if you haven't already certainly there's probably some truck and through State traffic out there that may have been unaware hopefully not but um that's going to be a really gnarly uh stretch here in the next couple of hours traveling from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and Highway 612 Airline Highway goes all the way from New Orleans to Baton Rouge two main thoroughfares that are uh taking a licking right now from the strongest rains and winds from Francine got some brand new information a new flash flood warning has just come out for Northern St James Parish also Northern assumption and the Southern Tier of Ascension Parish does include the city of Donaldsonville between two and three inches of rain has already fallen additional amounts 2 to 4 Ines possible definitely enough to cause flash flooding there right now it's radar indicated let me throw up some of the Doppler radar estimated rainfall totals real quick and oh yeah you see those blue shadings it's going up fast I mean that that we I think we were all here with Michael Sylvia earlier and the when the four of us were standing here we did not have blue on this map yet so it's just that that Northern eye wall that's that's the big dump of and that's going to go all the way up to the 102 Corridor right now it seems like our biggest Wind and Rain impacts may end up being just east of Baton Rouge not to say Baton Rouge will be impact free but for areas closer to Livingston St helina Tango Parish later on down the line could have some more problems yeah take a big wall up of rain and uh strong winds and like I think what you can expect this is a pretty good estimate approxim for what's to come at least in the short term I'd say from this area Supreme Napoleonville chck Bay up to I 10 probably going to see just just about as much rain as we have here because we're not going to see enough weakening between now and then for the rain rates to dramatically drop off so uh would expect those potentially four five six inch totals and I think it's almost a given that we're going to see those flash flood warnings just stair stepped farther north with time toward the I10 Corridor as Francine continues Inland here over the next couple of hours we also just received the new 7 o'clock update as well so I'll go ahead and throw that on there let's get to it uh differences I'll Point them out pressure's the same so uh actually that may have risen a little 972 up by a couple winds down five miles per hour motion the same 17 miles per hour track looks about the same not a big adjustment there so the center now expected to go through or still expected to go through St James Parish clipping Eastern Ascension Santa M take a look out there sento French Settlement Port Vincent uh morpa Springfield and Killian Center moving right over your area in Southeastern Livingston Parish eventually Albany they clip the town of Livingston if you're in the city of Baton Rouge here you go western edge of Northwestern edge of the Iowa Le starting to pin wheel through the area now be interested to step outside see what our gusts are like at the studio here in a little bit actually I'm thrown off by our M here Baton Rouge right about there that dot fell off when we adjusted the map that's okay we know where Baton Rouge is tonight Lake Mora also in Lake Pon train going to see those really strong winds there and you remarked Malcolm not only on the surge on the Northern side but I wouldn't underestimate the winds on the North Shores as well because of the reduced friction moving across the Lakes yeah because uh there's less friction when air passes over water and that means that you can see accelerating winds and then once it hits land will slow down eventually but for areas immediately right along that Shoreline it'll come in with some pretty good Force yeah even on the opposite side of the storm as it's pulling away y you see it on the opposite direction yep and uh the track does really kind of show to us that we are seeing a pre-lock in northeastward trajectory now increasing confidence that the center of the storm passes between the capitol city and the lakes here and uh it's now say about level with Highway 90 current positions right along Highway 90 he got to be did did you get the uh you have the bulletin there I'd like to see where they're marking the position as they're probably saying relative to H where it is right now so that's what I would guess I can pull the bulon up real quick uh 20 miles east Southeast Morgan City Morgan City all right uh which for reference point on the map right about there where the tip of the hurricane icon is clipping so um cat onean 85 m per hour winds Northeast at 17 track is unchanged so uh impacts are unchanged as we head in the evening hours at least the expectations here for the Capital Area and and uh we do have a storm that is on a weakening Trend but it's not going to be fast enough to avoid the worst of it here in the uh metro area in Southeast Louisiana I'm going to pull up here just the ways you can stay connected through the evening there is a chance that we lose power as well and it's happen that's happening in Bat not here at the station we we we will be on the air with you from start to finish make no mistake about that but if you happen to lose power and you're not able to watch us on TV there are many ways you can do that first off make sure your phones are charged up uh if you still have power to do that now that way if you do run out of power you are a little bit ahead of the game there but we're online streaming coverage social media we have updates there whenever those new tropical advisories come out they push to X and Facebook immediately sometimes even quicker than we can get it out here on the air mobile app as well you have live radar right on there you can see when those rain bands are coming in you can also see the latest track from the National Hurricane I think it's a great tool I how you can zoom in on the map and click on the forecast earli to look at it yeah and you're getting you'll get notifications to the FL the flash flood warnings that have come out you're finding out about them there first if you're within the path of that warning new ones will be issued still outside possibility we have a tornado warning issued uh so all of those alerts will come to your phone immediately you might see them them on the app quicker than we even are able to get them on the air here because we gather the graphics we put a presentation together to bring to you on the air and that app's going to have it immediately so it's the first place you're get info usually right seconds matter with you know storms like these and you know on the air sometimes it takes a minute or two we usually get on pretty quickly but that app is instant it is so uh have those tools ready to go we've got all of our tools ready to go and we have much more tracking to do here in the uh the coming little while producers we uh heading back to the desk we go into we are going to desk all right Michael Sylvia let's head over to you okay Josh Malcolm thank you we're going to hammer this just one more time if you haven't downloaded the WBC news and weather ABS there such a great tool I've had it open all all day here on the desk you can see the track and how it's wobbled throughout the entire duration of this storm and again that 7:00 advisory the app has updated with that so if you haven't done so already go ahead and download that WBZ storm Station app for the very latest all right best casterly and photojournalist Joe McCoy have been driving around Baton Rouge all afternoon checking on weather conditions so best we're going to send it back to you again uh where are you and what are the conditions Where You Are syvia can you hear me we are driving down Airline Highway uh going out of the parish closer to uh Ascension now like I said not much has changed though we're still seeing I would say minimal rain it's really not that heavy of a rain pour going on and we are still having wind gusts but as we've as we've left East Baton Rouge the the uh wind gusts I feel like have have weakened a little bit I don't know if that's just where we are driving personally but we haven't really been shifting around the road or anything the roads are wet though they are slippery it has been raining all morning and all afternoon and now it is the evening and has not been any stopping in that rainfall so it's very important to slow down and basically just stay off the road if you don't need to be out we have seen a lot of um debris on the roads though branches trees we did speak to a tree expert earlier in the week who said that right now in this time of year tree branches are weighted down by uh acorns fruit pecans that sort of thing so it makes them heavier and more susceptible to wind and water pushing them down so those have been blowing uh around and across the roadways that we have been D driving on and just your run-of-the-mill things that blow across the road drove past a couple uh traffic cones earlier and a and a what looked like some air conditioned duct work in the middle of the highway so really it is not safe to be out here at all just because of all of the stuff blowing across the roadway but I I have to say right now there there really hasn't been anything too dramatic happening in our area which was East Baton Rouge and now we've turned around so we're going back that way but we will be continuing to drive around and we will let you guys know if we do see anything but for now uh best cerly reporting live in East ban Rouge Parish WBZ news2 all right best thank you we did of course hear uh Malcolm and Dr Josh say that later on within the coming hours we will start to see the winds pick up and and the rain as well for Baton Rouge it's kind of what we've been saying all day JP and Brandy kind of took you through the morning which there wasn't a whole lot happening in the metro area but as the storm keeps moving through there outer bands kind of blowing over Baton Rouge it is going to get a little bit dicey here I think they said it right around 8:00 8:30 about an hour from now we want to check back in with our team down in laville news to's Alexis Marin standing by live we showed you those pictures earlier the water entering the house hopefully Lexi can provide some update on that hey hey Sylvia look we had to come inside of a garage because the winds are so intense out there it really isn't safe to be out there right now even you know for experts like us but I have Alyssa with us she's one of the folks that has us staying here with us she allowed us to come into her home and we are so grateful um because without that we'd be out in the rain so thank you so much Alyssa but could you just tell us what this storm's been like for you you've of course been through tons of hurricanes in your life but tell us about this one yeah no problem uh it's been pleasure having you all here and you know keeping up with all the information and having the news in your front yard when the power out is super helpful um as far as the hurricane goes I haven't sat through many cuz I evacuate every time which the lovely people who are watching should have um but you know the winds are very intense right now um the side of my house that the wind is actually blowing on they do have a little bit of water starting to come in which I've never experienced through the hurricanes and I've sat through Laura and I believe Delta um Ida was not here for it but I do know that that was a super devastating hurricane for the entire tri parish area and even during then our house didn't experience anything like that so to see it happening is pretty bizarre yeah and let's talk about what is happening of course all morning we I mean there I think there's a sheriff's car actually parked out front of this uh the house it looks like they're trying to get a break right now too because it's you really can't even see down the road you can't see past the driveway but Alyssa tell us about inside of your house we started seeing some water as we were editing the video that's definitely new for me um I was sitting down you know you guys were editing and I was tending to my dog and I saw water and initially I'm like oh he must have had an accident bad weather and as I'm shining a light it's going through the baseboards and into my room and you know so we're kind of tackling that right now getting some towels and a dry mop to clean all that up uh hopefully it is a little bit manageable um but yeah we're going to get through it we're going to get through it together because guess what Alysa is here but we're also here so WBZ is going to stay safe in this weather um we are just I think as a as a reporter it means so much to be with folks like her who are experiencing this um you know we we've been at shelters and things like that but to be at the home when these things are happening it really it makes things a little bit more real for us than just seeing the video you know yeah absolutely because I mean it also we all know it takes a village down here whenever times are like this you know we all come together and we hold hands and we help each other through it so any way that I can help you guys and y'all can help me out it's appreciated anytime anytime time and you know we can help you guys out at home if you send us videos and pictures of what you're going through um if you need help finding resources of course um so we're just going to get back to the storm help them mop up some of this some of this water that's coming through and just do whatever we can to help here in laville live in Assumption Parish Alexis Mary WBZ News two you know I think that homeowner really summed it up particularly it really kind of that is sort of the mission statement of folks not only in East Baton Rouge in labille but Louisiana as a whole in times especially like this you really see what community looks like across the state yeah helping each other out we'll take a break we'll be right back with Chevy trucks be ready for adventure with power you can count on capability that doesn't compromise a hardworking EV with more range than any competitor and the potential to take you anywhere it's Chevy truck season get 1 9% financing plus make no monthly payments for 90 days on all 2024 Silverado 1500 pickups see your super Chevy dealers [Music] today you're invited to take a vacation from everybody else's vacation far away from long lines heavy traffic and jam-pack schedules to a place where you're free to explore and discover where you can wander and be filled with wonder find your own way in Mississippi Wanderers welcome is the summer heat turning your home into an oven Southern Air heating cooling and plumbing is here to help with our $69 tuneup special our expert technicians will ensure your AC runs smoothly keeping you comfortable all season long need a new HVAC system currently Southern Air heating cooling and plumbing is offering zero % financing for 60 months on new installs just call Southern air or visit us online at Southern a.com today we are shaping tomorrow we are researching how extreme stress impacts the immune system from trauma victims to athletes and even astronauts our work is leading the way in sepsis treatment saving countless lives we're unlocking the mind with music and exciting new ways Our Lady of the Lake health and LSU are improving the health of our state that's the impact of Champions imagine the impact we'll have on the future together we roar to your health is brought to you by Our Lady of the Lake Health the storm station is tracking Francine a couple of quick damage reports coming in from the National Weather Service part of a metal roof has blown off of a house that's near the intersection of Highland and Lee we're going to go check that out also our crew out in Livingston Parish David Hamilton and uh Joe Collins going to check out a tree that is down on a house that's in Walker who as soon as we get a picture up from them we'll check back in with them and right now we want to check back in with our meteorologist Bal Rogers in Morgan City and hopefully things are starting to calm down just a little bit wow what a difference yeah well I'll tell you what Sylvia we're still seeing some pretty strong wins I just checked radar and it's looking like we're starting to slowly get into that eye uh but it's kind of hard to tell exactly where that exact center of circulation is a kind of a weird look to the system now I know some dry air is interacting with the system including some windsh as well so it's giving it kind of an odd appearance so it's hard to exactly pinpoint where that Center of circulation is and where you would get that a completely calm winds but overall conditions are improving here and actually uh we did not get this on air but after my uh last shot out here for about 30 minutes we saw the strongest Winds of francen so far and things got really hairy here it got very strong and there's still some guts right now that uh if you're not exactly prepared for could knock you off your feet that's typical right on the edge of that ion getting into the eye your sustained winds will start coming down a little bit but just out of nowhere you just get this bam big old gust that comes through and uh yeah if you're not prepared for that definitely knock your off your feet and I've been saying this I'm still kind of protected by this building right here but few of these winds are still getting to me so right above me I've been talking about this poor little flag it's not doing too well anymore uh it is really shredded uh United States flag there and uh the Louisiana state flag it's not looking good at all those got completely shredded by the uh strong winds that we did have uh in our area right after that last live shot it was a complete white out you could not see anything uh the winds were just blowing honestly it's hard to say exactly how strong because the winds got strong enough last time I checked it completely took out our wind sensor here in Morgan City we were gusting into the 60s and all of a sudden before the strongest winds W wind sensor just completely went down I guess it got overwhelmed um by the winds but it was quite an experience going through the eyewall here it was a complete wide out first of all extreme rain rates of around 8 in an hour and that's just a crazy number there uh the winds gusting I've experienced around mid 80s that's about the highest winds I've ever experience and this was on par with that uh maybe even a little bit stronger but than that we saw some extreme gust where you could not see anything you could not see the trees behind me you could not see this building over here and there comes another just right on the edge of the eye here so you just get these random gusts that just seemingly come out of nowhere the conditions are improving anyways things got really bad here and should have heard all the sounds you would there is it's hard to describe the the noises that were going on as we were going through the eyewall uh there was popping noises there was explosive noises which was probably Transformers blowing at least here I don't know if this place has a generator they still we still have power at this uh it's really a government building but Army is using it as a shelter so we've had several people come and take shelter in this building so so very good stuff there but man in Morgan City we took the brunt of the system and one interesting thing it wasn't that bad before we got to the core of the system or right around that Center of circulation in the outer bands yeah we saw some Gust in the 40s lowend tropical storm Force maybe a few small limbs down but it wasn't that bad but as we got into that main core of the system right around the eye that's when it just went from zero to 100 real quick and some of the some of those winds in that core are beginning to spread Inland and I think uh Baton Rouge EBR Livingston Parish you're not going to experience the winds we saw here plain and simple the storm is weakening but your strongest winds are still yet to come I I looked at radar in a lot of heavy rain heading up towards the north especially Livingston Parish and getting into Hammond as well uh conditions are going to begin to deteriorate there uh pretty quickly over the next several hours but we are seeing some improvements here uh we're going to have to go around once we do start to lessen these winds and see what type of damage that is out here from what I can see lots of large tree limbs down uh some exceeding 10 inches in diameter I don't doubt there's trees and power lines and I even saw some sighing coming off of this gas station over here so uh yeah it was a very intense storm uh people here probably will not forget this one it came in Fast and Furious and uh yeah Francine will be remembered here and it's not there for you along the T tone Corridor just yet but it is on its way and uh just be prepared for some pretty strong wins but I'm meteorologist Bay Rogers live in Morgan City wbrz Channel 2 Bal before you go a couple of questions for you I've got Michael of course and Dr Josh here um and I just was talking to Dr Josh actually about this but I'll ask you going through and I will I know you've done this before but but um is it a fair question to ask you about the comparison uh is it kind of the same experience yeah it's an eyewall is an eyewall like there's going to be some slight differences depending on the strength of the hurricane and there's another one of those gusts I tell you Sylvia that rain stings as it hits you anyways a hurricane eyewall is a hurricane owol the rain rates are going to be extremely high it's going to be significantly worse than any other part of the storm and you can even see the remnants of that eyewall push Inland even though the sustained winds are going to come down you can still see some pretty significant gusts uh I chased Delta back in 2020 down in Southwest Louisiana it's comparable to that that was also remember 100 m per hour catto hurricane when it did make landfall uh but I don't know some of these gust here I think we're a little bit stronger than what I experienced with Delta so yeah it was pretty intense here so B's not B you're not really going to experience any more rain on the back side of this like what what he because it's it's what just falling apart on the south yeah I mean showers but uh yeah no no more torrential downpours like he had but ba Balon is a to Michael's question there what now that now that the Sheets of Rain have stopped and you can see around with our last four or five minutes of daylight before the sun officially sets what kind of debris is laying around you in the parking lot I see a branch behind you is that mainly what you're seeing or building material what else oh sorry Josh big gust just it's it's so weird it's like Cal and then you just get this giant gust that comes out of nowhere you got to break yourself anyways you can't see this it's off to my right but these trees got shredded I mean there is you can't even see this used to be a road and you can't even tell over here cuz there's so much tree debris laying on the ground I'm trying to walk around and see if I uh can see any trees down I bet they're definitely defitely is with the type of winds we experience but as of what I'm just seeing in my tiny General location it's just tons of large tree limbs down and uh some of these trees look like they're missing a ton of Limbs as they got shredded by some of those winds is it all palm trees there like a r behind you or there is it more Cypress around and just some Oaks like we only see kind of the three palm trees directly behind you yeah walk over toward the uh the the roadway that you're talking about so we can see it yeah yeah can Joel can okay okay okay I'm I'm I'm walk over here guys have had a long behind me and uh yeah we got a lot of these I don't know if you could tell um but these type of trees tons of these is around here um if I walk any farther we're probably going to get blocked by this post in front of the camera sure um but yeah off to my right we see a ton of these like I don't know if I'll call them Cypress Street I think they are they got like a lot of moss on them and uh that's what a lot of the trees around here oh I also see some Oaks over there as well so yeah it's actually yeah there's a few palm trees mixed in but it's mainly just uh you know Oaks and Cyprus and stuff like that all right and then yeah and have you seen any building debris in the street around you you mentioned the branches we see a few of those you said those trees took a hit but you I think you said some siding off a gas station maybe but I guess maybe where you're you're hunkered in there and and protected by that building on two or three sides have you just not you hadn't had a chance to see I guess what kind of structural damage there was around I I haven't got a chance to go really anywhere yeah we've been at this this is a very secure building I know it's like some sort of governmental building mayor's office thing I'm not quite entirely sure but it's a brick building uh very well we since I've changed hurricanes you got to go to a secure structure that you know isn't going to get damaged by these winds so that's why we chose this location because I mean I bet this thing could withstand a very strong hurricane but anyways we haven't really gone anywhere to look at the D image and I've heard a lot of emergency vehicles all driving around to different locations and stuff so I bet they're dealing with a lot and uh I've I've even seen people just coming from all over and this is actually a dedicated shelter and uh coming in here and taking shelter so I don't know what type of damage we're going to see but hopefully everyone's okay and it uh was not that bad around here damage wise all right feel like we might to check in with you one or two more times tonight Bal as you're losing daylight there but uh that kind of that kind of sets the scene there and we know we're going to release Balon so he can get up early tomorrow and take a look at some of that uh that damage around St Mary Parish for tune in our morning shows okay about 20 miles what is that Northeast of where Balin is we need to check in with uh I believe Bri Andre yeah hey Bri hey there guys yeah earlier we we showed you that we moved into this garage because the winds and the conditions outside are just so terrible right now we thought we would see some relief but we just haven't ever since this storm has picked up it has not let up and while we were talking with Alyssa the person that lives in this home a sheriff's deputy actually came to check on us he's out and about just making sure everyone's staying safe staying inside he came to check on us and he also gave us some updates there have been trees that have fallen and have blocking world ways on Highway 308 in Assumption parish and just about a mile down the road he said there's about 8 in to a foot of flooding on la1 in Assumption Parish we also got in touch with Sharon Sheriff Leland Falcon and he has told us that there has been structural damage from a fire to multiple buildings in Assumption parish and from what we were told some of that damage is irreplaceable and not able to be fixed it's very unfortunate we're going to work on trying to get some pictures from that scene and get them on air and online to you but things are just not really getting any better here in Assumption Parish much like in Morgan City where Balin is winds are picking up heavily visibility is very very low you can't see a whole lot so it's getting pretty rough but we're just hoping for some relief coming pretty soon but if you are in Assumption Parish please stay inside until you get the all clear the storm passes and Roads start to reopen because roads are closing down trees are blocking things and flooding is becoming a problem as this storm pushes through the area flooding is becoming a big problem like I said almost a foot of water right down the road north of where we are and we have to travel North in order to get back to Baton Rouge of course we won't do that until it is safe obviously but there there is those conditions further up the road and we only expect things to get better from here hopefully cross our fingers but that's all we have for now we'll bring you more updates as we get them back to you guys Studio well it will get better it's just going to take a while yeah and you're you're hearing this rumbling outside that is not Thunder that is wind just check in with that is the wind starting to just Rippling over the the roof here yeah and probably through our Tower interesting yeah I remember hearing that in Ida uh when you stepped outside you'd hear the roar through the tower so we're and that's Happ we're hearing it now I think we would notice a constant it's just not sustained yet so it sounds like a thunder because we're getting a gust sounding actually we looked at each other like that's not during Ida though that was a whole different animal yeah we're not comparing the two it was a constant Roar during Ida that we don't have right now um checked in with Malcolm we got some storm reports starting to roll in he's working on getting those updated um Pao door because the wind was trying to open wow the patio door yeah you know we have to step out there we do have uh we have lights out there I might head out there I want to tell you that all right so yeah I mean that wind that we hear going overhead it's starting to tug at some of the doors now we've been through hurricanes this is normal you expect the drafts and the things like that so we're on generator here so we'll keep the coverage coming but um think we're going to step over and do a little weather relief here and talk about what's going on in the grand scheme of things I'm going to we already talked a lot about wind I want to talk about water to start things off here because um we are going to continue to see likely additional flash flood warnings issued as this heaviest rainband on the Northern Center of circulation and the northern eyewall continue to move from south to North across Southern Louisiana now our latest Flash flood warning is issued until 9:30 p.m. for lefou St James and St John parishes you see this dark red box here this dark red box here these are the two kind of key flash flood warnings the areas in green are kind of your lower end more typical uh standing Street and poor drainage flood warnings but we're likely going to see these flash flood warnings and that's for fast rising water fast pooling of water they're going to be extended to the north with time here so even these areas that are in the flash flood warning and the light green here are going to see that next level up that darker red box likely extended here in the coming hours as Francine continues to work its way off to the north what have we seen so far and this is all just since midnight and I'll take it a step further than that a lot of this is in just the last four five hours not surprising that we're sampling rainfall rates of about 2 to three inches per hour as Francine continues to advance Inlet so just south of Morgan City picked up about 5 in look at that just east of where we found Bri and Alexis just talked to her a moment ago radar estimate of 6 and2 in north of that into Northern uh lefou Parish there just outside of St James Parish we have an estimate of 5.8 in this is radar estimated certainly if you have a gauge maybe give or take a couple of tents and we could see some point locations that are slightly higher but really this shade of blue and these highest accumulations correspond pretty tightly with that leading eyewall that that rain band on North side of the center of circulation that's going to be the key feature to watch kind of marching North through our area into the evening hours here go back to radar so I can show you that where we see these darker shades of yellow orange even red it's approaching llas now boy LL seems to always uh get unlucky with these events did in our last hurricane event once again we're going to have to watch out for some flash flooding there some of this heavy rain is starting to move across I 310 now iway 61 Airline Highway and we're going to start to see the rain really intensify along I 10 too remarked on this earlier when Malcolm and I were together that should essentially be a travel shutdown at this point between New Orleans and BGE there's nothing official of that nature but it's just not a good idea if you don't need to use that interstate system over the next few hours do not do it because the winds are going to pick up visibility may go near zero in the wind driven rain which would be heavy enough on its own to reduce the visibility driving out there at night in the rain all of those factors making it extremely dangerous here into the evening hours uh oh there's a new update that just came in now that's not in our coverage area so I'm not going to spend a ton of time on that but it's our first Inland tornado warning uh of the day and this is for slide El St Tam Parish this is right what Malcolm suggested a little bit farther away from the center where we have a little bit more of that low-level spin because the orientation relative to Center that bright red box over Slidell that is a tornado warning for that area now we'll have to keep an eye on that and those areas as we move into the evening hours but we are focused on the heavy rain and just perhaps the hurricane or tropical storm force winds moving across the southern portion of our area right now there's the projected path of Francine this has not changed our latest advisory 7 P.M once again we focus in on that heavy swath of rain just north of Center and that's going to continue to ride northeastward likely right in between Baton Rouge and Lake morpa over the next many hours we'll see those rain rates intensifying across Southern Livingston Parish and Ascension Parish likely Eastern East Baton Rouge Parish you're going to get some heavy rain even in the city as well but to a slightly lesser extent and really going to look out for some heavy rain over the NorthShore at this point Southern Tango Parish Hammond and ponchatula long as this all holds together you're going to get those quick four five six inches of rain in those areas of well zooming out a little bit wider and putting our live radar into motion we do see that continued jog to the Northeast if not e East Northeast in the last little while so we're going to keep monitoring this area as well for the additional flash flood warnings and the gust winds and there's our wider look finally showing that the southern end of Francine is kind of continuing to erode dry air is working on it wind shear is working on it friction and interaction with land is working on it it is a weakening Trend not as quickly as we would like to see but it is good to see that once you get that initial pop of heavy rain and after that we'll just hang on to the winds until the center of circulation releases to your North it's why when we last checked in with Balin he was a lot better off in Morgan City than he was uh just a couple of hours ago when that wall was passing on through few more wind gusts on the western side and maybe a brief downpour for Balon but look tabone Parish closer to the coast and where landfall occurred not much more rain to come with Francine so it's that initial heavy burst right on the Northern eyewall that will do it for our area future cast is picking up on that placement really well right now so we say this is how the model's initializing the initial conditions as to what real time looks like now we go into model mode and we'll send our clock forward and let's go ahead and Trace that to 10:00 and it takes that heaviest rain band just like I mentioned right along the metro area a long I 12 through Livingston Parish and into Southern Tango Parish we'll have those really intense rainfall rates of maybe two to three inches per hour and overall pick up a quick storm total of five or six inches thanks to some of those heavier rains I don't doubt that we'll see additional flash flood warnings issued as a result 1:00 a.m. heaviest rain is crossing the state line in Southwest Mississippi showers left over in the Capitol area and points to the north still windy too at this time and then as we go into tomorrow morning the storm is releasing and yep that's clearing we'll see the sun back tomorrow and the breezes will slowly but surely die down as we go through the daytime hours the really good news about that we have a stretch of weather for the next many days and I will will show you just a quick 7-day forecast here in a few minutes that our restoration efforts really shouldn't be impacted too much by the weather the the worst of the weather will deal with and restoring power and cleaning up is warmth not excessive heat but we will have those high temperatures getting into the '90s with a on the next couple of days our rainfall totals especially along that track going to be in the general range of 3 to 6 in pretty confident this forecast based on the observations that we've been seeing again radar estimates of about five six that we've seen close to that Northern eyewall will continue to see those amounts where it moves Northeast into the evening hours and a few point locations that could go just above that north and west of Baton Rouge maybe as low as 1 to two Ines of additional rainfall Malcolm set this up for me I wanted to bring this to you it's the flash flood risk in the next area we're watching Ascension Parish would need about 3 to 4 in over 3 hours to generate flash flooding high probability that happens based on the rainfall rates we've been seeing so you can expect some flash flooding to develop in Ascension Parish as a result of what we're seeing with that Northern eye wall moving northeastward across our area and for that runoff affecting area Rivers the only one we currently see going into flood stage based on the rain we'll receive would be the tanbo river at Robert cresting at about 17 and a half feet that's two and a half feet above flood stage as we move toward the end of this week and that's overall not the worst of the flooding we've seen in this area before that would get us into minor flood stage and that level's actually been higher on that River earlier this year what about the Amy The Tick fall the come the come's a rapid response river that one's going to rise in a hurry with the Heavy Rain make it up to about 15 to 17 ft as we come into Thursday that's shy of the flood stage though and we likely are keeping as it looks right now we'd have to see a dramatic shift in where the heaviest rain goes as it looks right now the Amid and the tick fall should be able to stay below flood stage as well let's go to the other Hazard the winds and these are wind gusts since midnight 45 are Max and Baton Rouge that at uh 636 just checking the clock over the camera 724 So within the last hour we've seen our Max gust and Baton Rouge to 45 in Gonzalez right around 655 gust Malcolm delivered to us on set 55 or 52 milph New Roads about 29 might not get a whole lot higher than that New Roads Hammond will see those gusts increase 31 is the max so far New Orleans and Morgan City both at 62 but once again this is worth pointing out that 62 in Morgan City that was at 456 uh right around landfall shortly after we very likely have had a higher Gust in Morgan City than 62 miles per hour and Sidell has seen a 37 m per hour gust and by the way as we noted Sidell currently under that tornado warning here's our Windfield map at the this time and this is what we are currently gauging 23 in Baton Rouge gusting to 40 17 in Hammond gusting to 33 25 in New Orleans gusting to 55 in home of 47 still online showing us 58 m per hour gust Morgan City clearly has fallen offline we're not picking up a speed or a gust there anymore K say though as we mentioned the worst of the winds are starting to go on the down slope in Morgan City as for future cast and winds to come 9:00 hour baton rou Su stained 32 gust to Tropical Storm Force 55 got to watch out for this one Ascension Parish Gonzalez 49 about 2 hours from now could see gusts over hurricane Force that's an estimated gust of 77 that may be slightly overdone I think that's a reasonable worst case scenario but you get the picture we're going to be flirting with hurricane force wind gusts in parts of Ascension and I would say St James Parish as well and look out in lower Livingston Parish those areas like I referenced all just kind of around Lake morpa are going to take a pretty good wall up from this storm uh as it moves off to the Northeast and then by 11:00 you're seeing 40 m hour gusts still in Gonzalez and Baton Rouge the Hammond area moving into Southwestern Mississippi especially Amy in Pike County and then we'll start to release those winds after about 1 2 o'clock in the morning and should see some improvements by Daybreak tomorrow here's what the winds have done to our power grid thus far approximately three4 of St Mary Parish is without power now this is uh this updates every 15 minutes so these numbers are fairly uh fairly up to date Ascension parish is up to 20% without power that's 11,000 and East Baton Rouge Parish only 9,000 4% that number is going to climb assumption parish is likely going to see their number uh climb a little bit more too about 80% of that Parish without power at the moment promised we'd wrap it up here just to show you there's some hope after tonight little bit of a shower or two left over tomorrow and Breezy conditions but easing through the day should be under 30 that will allow our linesmen and power Crews to get out and get to work and we'll have all weekend to do that with Sunshine out each day a little bit humid temperatures around 90° and our next major weather impact is not found in our 7-day forecast so we'll have plenty of time to get things back to normal around here at least with some help from the weather Michael syia we need that break absolutely Josh thanks uh we're going to check in now with the Assumption Parish Sheriff leand Falcon joining us now on the phone sheriff thank you so much for taking some time can you just kind of give us an update on the situation there in the middle of it we're getting the worst of it now we been in it for about an hour uh we probably got looks like we have probably another hour hour and a half of the worst part uh we got you know number of trees down number of Road blockages not a lot of our areas out of power um but so far from structural damage it seems like we're doing pretty good you said that there has been some structural damage or or you haven't seen any yet we haven't seen any much of any structural damage at as at this point mostly trees power lines and power po I briefly walked through The Newsroom earlier and I thought I heard that there was a a closure of Highway 663 potentially from some water or surge can you confirm 663 has some a lot of trees down on it right now it has some closures there uh waterwise it should be pretty good uh some parts of uh us 90 and 182 are taking on some water but uh as far as we know right now it's still pass Sheriff can you talk a little bit about the number of outages the the figure that we have so far is about 79% of the parish is without electricity I would tell you that's about right yes sir so what happens next well as soon as the the major part of it subside our Personnel will be getting uh getting our chainsaw we'll start clearing roadways and so we can get people moving around the path you so just to confirm water is or surge or or flooding of any type isn't necessarily a factor right now in Assumption Parish there's no uh calls for evacuations or anything of that nature no we have some maybe it's like some little local streets flooding but no major flood that's certainly good news there yep and so far no reports of any uh people hurt that's great that is good news okay Sheriff Leland Falcon in Assumption Parish thanks so much for taking some time uh you got the hotline here as soon as you have an update or something that you'd like to get to the people that are watching here on the Storm station tonight please call back in yes sir thank you all right Sarah Greybar is in Gonzalez she is with a homeowner who has also sustained some damage to their property Sarah uh tell us what is happening there where you are and what's happening yes so you probably can't tell but I'm actually underneath a carport right now but even with shelter overhead you can still feel these strong winds that Josh talked about I can at one point it felt like I was going to be pushed to the side but I promise I'm Standing Tall I'm standing strong right now you might even be able to see some of the rain be push toward the camera these winds are super strong when we got out here around noonish were driving through and we didn't feel much of a wind but now the winds have definitely picked up we drove around with the local fire department and when we were on the roads we saw standing water which is the type of thing that you want to avoid we saw some debris on the road not only that we've seen down power lines we've seen trees take down these power lines we even saw a tree come down on top of someone's house and while we were getting footage of that house with the tree on top of it we actually I heard a cracking noise and I look across a canal and I see another tree just get tipped over I don't know if you just saw it but the lights just flickered we have the generas coming on and off right here in Gonzalez at this particular home the people who live in this neighborhood they're not super worried they told me that they did the prep work necessary so they can en just ride out this storm to the best they can uh you might be able to see a few limbs behind me thankfully no major trees have fallen down in this area when I talked with a homeowner he said that he and several of the men in the neighborhood went around and they took down any tree that they thought might be at risk of falling over with these strong winds we'll continue to follow the conditions on air and onl WBZ but definitely stay inside call 911 if you have an emergency call the citizen service number if you're having a non-emergency and you need to report something but in the end this is the type of weather that you don't want to be outside you want to be inside let us be outside and tell you what you're going to see and you just stay inside stay safe all right innocent Parish in Gonzalez ooh whoa that you can't see because it's so dark but you can literally see the trees they're shaking violently oh okay well live in Ascension Parish Sarah G bar WBZ news2 all right Sarah be careful I wanted to give you that number uh for the folks there in Ascension citizen service number is 225 41200 she said a tree fell on a home and then another tree fell not far we're not sure what that was that she heard uh as she was live with us I know that she'll check it out and we'll get back with her we're working on turning around some video that they shot as well they we're also getting some viewer submissions if you're watching right now and you experience or see damage in your area please send those to news wbz.com we'd love to be able to disseminate that information out to the public at this hour give us a little description of what we're looking at so we can talk about it as well we're going to take another quick break we'll be right back get the kitchen bath you've always wanted with Regal remodelers with over 40 years of experience we specialize in full kitchen and bath Renovations that finish on time and on budget we make custom cabinets and windows in house saving you time and money we also specialize imploring and use quality products with Timeless design that will last a lifetime find out why our customers recommend us call Regal remodelers today at 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free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube TV means more hunches Buffalo new customers bet $5 get 200 in bonus bets plus every customer gets a 3-e free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube TV only from FanDuel America's number one sports book name brand furniture at low price best prices on furniture always comes from the country serving you and your family since 1959 [Music] in 300 ft turn left with Cox's fiber powerered internet you can do brilliant things exit approaching like upload your voice to Dad's GPS in no time flat and I miss you Daddy happy birthday get multi-gig download speeds powered by fiber upgrade your internet today with Cox the nation's fastest internet provider limited availability in select areas the storm station is tracking Francine okay we're going to check in with Livingston Parish in just a moment David Hamilton standing by with a tree that has fallen onto a house in Livingston Parish meteorologist Malcolm Byron is standing by as well Malcolm what's the latest we are through the worst of it uh the storm continues North closer and closer to Metro Baton Rouge and I think the impacts will continue to grow for some areas along in north of the interstate in fact we've already got some storm reports in and around the Baton Rouge area this uh actually very close to the station we had a report of a a piece of a neighbor's metal roof blowing into their yard we have another report going into Walker looking at a report of a tree down on a home and I believe that is where we are sending David Hamilton out to so we are standing by for that report here is the latest on Hurricane Francine still a hurricane a category 1 storm with Max sustained winds at 85 miles hour we continue to get updates the next official advisory should be at 10:00 I wouldn't be surprised if we got one at 8:00 though we'll have to see though but the storm should quickly weaken as it continues moving Northeast at a quick rate 17 mph and uh that means that the storm will quickly get out of our hairs I think by this time tomorrow night the weather actually will be fairly nice let's show you the latest trajectory from the National Hurricane Center not too many changes with this because well uh it's going to be moving North at a pretty quick rate here you can see it tracking between Baton Rouge and Lake Mora that is still the track we are narrowing in on let's show you the current radar perspective and it's kind of a lopsided system lot of wind to the South but not a lot of rain there's a lot of wind to the north too but also a lot of rain and you can see that rain moving away from the coast and into portions of Metro Baton Rouge even into Southern Mississippi at this hour let's get a little bit closer here you can see some of the heaviest rain occurring over portions of St James and assumption Parish that once was over St Mary Parish the rain rates are definitely letting up out in that direction but folks may be out towards Supreme labille Napoleonville getting out towards convent you're seeing some of the heaviest rain right now even getting east of St James Parish we see even higher reflectivities indicating even stronger rain rates several flash flood warnings are in progress all of these boxes here are flash flood warnings but where you see these darker colors that indicates a flash flood warning where we have some degree of confirmation that there is flooding ongoing and that's most of this here let's show you what some of the rainfall totals look like lot of blue colorations on here in central assumption and Southern St James parishes where we likely have seen over 5 Ines of rainfall I've drawn a box on here and the average accumulation in this region is just shy of 5 in meaning me to get an average you have to see some values over the average and that's the corridor where we see that and that heavy axis of rain is pushing North into Ascension Parish so there's the northern eyewall right now continuing to lift North rain rates are picking up an Ascension Parish likely over the achaia Basin and Iberville Parish even out towards Southern Livingston Southern Tango parishes specifically for Ascension Parish and frankly it's very similar for nearby locations too it takes about 3 to 4 in of rain over a 3-hour period to cause flash flooding with the rain rates are seeing yeah that's definitely possible that's why we are seeing those flash flood warnings issued off towards the South those will likely get issued off to the north wouldn't be surpris we're talking about those uh farther to the north in the next couple of hours storm total rainfall we are looking at generally 3 to 6 Ines across the capol region I think the highest axis will be just to the southeast of Baton Rouge where we see the center circulation tracking in fact rain right now is actually almost non-existent out towards West feliciana and point cap Parish that's good news that would lessen the flooding threat and I think the rain totals will be significantly reduced as a result is the system is fighting some dry air especially on the westward side so impacts do quickly diminish the farther and farther west you go in fact in Central Louisiana things may be not all so bad a lot of power outages here Ascension Parish we're looking at about 14,000 power outages per the last up St that's about a quarter of the parish that number will probably go up St Mary Parish about 3/4 of the parish without power we have about 10,000 outages in East bat and Rouge Parish that number likely to climb as some higher winds continue to arrive we'll give you more updates on that as the evening wears on here's a look at the current wind speeds Morgan City sensor has dropped out haven't been reporting gusts there for a while sustained winds in Gonzalez just shy of tropical storm Forest at 35 mph now we've got Gus and Baton Rouge up to 45 miles per hour on the east side of the center of circulation winds are even higher look at that a gust to 55 miles hour in New Orleans I've seen that go as close to 60 M hour let's take you into the night I will tell you these might be some overestimates here but this is a most reasonable worst case scenario if you will by 8:00 that's not too far away let me look at the clock here yeah that's about 20 minutes away could be dealing with hurricane Force Gus in the ballpark of maybe Southeastern Ascension Southeastern Livingston parishes getting closer to the title leges along and east of the center of circulation closer to Baton Rouge we are likely dealing with subtropical storm force winds but tropical storm Forest wind gust definitely on the table here could see some Gust in the ballpark at 53 mil hour I've just been looking outside our weather center window and you can just uh see the trees going you can hear the wind howling in fact one of our bushes on our patio got uprooted due to some of the wind there so taking you into the night 10:00 still pretty windy along that Center circulation wind e in up closer to the coast to the Northwest out to New Road still fairly Breezy out there as well even though you're not seeing as much rain at this hour going into the night the wind should generally taper off slowly but surely and then early tomorrow morning you see winds dropping below 30 miles per hour that should allow power Crews to go out and restore power but if you lose power this evening you'll likely be without it through the rest of the night let's show you what futurecast looks like starting now doing a very good job showing what's going on Heavy Rain off to the south of Baton Rouge guess where it's going north and Northeast there's the Western extent of the rain of the rain rather getting pretty close to the Baton Rouge Metro here's midnight Heavy Rain continues North the wind stays even into the overnight hours should be pretty Breezy but the rain continues North into Mississippi Breezy by 400 a.m. some lingering clouds maybe a shower or two but the rain subsides overnight and then into tomorrow we start off with some clouds and then the sun pokes out during the afternoon hours I want to remind everybody that there is a tornado watch in place meaning that we're watching four tornado warnings for areas mainly South in east of Baton Rouge EBR and West Baton Rouge Parish not included within that but Ascension St James Livingston Tango Parish Points East out towards New Orleans are in fact right now there is a tornado warning in effect for slide L St Tam Parish till 7:45 that's got about another 3 minutes or so that's an area to watch closely that's just outside of our viewing area though so we won't spend too much time on that but the Storm Prediction Center is specifically watching this area in the near term which includes Tango Parish so out towards ponchatula Hammond there is a chance that we could see maybe a brief spin up here's the scenario I see potentially playing out as the northern iall goes north over Pon train I could very easily see a water spout spinning up and then that moves North onto the NorthShore that is something we'll be tracking very closely over the next couple of hours or so so general safety reminders I think it's best to stay inside this evening drive only when necessary I drove in this afternoon before things started to get worse in the capillary and there was already ponding on the roads it was still pretty Breezy if you absolutely have to go out there might be trees and branches on the roads you certainly don't want to pop your tires out in this power lines got to be on the lookout for those They Might Be Live power lines too do not go into flooded structures flood waters are just disgusting you don't want to be in those anyways and especially if you do run out of power and you are using a generator it's got to be outside away from the building in a very well ventilated space the last thing we want is to see carbon monoxide poisoning which can happen there is a look at your storm station 7-day forecast just to kind of give you an idea of what's going to happen as we go into tomorrow should be Breezy earlier on but that wind subsides as a day we is on see that sun icon yeah I think you'll see the Sun by afternoon and that 30% rain coverage is primarily early then into the weekend summer returns 90 on Friday 91 on Saturday and Sunday it comes with plenty of humidity as well adding a few small rain chances into next week but frankly nothing too crazy We are continuing to track Francine right here at the storm station on air we're going to wrap up this uh brief weather segment right here if the producers could let me know kind of where we're going next in just a moment but we're also desk in just okay we'll toss back in just a second here just want to tell you that uh we also have our weather app it's got live radar on it we've been pushing out updates all night long online on our website not just weather updates but also news updates as they unfold we're going to get a lot more damage reports and Etc as you go through the night and we'll be also posting those on social media Michael siia all right Mol thanks as Francine moves through the area separate shelters have opened up for those without power Gabby Davis is at one of those centers in West Baton rge Parish I'm here at the West band Rouge Community Center they have turned this area into a shelter for those in need during herc Francine here with me now with marleene Ransom and Clarice Christopher please tell me about this facility let's start with what are y'all providing for those that are that can come in here we're providing snacks and Waters for anybody that's in need to come into the Westbridge Parish Community Center and what is the pet policy uh the pet policy is you can bring your pets but they have to be taken on the outside up under our uh Pavilion which is located on the opposite side of the community center for their pets they would have to provide their own food and water for their pets correct yes that's correct and um how many people can y'all handle in this facility uh maybe about between 150 I'm going say maybe about 150 and is there anything else you would like those who may stumble upon here to know about like the fac the facility uh anyone that's welcome um like I said you can just bring your pillows your cover uh anyone that don't have a place to go you are welcome uh to come inside from the storm this will be open until 11:00 a.m. tomorrow tomorrow or until they reach full capacity in Port Allen Gabby Davis WBZ news2 Gabby thank you for that so once again that shelter is located at the community center on North Jefferson Street in Port Allen also there are two shelters open right now in Baton Rouge um at the St Vincent depal Center as well as the Salvation Army we have an update on road closures in Ascension Parish Bluff Road at Highway 74 in gismer Highway 75 at Reena malassa Road Highway 22 in Darrow as well am River Road that's in Santa several Road closers in Donaldsonville talt drive at Mississippi Street I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly aosta Road at Highway 1 South and Highway 1 North at Highway 75 check out the Entergy outage map this an Ascension Paris you see lots of red lines there in Gonzalez sento and around praireville right now Entergy reporting more than 10,000 customers without power in Ascension Parish also update that on the dico side of things about 45% of dico customers are now without power and Ascension Parish that's roughly 7,000 households of the 15,000 in the total coverage area for dico all right so from Ascension to Livingston Parish where our David Hamilton is standing by um with another homeowner I believe who has a tree has fallen on a house in a Livingston Parish David bring us up to date well I haven't got a chance yet to speak with the owner but he he did give us permission to speak in front of his house now and when you look at this his house has been F has been fallen on by this big tree now it looks like somebody like a giant probably has snapped this tree in half now it is real crazy that this tree has fallen just that fast and the hurricane has not fully even made it here yet to my knowledge I think it's just making it into the area and now uh after we leave I will try to see if I can speak to the Hops owner about what happened and what he heard maybe because that seems like a real big issue as the the neighborhood we are in still has power though and we have yet to see any other trees falling on houses as we have been in Livingston Parish but as more comes out I will make sure to keep y'all updated back to you at the desk he us okay can we go back to David real quick you have a question for him yeah I did David did we lose David okay all righty okay hey David can you just kind of give us a little bit better look at that tree it looks massive did it hit the house yeah no it is a massive tree I'm GNA say this guys I'm 6'2 I can lay down five times and I still probably be the size of that tree and it's just it's real crazy okay having some trouble with the camera there in the rain that's certainly understandable we're going to certainly try to get back to David meantime here in Bat Mar best cly we're going from One Tree in Livingston Parish to a tree down in Baton marouge be can you show us that tree and tell us where you're located I believe this is on North Foster Drive you can see there DPW working very fast to uh get the crews out there to remove this best can you hear us now yeah some audio issues there best your mic's not on or it's uh having some difficulties there but uh it does appear to be I believe this is on North Foster and this is another example of why when City officials say it's important for everyone to just to stay off the street in situations like this where they are able to get to this situation you've got your crew out here trying to clear this tree out um and they don't need to be obstructed by traffic that doesn't need to be out on the road and speaking of I know we're talking apples and oranges here but during Ida I can remember going home at I think we left here at 5 6: a.m. it was still dark outside but traveling down Old Hammond Highway there was a massive tree over Old Hammond you couldn't see the tree because all the power was out so that's certainly something to keep an eye on and you don't want to be out on the roads because if the power's out you're not going to see trees like that all right we're going to take another break and we'll be right back while you find time each day to play to work to do things that you enjoy like that daily run visiting with friends and spending time with your family at Lane our days are all about taking great care of you our community so families like yours can enjoy life to the fullest care you can count on Lane Regional Medical Center I look at cancer as a very unique disease to an individual patient so cancer is a ubiquitous problem getting everyone's input that's related to the specific case is important in delivering the best care and then once we understand their needs we plug them in with all the right Support Services in addition to continuing a collaborative approach and an individualized approach to their care your support is our Focus together we Triumph visit mary.org to learn more these are real people seeking solutions to real problems I have plet fitis pain with my feet my knees feet knees hips and back and then they were fit with Good Feet art supports I definitely feel the Heel To Toe walk I'm not feeling any pain especially in my heel that's that's where I always feel it I don't feel the knee pain I didn't notice any pain in my back I feel like I could walk all day in these oh you're blessing and disguise try them for yourself with a free art support fitting at the good Feed Store the Excellence of driving a Buick is matched by the Excellence of the dealership experience when you own a [Music] Buick Buick exceptional by Design get a 2024 Buick invista starting at 23495 see your Bou Buick dealer this new segment is brought to you by your biob Buick and GMC dealers the storm station is tracking friends all right welcome back we're going to head outside and talk to Josh he is out in the elements on the weather patio got to experience this weather for myself for a little while out here Michael and Sylvia and the winds yeah they're noticeable and I will say just like we had with Balin earlier I am in a position on our weather patio here where I am pretty well sheltered on three sides uh by a building so that's blocking some of the wind I can hear the wind roaring through our Tower camera overhead right now uh and I also can tell this umbrella's tugging a little bit you're noticing the wind driving into my pant legs so we definitely have wind moving the rain around at this time new since we were last inside a flash flood warning has been issued for Tango Parish uh so look out into Hammond we're going to see rain rates increasing there you see those shades of orange and red increasing some heavier rainfall rates and where we see those dark red boxes that cross parts of assumption St James St John parishes more extensive flash flooding appears to be occurring in those locations we can see that hurricane Francine is continuing as forecast by the National Hurricane Center on that northeastward path across Southeastern Louisiana really kind of set to shoot the gap between Baton Rouge as well as Lakes Mora and Lake Pon train and that's where we're going to see some of the heaviest rain and we're going to Contin deal with those high winds and even away from the center winds are going to cuss pretty extensively as far west as in the Mississippi River up to Baton Rouge and well far east of Lake ponter train more lopsided storm a lot of that action is going to be on the Eastern side got a rain timeline there for you showing that by tomorrow at this time we are wrapped up but we certainly have a long way to go right now metro airport is showing winds out of the Northeast at about 26 mph that is the sustained wind let's take a look at the wind forecast the graph to show the sustained winds and also the gust potential that's the yell number and that could be as high as 50 mph here in the next 1 to 2 hours there comes a gust I'll pause to grab that with the other hand 40 mph gusts to about midnight 1:00 a.m. and then easing those gusts below 30 mph into Daybreak tomorrow so we are certainly noticing those conditions increasing outside here in the Capitol area as far as our peak wind gusts go so far today we've seen them as high as 45 in Baton rou I'll tell you just standing out here right now I expect to see that that number increase here in a real short matter of time Gonzalez 52 but Malcolm saying there's some evidence that there may have been a radar detection of 75 80 mph winds over parts of Ascension Parish right now so look out there New Orleans and Morgan City has seen 62 mph wind gusts and then finally we go into Ascension Parish where we're finding those power outage numbers climbing rapidly now surpassing St Mary Parish by sheer volume 14,000 customer with no electricity that's only 28% of the parish though St Mary Parish far fewer people total 73% of the parish no electricity that counts at 13,000 and look at East Baton Rouge climbing it's going to climb real fast now and here comes another big gust I can hear that going through our Tower just 5% of the parish but that's 10,000 customers to this point new Tango Parish updated onto that Graphics I stand Here 3,300 without power and that's 5% we'll continue to see that increasing as well couple of reminders to take you through here so many hazards to look out for first of all I've said this but I'll say it again just from standing this I don't want to be out here anymore you want to take my car on the road no less tugged around into the wind wind driven rain reduced visibility any number of Hazards with things that could be in the roadway avoid driving at all costs tonight unless it's an absolute emergency and then only when officials and the weather kind of suggest it's safe there are other things to look out for when driving especially at night can be really careful to avoid any trees or branches that could be in the road tree you're probably going to see coming it could be a fairly decent sized limb in the road without you seeing it by the nature of the glare from the water and the headlights until it's up on you too close to Swerve away from or run over power lines could be down debris could be in the road sharp objects shingles pieces of metal and then the small stuff you don't see because if there's any structural damage we have nails and screws that end up in the road and just don't have an opportunity for that to clean up and then you end up with a FL Tire in the middle of the night in a storm and then after the storm consider gas leaks if there's been any kind of rupture or damage to a building and then you're walking around trying to see with a a candle or a lighter perhaps matches and you have another problem so only batterypowered lighting until you're absolutely sure that you're in a safe environment especially in a damaged uh structure or building and don't go in any flooded structures there's no telling what other debris could be on the surface in there if there's standing water in there any kind of wildlife animals snakes ants Critters that float in the water and keep in mind with generator use tonight I know they're going to start firing up as the storm passes that's got to be outside in a well ventilated space and just a follow-up consideration to that something I thought about earlier when we were setting up ours put ours on our back patio but that back patio is very close to a window where we plug in our window air conditioning unit well that's no good either so run that generator away from and point it away from anywhere where you might be using to ventilate your home so so that's what's happening out here right now I do want to flick over to another graphic I'm just going to step inside guys you don't have to change anything I'm just letting you know that you're seeing me move cuz I'm leaving up a full screen graphic here so we can show on the tropical track we've got a new advisory in on Francine here and this update does show that winds have come down a little bit and they are now sustained at 75 miles hour and the storm is continuing to the Northeast at about 17 they're positioning at 50 miles west southwest of New Orleans and so it's that Corridor that we pointed out in between Baton Rouge and the lakes that are going to take the brunt of the Winds and the heavy rain over the next several hours here but uh not downplaying what's happening in the capital city I was just out in it again in a sheltered area with a building around me on either side I was getting hit with wind driven rain I've just stepped inside now you probably noticed the wind uh shut down and also that umbrella was tugging at me pretty good and again nothing major but I was sheltered by building and feeling the effects of the weather so no good to be out in the exposed elements for tonight as some of our Liv crews in the field can likely attest to we'll check back in on more of that in just a couple of minutes let's head back into the desk all right Dr Josh thank you this just into The Newsroom we want to show you some video from um a homeowner in Gonzalez Leticia Robertson uh this is video from uh I guess her backyard in Gonzalez high winds she says and um the rain there as well white cats on the retention Pond look at that when just whipping across that Lake kind of picking up some uh some waves there on a retention Pond you don't see that too often there down in Ascension Parish also another video coming in take a look at this video this from show van do we have that this was taken from the uh okay we're working on that in the meantime let's go ahead and update the power outage numbers if we have that I can tell you that this okay this is from chauan this is our chauan this is H from the cocoa Marina in chauan it uh shows the before right there and then in a minute we're going to see the after wow you can see how much that surge has rolled in the storm as it rolled in the owners say that this time span is between these two videos is just a couple of hours apart that really shows you Sylvia how quickly this water was Rising there there was a a picnic table if they go back to the other version that we can see the before the before there yeah and it's just right there on the left side of your screen completely submerged when they take the after uh the owners say the marina is at least 3 ft there in elevation also in Gonzalez earlier we showed you uh Sarah gray bar at a home in Gonzalez uh the homeowner had a tree to fall on her house and you've got the outages there yeah let's take a quick update here and take a look uh Josh had more of a cumulative total by Parish that's a a website called power outage.map and as you can see the bottom portion of your screen tabone lefou assumption parishes they have been hit hardest thus far far I can tell you uh in lefou Parish you're looking at 30,000 customers without and tabone you're looking at about 25,000 uh here in the Baton Rouge area Josh also touched on this power outages are increasing in the metro area cining roughly what's that 13,000 up to 15,000 now on the Intergy side of things on Demco Demco is reporting about 50% of their customers are now without power in a Parish that's roughly 7700 customers of a total of 15,000 okay we're going to have much more we'll take a break we'll be right back I'm Dana Costa I've been with B TCO for about 8 years now I've always felt like there was there was a good personal connection there that other Banks and institutions didn't have I have a checking account a savings account uh a truck loan which I refinance because 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always no unexpected fees click call or visit Robinson Brothers Lincoln serving the Baton Rouge Community for over 75 years this WBZ storm Station weather segment is brought to you by Robinson Brothers Lincoln the storm station is tracking Francine part of the storm station motto with you before during and after the storm and we've watched Balon Rogers since 10 o00 this morning and how it's really progressed for him yeah looks like he had a little bit of a lull and then things were starting to pick up so let's check in with him in Morgan City uh okay balen so we are going to get back with him but as you said we've seen it go from him being in the eye and seeing it um the winds pick up the rain pick up him just trying to stay steady and standing as he did his live shots for us that segment for Balin kind of between 3 pm and call it 6 PM it was pretty pretty wild for him in that scene let's head out to Bal in Morgan City Bal how's it now well I tell you what I was really expecting the winds to calm down here and that has not been the case the winds are still ripping outside even though it has gotten dark but good news wins are less than they were uh at least an hour or two ago but what really happened we didn't get into the center of circulation we really got into that uh Western eyewall right and we just kind of skirted right along that Western eyewall and that's why we are still seeing very strong winds and now we are Southwest of the center and the winds are still ripping to about 60 milph and uh still a lot of noises going on out there uh lot of damage most likely hopefully it's not too too bad out there we're going to check that out in the morning uh and give you updates on that but winds are still ripping it got very bad here a few hours ago uh it was complete white out conditions we had winds uh I would say somewhere in the range of 80 to 90 miles hour based off my past experience and now we have decreased those a little bit one thing we definitely have decreased is the sustained winds this really we'll have a very big gust that just comes out of nowhere and then uh kind of calm down a little bit sustained probably low in tropical storm Force still seeing some Gust in that 60 to 65 mph range but as the center slowly pulls away we should slowly start to improve our conditions here in Morgan City and not seeing near as much rain we're now on the drier half of the system where that dry air has moved in and uh not a lot of rain just still a lot of win so I know in Baton Rouge Denim Springs Walker the worst is still yet to come hopefully that Center stays a little bit east so uh we don't want to wish bad impacts on Eastern portions of the viewing area uh but even on the western side you're still going to see some pretty strong winds so the system is moving up to the Northeast and it's going to bring those strong winds that we experienced maybe not as strong but still some pretty strong winds to the heart of the vi G at and looking at the airport observations I see the winds have been picking up the Baton Rouge Metro Airport and especially from Baton Rouge and points off towards the east uh that's where you're going to really see some strong wins so conditions are slowly improving here in Morgan City that's the bottom line we're starting to look a little bit better but it is still downright Gusty outside still some pretty damaging winds uh but condition should slowly improve I just heard something on the roof uh make a I don't know what that was that was a pretty loud noise there uh so yeah still some pretty Gusty winds and uh hopefully everyone faired okay in Morgan City I've been seeing a lot of police officers going all around the city checking up on things and hopefully everyone is okay and uh not a lot of damage happened to their home or personal property but uh I'm live reporting in Morgan City bin Rogers WBZ Channel 2 hey balen uh Josh back with you here uh great work today out there glad to see you're under a dry safe shelter right now um we can tell the signs are still moving behind you still getting some win but based on what I've seen on radar imagine since we haven't seen you live for an hour so you've had a chance to pull up scope on your phone and take a look um rain has really tapered there in St Mary Parish right yeah it looks like the the biggest changes we noticed is that rain intensity decreasing and uh I was really hoping like I said earlier that we were going to get the direct center of the ice that we actually get to get a break from all these winds but that's not really what occurred we skirted we didn't get directly into the Western eyewall but we kind of skirted right along the The Edge so we stayed extremely Gusty and actually we actually decreased the winds a little bit but in the past like 30 minutes we increased them once again as we got back into that uh the pretty strong winds in the Western and Southwestern side of the system so still very Gusty here Josh but the rain rates are decreasing have you noticed because we've been trying to describe by showing radar and the you know the circulation of the hurricane obviously that you have winds changing direction depending on what side of the eye you get on have you noticed the change in which direction your winds are coming from now that you've gotten to the Western and some extent the the southern side of the eye can you tell there's been a change in the way the trees are turning oh yeah yeah definitely have seen a change at first it was easterly wind so going from the East towards the west and it kind of started turning east Southeast and now we're almost directly out of the uh North and honestly even starting to turn out of the Northwest now as some of these winds are ripping this way out of the building instead of uh from the other way from the Northeast So currently it looks like our winds are from the Northwest based off my best estimate and that would actually make sense since we're on the uh Southwest side of the center and over over your right shoulder there we're seeing those police lights or first responder lights whatever they are how common has that scene been in the last hour really since Nightfall here how many sirens have you heard and and I just imagine you know those are the first folks the brave ones to hit the street after the storm to to rescue or help people that need it does it seem that the parish is kind of stirring to life in that regard now with the eye moving away to the north that the First Responders are able to get out and really start taking the action they need to yeah Josh we did not see that many First Responders at all when the worst was coming through main reason why it's just way too dangerous you could have a tree fall on their vehicle uh when they're trying to get to someone and uh but now since lesson a little bit now don't get me wrong it it's still pretty Gusty out there uh but uh it looking like they're starting to come out you're seeing a lot of blue lights uh you just saw one of those so uh yeah it looking like they're starting to assist and provide assistance in any way they can I I think it's worth reminding people where you're stationed there in Morgan City tonight you've moved away from uh the flood wall and come to a more central location in town you're near the hotel assume you're near the near government building you're near the hotel you'll be staying at tonight but you know you don't have to disclose the exact hotel or anything like that but just kind of give people the lay the land of the plan you have for tonight what you and Joel will be doing and then what we expect tomorrow morning at what first light out how just especially sleeping through the night is a safer bet for you guys than trying to ro the streets with those First Responders tonight you're waiting for First Light to do that right yeah we're not going to go around looking for damage not tonight we're going to let the uh we're going to let the First Responders definitely take care of that one we don't want to get in the way with that uh but we're at that this government building we're under an awning right now this is pretty much where we rode out the storm we were protected from most of the winds here uh this building from what I can tell has fared very well some other little metal structures have not fared that well I've definitely seen some siding damage on some of these gas stations some of the top of them kind of getting ripped up uh but we're just kind of waiting for the winds to die down a little bit still a little too dangerous uh for but we're still trying to uh we're about to move and after the strongest winds start to go away we're going to start to move towards our hotel we're not that far away at all I was just okay that was the last question I had for you before I'm going to step over and do some radar review of what's happening right now I just talked on the air just safety wise about what folks should think about when they're out and about tonight they really shouldn't be but if they have to in an emergency as some body who's going to do this yourself in an hour or so describe navigating even your short distance from that government building back to your hotel tonight and the safe way to do that oh that shot might have just went down okay well I can I think the safest way to navigate I mean obviously as slow as possible and you know no sightseing just go straight to where you need to get to based on the power outages down there in Morgan City and St Mary Parish visibility is going to be limited to what your headlights can see speaking of I think that we need to try to get a phone interview with the St Mary Parish president or the Morgan city mayor to try to get an idea of what they're dealing with at this time like we talked to Leland Falcon the Assumption Paris Sheriff earlier and uh he had said that nothing really crazy yet but uh it'd be good to check in with them it's always seems too like once the storm has passed you know everybody in the chaos is surviving but after that then you step out look around oh this happened oh that happened the report seem to come in right after the storm has passed so that's those are probably going to start to stack up in St Mary Parish break for sure yeah before you you go do another big weather hit I just wanted to pass along that uh North Foster Drive is closed in Baton Rouge we showed some shown some video that earlier uh that is between I believe Florida Boulevard and Gus Young that's closed because of a tree down and then kind of a a bigger deal I 10 eastbound in a cined parish between Bluff and Highland Road also closed because of trees over the interstate and we may see more of that with the winds tonight that's really the strongest winds just reaching Ascension Parish right now I'll be able to display that on radar here we'll talk about everything we'll talk about rain we'll talk about wind so you guys can take those weather Graphics full and we'll go through what we're looking at in the capital area tonight we have uh several flash flood warnings painted across south Louisiana this is not surprising given the rainfall rates we've been seeing of about 2 to 3 in per hour and uh those rain fall rates are likely to continue over the next several hours especially where you're seeing those darker shades of orange and also red and we're going to find that around uh Lake morpa and Lake Poncha train Eastern Livingston and Ascension Parish especially and uh even into the Baton Rouge area to a lesser extent as we move into the nighttime hours here but it's really this swath here actually really an arc on radar that follows the shape of these flash flood warnings where the heaviest rain is going to continue to translate to the Northeast and into the nighttime hours here so the flash flood warning is live until 9:30 very importantly I will point out that these areas that are warned for flash flooding fortunately will not be adding a bunch of additional rain we're seeing the rain rates start to taper to the South look at Raceland for instance for instance a long day of talking right now Raceland is likely just dealing with some light rain or sprinkles wind driven at that but the rain rates have really tapered and then farther south toward Morgan City just checked in with Balin you couldn't see much rain happening behind him he was covered under a building but we could see the background behind him it was not a blinding rain like we had earlier rain rates have dramatically tapered there and we're going to continue to find that off to the north and east tonight after that big pop of heavy rain this is what we've been saying all along it'd be all on the Northern side of the storm youd get the Deluge you'd get the really strong Wings mixing mixing in with that rain would end the winds will continue on the backside for a little bit even in the absence of rain so far some radar estimates of about 5 in near Morgan City and again these are radar estimates I'm sure there are some slightly higher and slightly lower amounts within these regions six and a half in East Central assumption parish and about six Southern St James Parish and just over into terone and lefou here's a wider look at some of that Heavy Rain continuing to lift to the Northeast Crossing into parts of St James and Eastern Ascension Southern Livingston Parish uh Port Vincent French Settlement Killian and Springfield dealing with that heavy rain and wind right now think back to Hurricane Ida golfer here I remember Carter Plantation lost a ton of trees we are likely seeing the tree canop be hacked up once again in parts of lower Livingston Parish and there is a lot there around Lake Mora in terms of trees saw some video earlier for some fishing camps on Highway 55 in between pona train could see water surge inundating some of those areas look like a couple of feet had come in in some sections and we're going to continue to find that water rushing northward through the lakes and through our channels in this area as it's driven by the forward motion of the storm and also the southeasterly winds on the Eastern side of hurricane Francine which by the way is a nominal cat one hurricane at this time Max winds at 75 miles per hour moving Northeast at 17 that's our 8:00 advisory we should be getting updates every hour now from the National Hurricane Center I wouldn't be surprised if we see a tropical storm at the next advisory which comes in oh in about 45 minutes from now we will have a iCal storm near the state line with Mississippi look it's going to go right up along I55 you talk about a dangerous drive and a highway to avoid tonight the center of circulation almost running over top of I55 where those strongest winds are the middle of the night tonight in a blinding rain uh-uh absolutely not avoid that no traffic either tonight from say New Orleans to Jackson Mississippi we should be avoiding that as well really East West shut down from Baton Rouge I'm saying it's not officially shut down I'm saying shut down any plan travel from B Pon Rouge all the way to gulport and Jackson to New Orleans tonight that Corridor should be avoided at all costs and there's a look at our radar view uh showing that we have that swath of rain getting more and more broad across Southeastern Louisiana but at the same time we're seeing less and less definition to a center of circulation so starting to see some rain spread out on all sides of this system the Windfield is likely getting broader but at the same time it is likely also gradually weakening as the storm continues to move Inland but not weak enough to avoid major damages and power outage as we head into the evening hours and there's our wider view finally here's something to keep an eye on malcol remarked on this in his last update a little while ago we see one of those feeder bands well departed to the east of Center and this would be an area to watch specifically in Southern Mississippi tonight for a tornado threat especially on that Nearshore interface where the gulf transitions over to land could have some water spots more easily develop out in the water and then move across land triggering a tor warning in those sections so that'll be something our neighbors to the East are watching through tonight look at the western side of the system talk about uh whether or not following you know geographical boundaries but in this case pretty much ends just to the very western edge of our viewing area that's the outlin parishes and counties here uh from Point Cape Parish Southward to St Mary Parish you move over to Lafayette barely raining there tonight likely feeling some wind for sure but not a whole lot of rain impact in Lafayette and Points West over to Lake Charles those those locations were the initial landfall point on Sunday for that uh we say 100 mile shift or so over 3 days towards Southeastern Louisiana we're dealing with the worst of as a result and the Eastern extent of the rain all the way to about the Alabama and Mississippi State Line tonight so if Center's there we've said all along how on the northern eastern side we'd see a whole lot more action and I would say about 75% of the storm's action is on its eastern side at the moment moving forward should stay that way that heavy swath of rain uh within this hour continues across the metro area will continue to ramp up in intensity with time here and we'll also see the winds continue to increase with time through 10 or 11 o'clock before that storm is able to finally make its way toward the state line and continue to weaken rain ends first from south to North the wind threat will continue after that even though we don't see the back edge of Francine there certainly will be a remaining low-level circulation here pressure differences generating plenty of strong winds and even gusting over 50 or 60 m per hour through about midnight by tomorrow morning it's a much different story might actually wake up to some sunshine we'll get a real good glimpse of what Francine has left behind the additional rain to come is on the order of about 3 to 6 Ines uh and again this was updated this afternoon we know not a whole lot more will fall in Morgan City and St Mary Parish even Southern assumption Parish but all holds true from this point forward we'll likely see 3 to six Ines more of rainfall in St James Ascension Livingston and Tano parish and more immediately along that heavy swath near the storm's core the center of circulation as we move deeper into the night specifically in Ascension Parish we're watching the possibility of flash flooding simply picking up 3 to four Ines in three hours would trigger flash flood warnings and it's why we're likely going to see more of those issued here in the coming times I believe it's a certainty we'll pick up three to four inches here over the next three hours or in a three hour window as we move into the evening here but the rain will start to quiet down in the metro area by about two or 3:00 a.m. and we keep nominal chances around for just a stray shower wrapping around on the backside of Francine into tomorrow morning possibly even the afternoon as temperatures warm up but the majority of our Thursday is dry if not all of it most locations won't even measure any more rain after Daybreak on Thursday winds will be what we're out there cleaning up after on Thursday and this is what they've done so far Max gusts in the Baton Rouge area 45 at 636 not sure if I fully Buy that that's the Peak at this point especially having been out in that myself a little while ago Gonzalez at 52 around 655 and then we had a couple of 62 m per hour gusts New Orleans and Morgan City and again that Morgan City one measured at 456 uh we saw that station go down so there was likely a higher gust there as well as for the winds we're measuring at this hour here you go 24 in Baton Rouge I said 45 Max gust I wasn't sure if we've eclipsed that yet maybe this hour we've matched it once again still think that can go higher a Max gust of 51 in Gonzalez within the last hour that will likely go up too and we've seen gusts this hour in New Orleans up to 55 M hour it's the gold number I'm referencing here Hamond to 28 that number is going to go up as well future cast will suggest it think it might be overdoing the gust potential in Gonzalez just a little bit 77 hurricane force not sure quite there based on what we've seen here in the last couple of minutes we're only coming up about 30 to 40 minutes now from the 9:00 hour but over 50 I think is a solid chance in Gonzalez baton and also Hammond through 9:00 tonight and 11:00 tonight after midnight is when those winds should start to ease and fairly dramatically from South North as the storm goes in that direction but also it weakens when doing so so we have that two-pronged effect effect of how the winds will let up not only the motion of the storm moving away from us but it weakening while doing so and the winds certainly have done their fair share of damage to our power grid uh checked this St 20 minutes ago and um when I last showed this Ascension Parish had just gone over St Mary at 14,000 uh with power outages to overtake the kind of the leader in the clubhouse in our area for most power outages by Parish so far and it's nearly doubled in that 20-minute window 36% of the parish out now with at being 22,000 customers East Baton Rouge Parish 11,000 that's up about another 1,000 since I last visited this graphic that's 5% of the parish and assumption Parish closing in on 80% without power that's 8,300 customers at the moment Livingston 8100 Tang 3300 those two bottom parishes they're going to go up in a hurry in the next few hours all right what about restoring the power when those winds go below 30 tomorrow the linesmen are going to get out and about and start working it will be Breezy but likely not Breezy enough to prohibit them from getting to work on that and we shouldn't see much of an issue with rain and thunderstorms across our area again a stray shower on the back side of the storm possible especially early but we have a stretch of very quiet weather not only through the weekend but into early next week on the other side of this system myself Malcolm here all night long tracking Francine we'll be on the air we'll have our app continuing to update the track of that storm with new advisories at the top of every hour pushing you any breaking weather information such as warnings you'll probably find out about them there before you even do on air because they happen instantaneously and also we're updating our forecast blog on wbrz.com if you need more warning impact information that's there the forecast after the storm is there you can also get live radar and hurricane information on that and if your power has gone out or may go out out you can watch our live stream on the app or on wbrz.com just logging on your phone and that's crucial so you can continue to get not only forecast but information from Michael and Sylvia the news team on things you need to know what's happening around our area speaking of Michael and Sylvia guys back to you okay Josh thank you I've got a long list I want to go through here about uh curfews uh starting in a meet curfew started at 6 o'clock tonight it'll go until 6:00 a.m. uh until further notice in Morgan City in Burwick the curfew started at 11: this morning it'll go until 6:00 tomorrow morning in tajo Village it started at 6:00 p.m. it'll go until 6:00 a.m. um through Thursday in Livingston Parish curfew uh is From Dusk to Dawn Dawn in St Mary Parish the town of Franklin the curfew uh expires at about 7: a.m. tomorrow morning in Franklin Parish curfew uh started around 4: it will end at 7:00 a.m. and lefo Paris herf few will be in effect until further notice also in St Gabriel the curfew uh expires at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow in Covington the curfew goes from um goes until further notice it started at 4m. and finally in Zachary um it will end tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock gave you a lot of info there you can see that full list on our website wbrz.com okay so we have a crew in West Baton Ridge parish as well at the shelter of last resort sports 2's Jack Shimmel standing by yeah Michael and Sylvia I'm here at the West Baton Rouge Community Center here in Port Allen and we were just going outside to see if we can do this live shot outside a few minutes ago because there's a little covered area out there but uh our photographer right now reporter Gabby Davis almost got swept away when she went outside so we're doing it inside we're dry it's good for us here um this shelter of Last Resort at the West Baton Rouge community center is open to the public there's about 25 CS for people to sleep on if they would need to but there's room for a lot more people probably about a 100 people could fit in here again so if your power goes out if you experience some flooding you know this is open and it will be open until tomorrow morning as a shelter of Last Resort it's open for about 24 hours it opened uh earlier this afternoon or earlier this morning now if you do have pets there is an opportunity for you to bring your pets there is a covered area outside it's fenced in that you can bring your pets in if you choose to now would be best to bring food now if you're coming here as well there are snacks for you personally you might want to bring some snacks as well as well as pillows uh blankets everything that you may need if if you're coming here to you know kind of get out of a tougher situation so uh this place the West Baton Rouge Community Center will be open again for uh about 24 hours until about 11:00 a.m. tomorrow so less than 24 hours now with 24 hours when they opened and there's plenty of space there's nobody really here right now um so if you do to experience those bad weather conditions this place is open back to you guys at the desk all right jack thanks uh earlier we had David Hamilton in Livingston Parish checking out a tree that fell in the house we have some video that we've been able to turn around here this is on East Lakeshore Drive this is off of Buddy Ellis Road the sheriff says that they did go inside here and check on the people inside no injuries reported there but good news but look at the size of that tree David was talking about it he uh was trying to talk to the homeowners about what kind of damage they've experienced in this incident right here but the good news is no one was injured when this tree fell on this house earlier today that is very good news that tree is massive yeah and there's a lot of that I was texting with a friend of mine earlier and the wind this afternoon really wasn't all that much here in East bat Parish but nonetheless a massive Water Oak fell in his backyard and it was just kind of surprising to them because the the the full force of the storm really hadn't arrived in BGE at that time obviously we're experiencing it now and so as as Josh said so many trees have been dealing with the drought and so just a little bit of you know the the wind will just take them down in the rain that we had last week I mean obviously the ground's very saturated so we expect to see a lot more of that absolutely all right so uh we want to send it back to um laville and assumption Parish the last time we uh checked in with Alexis and Brie of course they were kind of in the brunt of that storm so uh let's see where they are they had taken shelter in someone's home so let's get an update on what the conditions are like there now Alexis hey Michael hey Sylvia we are back outside um it is still raining really badly we were talking to a sheriff's officer earlier who was telling me that it is not safe to be on the roads he even suggested that we get back inside because it was just picking up um we came back out to show you guys just how crazy these winds are thankfully we have this house right by us that is because of the wall it's protecting us a good bit but it is really cold out here the rain is picking up and of course there's no visibility out here in labille there is absolutely no visibility um as far as there's no power but also there's you know few street lights out here as is because it's just a very rural community um so I wanted to show you guys just you know a couple hours go you could see the sugar can fields and you could see you know all these homes and everything and now it's you know compl completely pitch black there's not a whole lot to see maybe on camera but from where I'm at you can see the rain is still it's not as heavy as it was before but it's still pushing through that wind is getting us and it is making it very very cold out here um it definitely does not feel like September in Louisiana it's very cold um so we're going to send it back to you guys in the studio you guys stay warm you guys stay dry um take all the rain for you live in uh assumption Parish Alexis Mary WBZ News to cold because they are soaking WETA there as well and we heard we spoke with the sheriff earlier tonight um Fallon who said um that there were a number of issues that they were dealing with one of which was power outages and Josh showed us that map there uh 80% of folks in the parish are without electricity right now they're also dealing with roads that are closed because of debris we're also getting some new information in from the State Department of Transportation they just closed us61 and Ascension Parish I'm looking at the map here it appears that it's from the intersection with 61 Airline Highway and I 10 heading Northbound into serrento that is closed due to debris in the roadway we've also been touching on the interstate closure that is closer to Bluff because of a tree down over the interstate okay we're going to take a little break and we will be right back between the songs and stories the crisp evening air and the crackling fire are moments like these Traditions that warm the glow in all of us share your Traditions visit jimf firearms. net there are trucks and then there's the GMC Sierra available with the connected Driving Experience and the world's first six function multipro tailgate GMC Sierra it's the truck or get 3500 purchase cash on select GMC Sierra models or get a total of 6,000 purchase allowance when you trade in an eligible vehicle see your by ugmc dealer so there I was in the thick of it I've been on hunts like this before but nothing this dangerous keeping Eyes Wide Open rounding blind Corners entering the dark abyss doing whatever I can to stay one step ahead of my enemy when I finally get a clear name I take the shot the Hunt is on would it say about sitting in my chair sorry Grandma Now's the Time to get a great deal on the number one selling compact tractor in the US professional grade mowers durable psychic utility vehicles and versatile compact tractors is the equipment you need to 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all over Louisiana ABC News here as well IA josi reporting tonight from New Orleans tonight hurricane Francine making landfall this evening and taking aim at Louisiana strengthening and upgraded to a category 2 hurricane right before it came ashore with winds up to 100 miles hour roads quickly flooding in duac Louisiana some areas bracing for up to 10 ft of storm surge ABC's Matt rivers on the coast in h Louisiana when Francine may landfall this hurricane coming ashore as we speak and we are in the eyewall the most intense part of this storm with winds up to 100 miles an hour the threat of power outages increasing by the minute it's overwhelmed scared even though you've been through storms before I still feel the same weight every time a storm come a state of emergency in effect Louisiana activating more than 2,000 National Guard troops warning residents the time to evacuate has now passed it is the time to go to ground and hunker down here in flood Pro New Orleans officials say they're confident the pump system that keeps water out of the city will do its job the threat of tornadoes increasing on the dirty side of the storm as it barrels Inland once Overland Francine quickly falling apart it's not going to be a good night to be driving on the roads Francine Now set to soak Mississippi through the the night with the same rain it brought to Louisiana AA Jai ABC News New Orleans all right we are back uh getting after it Malcolm put together a couple of new images we want to share with you talking about the damages in our area um Malcolm's going to read these off but just to give you the lay of the land of what we're seeing here these are all reports of tropical storm or hurricane damage around the area this really just how they classify them likely it's largely wind damage and those those houses represent some flooding and wind damage as well but any that jump off the page at you Malcolm yeah so I thought about you know querying all of these putting the text on the screen but there are so many reports pouring in now it just doesn't make sense to do that uh some of these reports are from what I've seen on Twitter or ex formly known as Twitter I've seen significant flooding in Tibido uh damage in hom even some damage in the capillary as well we've already shown that with some trees on homes uh flooding entering homes in chak Bay pretty close to St James Parish there and I saw this on the Nola ready uh Twitter account AT&T and T-Mobile customers are experiencing difficulty connecting with 911 in Orleans Parish and you have to call a backup number out in that direction I'm glad you brought up mobile I'll say this just for news to look into I've been trying to contact our radio partners and even Balin down in Morgan City I'm a Verizon user all of my calls have been dropped so maybe there's some Verizon struggle uh in the region as well but um you just mentioned too now this is not our immediate viewing area but it's very notable could be some big trouble brewing in New Orleans right now right yeah I just saw saw something this is right before we just came back on the air here let me go off the side computer here and look at the National Weather Service chat room just so you know when Malcolm step's off screen he's got a computer over there that allows us to chat with the National Weather Service update these graphics on the fly so that's why he disappears momentarily I'm going to read the text straight from the the chat room uh National Weather Service in New Orleans says or slide El says working on a flash flood emergency right now as rain rates over the metro area I assume New Orleans metro area we're getting significantly elevated they're refining the area right now yep it is New Orleans Metro the area will be generally from Lake View to Kenner it may need to include parts of St Charles as well and the flash flood emergency is a very serious situation it is it means that we could potentially have water entering homes if it hasn't already and I think it's just in particular because of how flood prone New Orleans is it's these four five six inches of rain we're seeing in a matter of 3 4 hours that's causing that problem we talk about how on a daily summer thunderstorm you get a flash flood warning in New Orleans because it's just not equipped to drain water so a hurricane even more so it's not surprising to see that that's occurring there in New Orleans tonight we haven't quite reached that where we've seen some really heavy rain in St Mary Assumption and St James Parish so far tonight bad there's likely some flooding but we haven't heard any dire reports of water uh Rising quickly in any of those areas we did get that one report near chck Bay though and I saw a video of it on Twitter that's why I wrote this down here to kind of bring that to you guys on the air but uh you know it is happening a little bit closer to the coast and I I imagine we're going to see it just get that feeling this is an area that's highly prone to flooding Eastern Ascension lower Livingston Southern Tango you have the lake influence so you have some water being pushed that way you have the r heavy rain coming down I would be on alert for some flooding like that developing in some of those areas around the lak we're going to show you the radar and the rain totals coming up we actually have current conditions kind of Parish by Parish Community by Community coming up now if you want to advance forward sure yeah let's get into some of that uh we start in our Coastal sections Morgan City showing a sustained wind still at 44 we know it was much higher earlier we talked to Balin recently enough that we we can likely safely say we are on the uh down slope from Impact in St Mary Parish at this point yeah that number likely was much higher a little earlier we did have a data drop out earlier in fact I did have to change the data source for this uh this is a sort of computer estimated right here but that's a very good estimate for what is likely going on in St Mary Parish still dealing with tropical storm force winds and this is you're going to see each Parish we go through here it's only the parish cut out onto the map here showing you uh precipitation rates and you don't have a legend at the top but you generally know light green is really light rain dark green is heavy rain and then yellow and orange is torrential rain no more torrential rain in St Mary Parish at this point we're talking about leftover showers they may still be blowing horizontally or diagonally because it's still Gusty uh but it's not terribly heavy and we're not going to add a bunch of additional accumulation to where we are now then we go to assumption Parish Napoleon Villa sustain wind at 49 mph as you get closer to the center track the wind speeds begin to increase a little more also notice the wind direction on the Northerly side so this is the backs side to the east of the center of circulation you're on the east side that wind direction would generally be out of the South also notice intensity of the precipitation letting up an assumption perish but I see a couple yellow splotches in the northeastern part of the parish so I think once you get into St James closer to Lake morpa there's St James you see some heavier precipitation out in that direction ler east Southeast winds at 50 mph even higher gusts on top of that yeah I think that's totally f and um we were talking maybe an hour or two ago about um kind of our modeling estimating winds that could gust as high as 70 to 75 miles per hour in that St James Ascension Corridor I'd say that's not off the table decreasing in likelihood but with a wind sustained at 50 yeah you're going to get a gust that's right you know 10% 20% higher than that and in our tour of uh pretty much all the parishes here we continue to go North to Ascension Parish wind speed there a little bit lower that's out of Gonzalez 26 miles mil per hour maybe getting a little bit farther west away from the storm and well I think you'll see the winds rapidly decreasing farther west and by the way correct me I know because you set these Graphics up but but this is not a uh computer estimated that's yeah Gonzalez that's an actual airport observation so I mean that's good that's a little lower than could be as we're seeing some really heavy action roll through Ascension Parish right now I I talked about Eastern Ascension sarento and toward Lake morpa here that's where we're dealing with the heaviest rain at this time and I said the farther east we are in Ascension and then Southern Livingston that's where I think the flood concern increases you see these really high rain rates in that area it's been pretty Breezy in Ascension Parish of course we've seen Sarah greay bar out there on the scene and she's been dealing with the wind ripping yeah no doubt about it and then then we go to Livingston you keep keep taking us here to the north Malcolm and there's that other area Eastern Ascension lower Livingston what we're looking at tonight around the Lakes the flood concern for water and ination plus heavy rain and the winds uh what are we seeing condition wise there and I'll tell you this is down when I created this graphic that number was much higher for French Settlement and that's probably because the storm is moving North and I suspect for Killian soon getting up to the i12 corridor you're going to see those winds really increasing and you can see the intensity the rain highest right now in the southern part of Livingston Parish that's soon going to take that or overtake that Interstate Corridor yeah going to work in that direction and then toward Tango Parish which uh three days ago probably would have said We Won't See Much from this storm but a lot has changed and it's shifted and Tang is pretty much going to get as good of a hit as anybody uh from this one in terms of at least heavy rain and some Gusty winds so ponchatula and Hammond areas that are starting to come under the gun now right and that's going to go all the way up the I55 Corridor so that's also one of the uh Interstate routes that we want to avoid frankly anywhere the Capital Area it is advised to we stay indoors yeah and then the Capital Area itself we are seeing our Tower camera move a little bit looking at the uh Interstate here and I can tell that's a truck that's a truck you can tell by the glare behind them so largely only 18 18 wheeler traffic out there on the roads and crossing the Mississippi River right now tough in a high-profile vehicle but that's uh all that's on the road at this time fortunately we don't doesn't look like we see any through traffic or resident traffic out there at the moment winds at Metro Airport out of the north at 25 I see exactly what you're looking at Malcolm um on our just observations every couple of minutes anything different out there gust wise gust to 43 I'm also looking at the flash flood emergency that just came out for New Orleans and I think it's important to note it's right along the I 10 Corridor and we talked about staying off the interstates tonight between Baton Rouge and New Orleans from New Orleans to Hammond even Hammond to Jackson tonight um I know you got a playlist here Malcolm we want to uh just jump ahead to radar real quick to take a look at New Orleans or just maybe that broad area we have New Orleans video yes we want to take that yes let's go ahead and go to that there we got radar up here in just a moment you see there is some um some flooding video in New Orleans you can tell by the Twilight there in that video this is from earlier this evening so clearly things are getting worse there the deeper we move into the night in New Orleans look there are spots in New Orleans I I know I have uh New Orleans born and raised that have moved to our area that will call me when we broadcast a flash flood warning it always floods there this is a little bit different some some of the water the areas that don't typically hold water are likely doing that tonight water was up to the the hood of some cars there yeah I wouldn't call that normal not not not on tonight's basis that's the kind of damage level total cars right there and which is why we tell you even if you you know a low-lying area that floods we know there are ones here in the capital city uh there may be some in Ascension in Livingston Parish as well just don't drive your car into any water at night if you're un exactly uh not exactly sure of the depth of it because once you get that water into the engine goodbye and I think in that video we just saw that was actually flowing water whenever we just have standing stagnant water that tends to not sweep cars away but when you have that flowing water it only takes six inches to actually lift most you know um smaller sedans maybe up to a foot to get some trucks going but you think you have a big truck and you can drive through it it's just 12 Ines of water it's all takes yeah to lift that especially when it's moving which which in a case like this because it's trying to find drainage it may again we're not talking about torrent like you might see in a mountainous area but when water is trying to find its level or get to its drainage Channel it is going to be moving a little bit radar sets the scene here pretty well Malcolm uh the heaviest rain where we have that fles flood emergency just on the Southshore of Lake pona Trin uh we're seeing really intense rainfall rates in this belt here where we have darker red and orange on the map that extends too Westward into St James Parish assumption look at East bat and Rouge Parish getting clipped Now by some of that heavier rain Malcolm takes us into New Orleans at this time and see that flash flood warning that's in place until 11:45 pretty much includes the entire CBD we're talking about um over toward the West Bank we're dealing with that as well even into the Southshore of Lake Pon terrain and precipitation rate is at about two and 3/4 maybe three and a half inches per hour that's going to overwhelm drainage yeah not you know we're seeing the highest rain rates I think that's the the highest I've seen it in this storm system right over Metro New Orleans literally in the worst possible SP worst possible spot going right into the bowl yeah and and will continue kind of lifting to the north tonight so that heaviest rainfall right that's more than what's falling right now and that's that's often a Telltale sign of why the weather service is going to trigger that emergency they've already had too much rain and even heavier rain is coming and let me sh let's pop on some of the rain totals yeah oh wow yeah at that bright shade of blue and then right there uh next bouti where it gets uh you get the white on the map we're sample that we're approaching uh 10 12 in8 inches there we're talking you know downtown New Orleans 6 inches now granted that's since midnight uh but most of that's probably fallen in the last couple of hours there yeah and uh well based on the rainfall rate of 3.5 six per hour that may balloon to seven or eight inches in a short time it's not just New Orleans I mean that blue shading goes all the way west through the 10 12th quarter of that I believe that's St John Parish and that gets into St James Parish let me broaden out the view there uh let's see here let's go farther west yeah St James in that same cordor we're seeing maybe upwards of 8 to 10 inches and we knew that was possible near the center of circulation I was actually we use I was thinking when you were zooming out there this map almost really identically mirrors the rainfall forecast for this event and we use the exact same color scale for the rain that's falling plus the rain forecast so everything's easy to match up and look and it's really goes to show you how how well forecast this event was over the last few days so look at that rain forecast yeah and where we're seeing all those dark shades of blue and those heaviest rainfall totals five six seven inches right here again this is this was the rain forecast this was last updated this afternoon so this is not at this point the rain yet to come I would say maybe from here North the rain yet to come we are not going to see additional amounts that high to these points to the South but i' call this storm total yeah this would be the storm total expectation and this is absolutely where the heaviest rain is setting up right now and I'd argue I mean that goes all the way into slide L but I'd argue you might some of might see some of these Blues going up in Hammond maybe as far west as St helina Parish yeah oh yeah especially with the way we've seen this storm kind of speeding up and and and you remarked on this earlier but we are seeing the rain shield kind of broaden out a little bit and that's likely taking the wind shield or the I should say the winds with it the wind field with it it's interesting you say that I think we should get the future cast in just a second because the latest run is just coming and it does show that um let's get to what's going on right now with the system then we'll get the future cast I want to put the uh latest track from the Hurricane Center we may it an update in about 10 minutes go back to the play button it looks like now I'm sorry I can go back to the play button now she got us back on track we diverted there from what we were doing yep um so there's the track and it's still a hurricane with Peak WIS at 75 and that was for now okay yeah we're waiting yeah within 10 minutes I wouldn't be surprised if it was a tropical storm right even at 70 that's a tropical storm so um and we expect it to be a tropical storm as it crosses the state line tonight after midnight close to 1:00 a.m. but this this cone here it's the cone of uncertainty for a reason because the Storm Center could track anywhere to the west or to the east that Center Line is likely going to be a pretty good call the point in time we are now in the proximity to where we are the system and that's where all of the action is going to occur tonight from Baton Rouge over to the north Northshore but we're seeing this swath of heavy rain this orange this yellow this is where the most intense weather is and Malcolm remarked on St Helen Parish Northern Tango Paris really I55 just translate that mess all northward into that region of the next many hours it's just incredible to see where the heaviest precipitation is just to the right of the center of circulation and right along it and I mean point cap perish a couple hours ago wasn't seeing any rain seeing some light rain beginning to form that region you were hinting at the you know the field and the overall rain shield perhaps expanding a little bit more we're not seeing Heavy Rain by any means in West feliciana Point cap Parish but just talk about the ride that a hurricane takes you on even emotionally again at the beginning of the week you could argue that New Roads would take the biggest hit in our viewing area with a path over the aapol Bas and they'd be closest if that this storm what's creating the worst impacts right now here in this area if that path is over the Basin as it was early in the week that worst weather right here new orle probably wouldn't have seen much at all exactly so I mean and again that's we're talking 50 to 100 miles makes all that much difference yeah that's a long way to go when you're talking a drive say between Baton rou and New Orleans but when we talking a storm of this size that we were predicting where its Center would be in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico three days ago it's not a huge variation but it made a huge difference what's crazy is we've been actually been watching this tropical wave for weeks now this wave came off the African Coast track all the way through the Atlantic into the Caribbean and uh along the way 20% chance development 30% chance 20% over seven days but then we near term ramped up right uh next uh thing in the lineup Josh is actually little tighter of you here I want to point out here that the eyewall has degraded so much in fact i' argue I don't even think there's an intercore anymore here yeah there's a remnant of a northern eyewall if you will but it does appear to be weakening and and with that inner core collapsing I think that's just going to open up the door for continued rapid uh not strengthening uh weakening as we go throughout the rest of the night and that's good we'll we'll continue to see the windfields lesson we'll likely see the the rain or should say the windfields May expand but weekend while doing so the top wins and the rain shield will likely just continue to lighten up as this system now the more exposed the center gets the more vulnerable it gets to more weakening factors so it's a domino effect and it's open now we are going to see this uh system rapidly weaken and I think that's the exact words of the National Hurricane Center used in their discussion for this is rapid weakening is expected after landfall such that by tomorrow morning this may not even be considered a tropical system anymore by the time it gets to about I20 in Mississippi argue now it's we call it extratropical transition I'd argue it's already doing that right now and simply by definition of its winds and keeping I would say for a Public Communication tool that wouldn't lose its defin they wouldn't classified as a hurricane or a tropical storm now to keep that awareness up that we still have some pretty intense winds in this storm system right now you mentioned you wanted to get to Future cast let's do that I think this is a good illustration not only of our current situation but also that the model might be overdoing a little bit we are not seeing these intense rainfall rates right now in these sections so the model kind of starts uh maybe an Nth Degree higher than what the rain rate is right now this is a little inside baseball too but futurecast is not just one model we use all the time futurecast is just one model that we pick that depicts what we think is going to happen the best representation and lately we've been applying something called a grid adjust onto this where we've literally said the model I don't think is doing a good job here and we've actually moved the model Fields west or east depending on what we would think and uh I was able to take that grid adjust off with this model run because it's actually for the first time in days yeah it caught up I mean this is and and probably because it's Overland now there's more information being plugged into the model it's finally sensing where the center is and it's interacting with the better there there but I mean I think it's worthwhile that Malcolm pointed that out that it's not simple that we just say this is the model this is what we do it's why we don't you know the social media sites to just pop them out there and like that's what's going to happen that's not how it works we have to do a bunch of meteorology to figure out which model makes the most sense and then even that how to modify that forecast based on our analysis of the atmosphere so that's what we've been doing with this but now that it's initializing well Malcolm and we believe the track and we haven't had to adjust what it looks like um we'll zoom out and take a look at what's going head forward in time notice this uh this happens as we go farther out in time an expansion of the precipitation on the northwest side that's actually pretty common with non-tropical systems and we just talked about how this may be undergoing you know extratropical transition that's a symptom of that where you see precipitation developing on the northwest side of the area of low pressure and I think this would be the center right about here is what the model's trying to sense and grab and that's that heaviest rain band on what used to be the eye wall showing up on the NorthShore at this point really heavy across Livingston Parish as well now this is rain this model doesn't necessarily depict wind really well but with the center just in South Central Livingston Parish you're still feeling the wind in East Baton Rouge in Iberville in Ascension Northern assumption in St James that Windfield is fairly broad still so um yeah you don't oh there's no yellow or red over me that doesn't mean you're out of the woods maybe from a rain perspective you're not dealing with that flood threat but still quite windy over to the Capital Area about as far west as the Mississippi River and expand that to about the state line Mississippi the Pearl River over to our East yeah as we go into the night maybe a couple showers lingering it is still windy but uh while the wind remains overnight the rain does not it gets out of here pretty quickly and I think we're waking up the dry conditions tomorrow yeah we'll see some sunshine and the breeze while it still may be noticeable especially north of the highways around day break could be in that 20 30 m per hour range we'll quickly get through uh and below that key number of 30 miles per hour through the day that gets us about to the end of the lineup we have here I just did step off to look at the Weather Service chat we don't technically cover New Orleans but it is close by and we know many of you may have friends and family out in that direction I wanted to give a quick update on what's going on out in that direction with that flash flood emergency pull up the radar as you read that off and can point that out let's uh pull that radar back up we'll zoom in a little tighter to New Orleans but uh the the National Weather Service was reporting that I 10 is filling up fast near a particular exit let me get the exact exit there heavy rain still falling in New Orleans yeah it 10 beginning to fill fast in low spots just before exit 231a on the eastbound side and we have parts of I 10 eastbound that are already shut down in other areas like Ascension Parish do a tree across the highway so uh we just continue to Echo that you're with us tonight do not go anywhere unless it's an absolute emergency and even still you may not have a route to address your emergency because of the way these interstates are starting to play out when it comes to really high winds we typically advise you to be on the lowest level of your home but with flooding it's the opposite you want to be on higher level so there's kind of a combination here of wind and flooding so if your home floods and you know there's wind potentially breaking windows that type of thing the advice here is to get to the lowest nonf flooded level yeah of your home hopefully we're not getting into those situations with the weakening Windfield at least in our immediate viewing area for tonight so hey and look at that first time I've seen this one lightning strike near New Orleans so some cracks of Thunder out there tonight too if the Roar of the wind wasn't enough out there you said that's kind of the end of our lineup we've got plenty more weather to cover we'll just reset and get back with you in a few minutes here but we know there's plenty of news going on around the area and we want to see what our crews in the field can tell us right now Michael and Silvia all right guys thanks great explanation stay weather aware with the storm station be sure to download the WBZ news and weather apps to stay ahead of this storm as Francine continues to move through this area several shelters have opened up for those without power as we mentioned earlier the West fater Community Center has opened as a shelter and here is Gabby Davis I'm here at the West band Rouge Community Center they have turned this area into a shelter for those in need during Hurricane Francine here with me now is marleene Ransom and Clarice Christopher please tell me about this facility let's start with what are y'all providing for those that are that can come in here we're providing snacks and Waters for anybody that's in need to come into the West Parish Community Center and what is the pet policy uh the pet policy is you can can bring your pets but they have to be taken on the outside up under our uh Pavilion which is located on the opposite side of the community center for their pets they would have to provide their own food and water for their pets correct yes that's correct and um how many people can y'all handle in this facility uh maybe about between 150 I'm going to say maybe about 150 and is there anything else you would like those who may stumble upon here to know about like the fac the facility uh anyone that's welcome uh like I said you can just bring your pillows your cover uh anyone that don't have a place to go you are welcome uh to come inside from the storm this will be open until 11:00 a.m. tomorrow or until they reach full capacity in Port Allen Gabby Davis WBZ news2 so once again that shelter is located at the community Center that's on North Jefferson Street in Port Allen check this out video coming in from best Castle this tree here that has fallen on North Foster Drive in East Baton Ridge Parish that is roughly between Florida Boulevard and Gus Young about the 900 block you can see it's closed at this time but the good news is DPW is already out there because it's safe to do so you can see they have chainsaws they're trying to rapidly reopen Foster after this tree fell over the roadway in Livingston Paris sheriff's deputies one of many agencies they are working to clear debris tonight they posted this video on social media of a deputy using a chainsaw to clear a down tree that's off of Jack Allen Road our crew is uh continuing its team coverage of the storm as it passes over the capito area let's go live to news to Sarah greay bar she spent the entire day in Ascension Parish what's it like out there now Sarah yeah I've been out in ENT Parish since about noon today driving through the area we've seen debris on roads we've seen Fallen trees we've seen power lines brought down by said trees I was with my photographer Justin earlier today we were actually shooting a tree that had fallen on a house the wind was so strong we heard a cracking sound and then we saw another tree fall down across a canal thankfully not hitting the home on that property as you can tell the wind has definitely picked up you might be able to catch how the wind wind is actually blowing the rain to my left all right earlier today we were on the driveway here at the Santa M volteer fire department and we were talking about how the water levels were slowly increasing in this Pond this Pond that you know all the coverts all the canals all the streams fall into this water line was several feet back earlier today when we last checked in but now it's maybe maybe two maybe 2 and 1/2 ft from the curb right there and then we're just coming up the driveway I don't know if you can see my high visibility vest shout out to my mom for getting this for me um the rain is just coming down you can see it in my face we drove through Ascension Parish earlier today we stopped by Gonzalez we talked to a neighbor who was working with his fellow Neighbors in his neighborhood the whole team they just teamed up they were knocking down trees all throughout the past two weeks that they thought could possibly like bring damage to their homes when I talked to the man he told me that the team all together brought down more than 20 trees and even when we were in his yard there were still small limbs falling off the trees in the area because the winds were just that powerful uh he had all his neighbors at his house for a little get together to weather out the storm we talked to him about what did he think are some Essentials for weathering out a storm kind of like this one here's what he said this is south Louisiana we drink a lot of beer it's known we cook a lot of food and we have a lot a lot of fun this doesn't scare us you have to be prepared right you have to be prepared weeks in advance and then you can have fun through the whole storm just depends just depends on how bad it is this storm is not that bad I also spoke with a mother who said that this was one of the first storms that her son was weathering that he would remember I spoke to the little boy he told me this about how he knows what to do to to stay safe in a storm take a listen if the storm can break through things I would go on inside or to the top and put the mattress over so as you can see like that little boy said this is not the weather that you want to be outside for this is definitely the weather where you want to oo it just got really loud all of a sudden do you hear that you probably can't but the wind just picked up I can feel it more violently moving across my body but like that little boy said this is definitely not the weather that you want to be in this is the weather where you stay inside put on a movie snuggle up with your family and don't go outside please keep those roads clear for First Responders I mean if you have an emergency of course call 911 if you have a non-emergency that you want to report please call the citizen service number we have that over on our website wbr if you were out here you would be able to feel the wind it is very strong it is only getting stronger we're going to continue to monitor conditions and with that I'm going to send it back to you all right Sarah great bar how many folks in Ascension Parish are without electricity let's check so let's go back to the outage map here and this is according to power out. us Ascension Parish is looking at roughly 26,000 C customers without power that's out of 61,000 so um it's it's not as bad as some of the coastal communities but uh they're definitely in the uh larger areas that without power this is the energy map I can kind of give you an update they're ascensions reporting according to Entergy about 19,000 19,000 customers without power on the Entergy side as for dico Let me refresh this dico is saying that they have a this really hasn't changed much about 50% of a iion customers on the Demco side of the electric grid are without power roughly 8,000 households of the 15,000 that are served there so I mean you saw how dark it was where sh gr was yeah and so tomorrow um hopefully the sooner the better you know you'll get an update on how soon uh you can expect your electricity to be returned we talked Michael Cobell earlier today and he had some great video the bucket trucks that are already positioned in Baton Rouge to dispatch as soon as it is safe for them to and it wasn't just there yeah on College Drive I mean we saw him coming work today just up and down the Cru will be out there as soon as it uh is safe for them to do so I imagine that's going to be at First Light One update that we just got about that that tree on North fer it has been removed do we have a video that we can show from earlier yeah this was it we were talking about the DPW Crews working diligently uh safe as possible trying to get those limbs cleared so they can reopen North Foster Drive once again that's between Florida and Gus Young so that is good news they've remove that tree okay we'll take another break we'll be right back so what do you think about these we're going to take everything from design and products to removal and installation rebath is with you through every step of your remodel call us or visit rebath.com and save $1,500 off your complete bathroom remodel the Excellence of driving a Buick is matched by the Excellence of the dealership experience when you own a [Music] Buick Buick exceptional by Design get a 2024 Buick invista starting at 23495 see your Bou Buick dealer nobody wants to put a new roof over their head it's too expensive and if they can extend the life of that roof and get five more years or 10 more years it's a no-brainer what roofmax does is it helps people in that they don't have to spend that $ 155 $20,000 on a new roof they can spend Pennies on the dollar the roof matx product was a small percentage of cost of replacing a roolf this is a great financial decision for us as a community hey it's Ray with Window World with more responses to your comments Karen says my neighbors say Window World windows are the best is that really true let's ask an expert you can count on it definitely signs point to yes satisfied Mark says I've heard about your no interest financing how's that work how's that work call Window World today at 800 get Windows and say yes to no interest financing it's as simple as that that's how it works take a look at it what do you think from design and products to removal and installation rebath is with you through every step of your remodel call us or visit rebath.com and save $1,500 off your complete bathroom remodel the storm station is tracking Francine we continue our coverage here on WB Z as south Louisiana is feeling the brunt of Francine at this moment yeah let's send it over to Malcolm for the latest well on your screen now you're going to see some power outages and Ascension Parish over 25,000 that's about 42% of the parish without power now Livingston Parish those numbers are climbing little under 15,000 that's about a fifth of the parish East faton Rouge Parish you can tell it's a more populated Parish because well only 7% is without power at least as of right now but that's uh just under 15,000 there's a chance that number Rises through the night St Mary Parish wo my goodness uh little over three4 of the parish without power and an assumption Parish which you saw that northern eyewall pass through a little bit afterward that's about 8,000 people but that's 80% of the parish that's a lot of power outages my friends Francine uh still a hurricane with Max sustained winds at 75 miles per hour but that was as of the 8:00 advisory we've seen the National Hurricane Center issuing hourly advisories all afternoon long but they did not issue a 9:00 one and that could be a sign that well we may be headed in the right direction things may be continuing to weaken I suspect we're going to get another one at 10:00 that is a typical advisory issuance time and I think with that advisory you will see this weak into a tropical storm we like to see that Trend by 1:00 a.m. that's four hours from now we will have a tropical storm Peak winds likely at 65 miles per hour and the center circulation will likely be right about here on the Louisiana Mississippi State Line Center circulation now is right about here I'd say it's very over uh maybe St James Parish right now and that's continuing on a northeastward track anywhere from 15 to 20 mph it is interesting to notice earlier on in the evening we could see a very clear and well- defined inner core you could see that eye feature well you don't see it anymore that southern edge of the storm has really opened up and we just have a Remnant Northern eyewall moving over like pona train like moraw now over Ascension Livingston Parish that's where we have the highest rain rates and likely some of the stronger winds and I think the winds get even stronger long portions of the NorthShore Washington St Tam Parish going to be dealing with those Tango Parish likely going to be dealing with those notice Baton Rouge on the western Fringe Of This Storm that's going to help us out from a wind standpoint gusts are still upwards of 39 40 mes per hour at Metro Airport at least as of last check so that would still result in you know tropical storm force winds that is tropical storm force winds here's a closer look at the really heavy rain dangerous situation in New Orleans right now a flash flood emergency has been is issued as we have seen numerous reports of of flooding and even some video we showed it to you not too long ago in New Orleans of floodwaters up to hood levels on cars and uh getting up to even the windows so not a great situation out that way but look to the South you don't see as much rainfall so the hope is that we can see some of those water levels subside but I imagine that's going to take some time in the New Orleans area Heavy Rain continues over Lake pona train that's going to continue into the NorthShore flash flood warnings in place all the way into Southern Tango Parish Hammond on the Northern edge of that that does include ponchatula in the southern part of the I55 Corridor in Tango Parish we have flash flood warnings literally for pretty much our entire Southern Tier of parishes at the present moment in Baton Rouge though think it's going to be hard to get a flash flood warning this evening considering the fact that rain rates are letting up there are some heavier rain bands off towards the east but uh overall rain rates are lighter with these you're going to have to wait for this band to come up to really see those rain rates increase it is moving North and I think our Northeastern parishes like St Helena Livingston and Tango parishes would likely face the brunt of the storm going forward with lesser precipitation as you get west of Baton Rouge I mean it's just barely spitting from the sky right now in point cap and West feliciana Parish here are the overall rainfall totals frankly not a ton out in Wilkinson County Mississippi West feliciana Parish point cap Parish New Roads you may be thinking well you were saying several inches of rainfall and I'm barely cracking an inch and and that's because Francine tracked just a little bit farther east we are looking at at least maybe an inch or two in the Baton Rouge area but the totals get really high along and east of the track and that is what was in the forecast along and just east of the center circulation that's where we would see our highest totals and that's about where the storm is tracking it made landfall in terone Parish uh near uh Eugene Island then it continued Northeast right now over St James Paris you see this uh access of really high rainfall over in we've sampled this earlier even upwards of 8 to 10 in in a few spots you even see some areas of white trying to pop up just west of New Orleans that will likely expand East into the far Northeastern tip of the boob there's the expected storm total rainfall aligns pretty well with what we're seeing now this is already fallen right in this region this is what is to come farther to the Northeast getting into the NorthShore north of Lake Pon train current wind speeds oh yeah it's windy out there you can still hear that Roar outside of the station sustained winds are out of the Northeast to 25 miles per hour in Baton Rouge there's that gust to 41 you don't have to go far south to find higher wind speeds though Gonzalez you're gusting to 56 right now A sustained wind at 31 miles per hour and remember the sustained wind occurs over a couple minutes the gust is the instantaneous burst of wind look at that my goodness New Orleans has a hurricane force wind gust right there 76 miles per hour a tropical storm Force sustained wind speed at 40 mph so you consider that flash flood emergency there as well on top of the wind speed danger for Baton Rouge I think things are down from here not downhill in terms of impacts but downhill in terms of wind speeds and that's a good thing by midnight we're dealing with winds anywhere from 20 to 30 miles per hour kind of similar what we have now uh still think it's going to be quite Breezy around midnight but after midnight things really start to subside in terms of wind speed and after Daybreak we see winds getting below 30 mes hour that means that power crews are going to be able to get out and go restoring power let's show you what future cast looks like future gas doing a good job initializing what's going on right now the heaviest rain to the east maybe overdoing the rain just a little bit you can see some rain on the back side as well this storm is undergoing something called extratropical transition right now it's starting to lose a little bit of its tropical characteristics and sometimes with non-tropical lows you can see precipitation develop on the northwest side and that's what future cast suggests here I think this would be fairly light precipitation it probably wouldn't result in a whole heck of a lot of flooding but could produce some additional showers into the overnight night hours maybe out in areas that haven't seen as much rain like point cap Parish into uh Southwest Mississippi still windy past midnight but again the wind speed should subside in the overnight hours as rain continues to pull away and then into tomorrow we wake up to clouds but then slowly but surely we'll start to see some Cloud gaps and the sun will poke out should be still pretty warm and definitely humid we're in Louisiana remember tornado watch still in effect off to the southeast Storm Prediction Center did say that they watching an area a little bit farther to the east earlier let's see if that area is still highlighted yep not highlighted anymore so it looks like that uh uh product that they had put out expired earlier they were looking at the greatest tornado risk in this chunk of real estate here along the NorthShore and in New Orleans right now or actually we did have a couple of tornado warnings near sidel getting out into Southwest Mississippi have not seen any tornado warnings at least right now there's your storm station 7-day forecast just to give you an idea of what happens into the weekend unfortunately in some spots there will be cleanup in the coming days and that's kind of the weather you're going to deal with it'll be quiet mixt your clouds and sun Friday Saturday and Sunday it should be dry but it'll feel very summerlike high near 90 on Friday 91 degrees on Saturday and Sunday we are continuing to track Fran scine through the next couple of hours right here on wvz continuing our continuous coverage we're also going to continue providing updates on our free mobile app we've been doing that in the days leading up to the storm and during the storm as well we also have updates online and on social media not just weather updates but also damage reports those are pouring Into The Newsroom right now and if it is safe to do so in your location we encourage you if you have photos or video please send them to us um I'm going to send it back to Michael and Sylvia real quick they can probably give you the specifics of where we want to send that video to yeah Malcolm thanks that would be news wbz.com once again news wbz.com that 7-day forecast soovi it's show that the '90s are going to be back the 90° temps I thought they were gone is frustrating in Louisiana how we'll have like that one hint of fall like early in September and then it's back and there's always some sort of storm sandwiched in between sunshine to kind of dry us out we'll definitely take it yeah absolutely and the restoration Cruise as well you saw the video there baton police uh as of 9:00 they have a shift change putting additional officers on patrol tonight as the storm is now kind of moving into the Baton Rouge area in a social media post they asked for prayers for those working in these stormy conditions we talked to the police chief earlier today he said that they had taken a lot of the detectives and lieutenants who otherwise are typically on patrol and they have them out in the elements tonight making sure that everyone is safe and remind he reminded us also uh if you don't have to be out there you don't have to be out there don't be out there all right we're going to send things back to um Bri Andress in labille the last time we talked with those guys out there uh in a assumtion perish the rain was coming down so let's just see uh what the uh conditions are like right now hey there guys things are definitely getting better here in laville South assumption Parish um the wind is still picking up a good bit but the rain is starting to slow down it's not coming down as hard we're not getting soaked like we were a few hours ago but the unfortunate thing is power is out noal the entire Parish so it's pretty pitch black out here this like Lexi said earlier this is a pretty rural area so street lights are not very present like they are maybe like Baton Rouge so it's already a dark place at night and just with no power around it's really dark you can't see anything not even with the naked eye not even with the camera it's pitch black but with that things are starting to calm down and some things I've heard from people in the area that they're concerned that the storm is going to circle back and come back down south towards this lefo Parish Bay Parish asens Parish assumption Parish area excuse me but I have been told by our team over there at WBZ back in studio that that is not the case just maybe a small band with some showers and some wind but nothing too crazy it's not going to be the storm that's going to come back and come back and get you that's that's not the case so please come don't worry about those kind of things there um if you have discovered damage in your home home or things are just not going well for you because of this storm just remember that there are community centers not only an assumption Parish but also an Iberville Parish that you can go to for shelter the Assumption Parish community centers right next to Assumption High School off of 308 oh the wind's picking up here okay and then the community center is right next to White Castle High School over in Iberville Parish so make sure to stop by there if you need shelter for the night once this storm calms down at Daybreak I'm sure every everyone from emergency teams will be out cleaning up debris fixing power lines and so on and so forth so things should look to get better by the sunrise tomorrow morning hopefully things are starting to calm down here but I know they're picking up over there back in Baton Rouge so we'll send it back over you guys all right bu thank you for that yeah we spoke with the sheriff of of assumption Parish maybe two hours or so ago we talked about uh a number of trees being down some road closures he talked about a tree being on Highway 663 and also water um correct me on this us 198 182 and some local Street flooding as well that's correct and they were that was right in the like the heart of the storm for them and he he was just calling in to to let us know that they're on top of things everything's okay uh we had asked if there was any potential for evacuations none of that needed but they weren't going to be able to get out there to clear the roadways until like now so what you saw with bre that the storm has kind of moved on from assumption Parish so the Sheriff's Office and their Public Works Crews will be out there clearing those roadways to get them back open but syvia to your point tomorrow the real work begins in Assumption Parish 80% of electric customers there are without power as we've seen in these situations so many times before it's not going to be just like flipping the lights back on they got to trace that back from your house to the higher transmission lines and hopefully none of those are damaged but we will see when the sun comes up tomorrow all right we're going to take another break we'll be right back it's time for a make it Ford summer Sales Event at Robinson Brothers Ford by the new F-150 STX Super Cab for just $ 48998 $ 48998 buys F150 STX super cab SUV buyers at Robinson Brothers Ford save 9,000 off Expedition xlts or by the new Bronco sport for just $ 27998 save 2500 off the Bronco big band as always no unexpected fees click call or get to Robinson Brothers today are you ready to take your back porch or patio to the next level upgrade now to a fourseason usamade sunro with Iron Works USA add square foot value to your home and relax in a beautiful climate controlled space custom designed and custom built using powdercoated steel framing with glass options such as impact resistant or low E 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West baters Community Center has opened up a shelter as well here's Gabby Davis I'm here at the West band Rouge Community Center they turned it into a shelter for those in need during Hurricane Francine and here with me now is anat Vincent he is the Parks and Recreation director please tell me a little bit about this facility what are youall providing for those so we are a shelter of Last Resort we actually opened up at 11:30 this morning um we have cots we are asking folks to bring Essentials pillows blankets and uh some snacks we do have water and we do have some light snacks we don't have any uh meals but we do have some some snacks for hopefully keep them through the night and um how long will the facility be open so that's still going to be up to our uh Parish president to make that decision generally it's a 24-hour shelter we're here for the storm for whenever the winds are bad um and so sometime in in the morning or tomorrow probably be shut down and what is the capacity um right now we're set up for about 25 which we only have around three in here now but we could we could serve up to 100 and is there a pet policy we do have a pet policy we allow pets but not indoors we have a covered Pavilion out to the rear of the building with kennels we have a a few of the pet amenities that go with them um so yeah we do allow pets we're just not inside the building and um owners would have to bring their own food and water for them correct yes they we have some back there but I would recommend them bringing their own food and water is there anything else you like the community to know about it nope we uh just everybody stay safe and good luck again um there's no time frame for the facility to stay open he said 24 hours but that could change or until it reaches full capacity and in Port Allen Gabby Davis WBZ news to Gabby thanks once again that shelter located at the community center on North Jefferson Street in Port Allen Michael Yoshida is covering hurricane Francine for CNN reporting tonight from New Orleans the power of Francine being felt here in New Orleans strong wind and rain battering the area right here in the French Quarter you can see in the more open exposed areas the wind and the way ripping whipping by you look up you can see that traffic like shaking as officials say we've moved from the preparing for the storm stage to now the hunkering down and we're responding to it hurricane Francine it's bringing hurricane force winds heavy rains and life-threatening storm surge forecasters say it will pack a powerful punch though for some Louisiana natives the storm may not be considered a significant threat we're going to stay here we've always been here and we're not going to leave various mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders have been in place since Tuesday notably around the greater New Orleans area parts of which are outside of the levy protection system but some residents were prepared to ride it out I got all the vehicles gassed up we got some extra water we got the propane bottles filled in St Mary Parish authorities Clos massive floodgates to hold back potentially destructive storm surge from washing over homes and businesses down river also ahead of the storm sandbag stations were also busy over the past 24 hours these local high school students volunteering to help their neighbors what makes the community strong around here you know all together we're strong together with Francine threatening several areas along Louisiana's coastline with storm surge levels up to 10 ft Louisiana's governor is encouraging safety now is the time to begin to stay off of the roadways stay home and stay put we are now no longer in the prepare for a hurricane we are now in the respond for a hurricane and here's another look at those strong winds you can see that sign whipping around there the glow of first responder staged around New Orleans can be seen there too and if we look this way right in the French Quarter uh as these rains continue to fall we're starting to see even the streets uh start to fill up with some of this heavy rainfall again this why official been urging people to hunker down especially now that we're seeing the full impacts of Francine hit this area reporting in New Orleans I'm Micha yosa yeah New Orleans dealing with a flash flood emergency because of the rain bands that have moved through there we're going to get some some fresh video out of New Orleans as well all right so now let's send it uh from New Orleans back to Baton rouan we're going to send it to best cerly um we showed you earlier that tree on northw drive that had uh fallen and crws out there clearing it up so best take us to the scene tell us what's happening Sylvia Michael I was prepared to come out here and do this live shot we are across the street from map here I was prepared to tell you guys that coast is clear everything's fine we didn't really have that much but the wind gusts we've experienced right now are actually surprising we almost had the camera lift up and fall over but our photographer Joe is very well trained and he was able to get it but the wind gusts are still happening not much rain um but like I said I was going to tell you that we kind of dodged a bullet here so to speak the only thing we really came across were the two uh Fallen trees that Sylvia mentioned one on North Foster uh that was completely block walking four lanes and they had to get people out there to cut it uh the city Parish actually went out there and and was able to remove it quite quickly um and then we just approached a tree uh over an exit Lane on Harding that uh the police actually moved was about five police officers uh hopefully you're seeing that in some video there and they were able to remove that tree by themselves but other than that the main issue we have been seeing really is wind as you can see that um rain really has led up and the wind is still very much present as I said it almost knocked us over a couple times so we are now in the clear just yet I would say I still would not come outside if you don't need to because that wind is strong we will keep you updated throughout the evening and morning but for now reporting live in Baton Rouge best cerly WBZ news2 all right best thanks we were we were just talking uh knock on wood here there's none wish but the uh I mean and I'm looking at the the outage maps and whatnot do you want to say it or you want me to say it we shouldn't but I mean you just look there's not as much red that's right in in in East Baton Rouge Parish just in East Baton Rouge and we're yeah we're not a Baton Rouge only TV station but right a lot of our population's here and it's still probably watching on the air tonight not online you look at Ascension this is just on the dim Coast side of things they have 85% of their customers without power ascension's kind of taking the prun of this Ascension in our view and Livingston Tango which is just crazy because you know our most recent one was Ida and that same area uh two two storms in a row where this is kind of a central WBZ viewing area storm uh there's the map live online I will have some numbers on that in a little bit but yeah look at Ascension there you can tell where the Ascension grid is you can almost see the parish outline just on that map and I think we're going to see a lot of red start to pop up in Tanga Baho a little bit later on and of course you had a big Demco presence um in Livingston but that's that's probably going to take hit too especially in the the southern part I was I talking earlier I think you were um taking a quick break golfer to golfer remember the last storm Carter Plantation their trees got thinned out big time they're probably going to have to deal with that again too in that area just hate to see what may happen there when when the sun comes up tomorrow we thinned out so many trees in that same Corridor in our last hurricane in Ascension Eastern Ascension in lower living you remember that drive one two years ago from Baton Rouge to New Orleans you like I can tell where Ida hit we probably on that similar drive going to be more trees down in that same area and part of the problem was the drought yes yes so so you know hurricanes are clearing events for dead and old trees and it had been a long time between Ida and the one previous to that probably Gustav or Isaac and we've only gone three years here so a lot of the weak trees were cleared out by the last hurricane but last year the drought accelerated the weakening of more trees so um and we just don't know I mean I think I think during Ida you can tell when water's an issue at night because it more directly affects people the forestry in the woods we don't know until we see it in the next daylight the timeline with these two storms pretty remarkable both of them's highest impacts been right around Nightfall in the Capital Area so it'll be tomorrow we wake up and we see kind of the visual damages that have occurred but water-wise um yeah we know what's going on with that right now some of those drone shots that I predict will get in from Balin and St Mary Parish tomorrow will be very telling especially whenever they get up yeah and uh and terone and Parish too and they drawn over to H I know there have been some larger like Plaza buildings damaged and destroyed in in that area as well so H took another really big hit from two straight hurricanes in south Louisiana what uh what is the forecast models showing now it kind of looks like we were looking at it on the WBZ weather app which if you haven't downloaded do so you can follow the track there's another Shameless plug appreciate that um it kind of looks like the the rain bands aren't necessarily holding together as yeah strongly over Baton Rouge that's exactly it yeah we're still within that Windfield there's no doubt best noted it I think that's probably why she's surprised and we've been kind of talking about this all day on the air is uh it's not pouring so you're like I'm not in a hurricane it's still very windy outside because that that Center is close to us the Windfield is close to us but the western side of the storm is being chewed up by dry air and in a couple of minutes go through a whole weather segment I am going to show some images that show that really clearly but yeah in Baton Rouge we're dodging the worst of the rain and in some ways dodging the worst of the rain does help with the wind because as we've been explaining the rain bands and the thunderstorm activity within the hurricane help translate stronger winds down to the surface that cold air that rain falling to the ground pulls more strong winds down to the surface with it and that's why that Eastern side is just worse overall so we've still got the winds on the western side even though not as having as much rain but where they have more rain they're dealing with more wind because of that effect I just described how soon before this thing is completely out of here well we talked to our news director about when we start to see things starting to die down in our area and you know when we might be a to you know lower the uh the clickers back to the desk for the evening but I think we're still talking about another two or three hours where winds a big threat in the Metro so um we're getting close to the state line by midnight then and again along the way here this storm continues to rapidly weaken so the two things working in our favor are the weakening and the time overall the movement and the weakening it's still a hurricane still a hurricane still a hurricane I think it's 9:34 Malcolm will definitely send me a note if with our 10 p.m. advisory we see otherwise which I think will be the case we are at 75 I can't see the winds being any more than 70 at this point they should be rapidly dropping here into the evening hours I still find it fascinating that with how the how the track has shifted over time and we've talked about this for for days and you look at what New Orleans has been dealing with with a flash flood emergency I start to wonder if that is more because of their drainage system or if that's because of the rainfall totals but I mean you you guys pinpointed some areas eight8 inches of rain yeah and that's over the span of a couple of hours which is crazy but in a hurricane not crazy I mean we we see that I mean in our that's like uh you know we talk okay the the flood in 2016 30 Ines in three days that was a a one in 1,000 year flood event8 inches in a day in Southeast Louisiana is something that happens like every three or four years that's like a one and threee event so so really on a scale that or something like that can happen that frequently we should have the infrastructure built for that and again that's kind of a New Orleans problem they don't the stories are well documented the pumping stations and the system they have down there we know they're in a bowl so they're just not in a good good situation to to receive a rainfall amount that is is common every couple of years on the Gulf Coast especially with the tropical system yeah uh speaking of flooding we do have some video we're going to show this is going to be from earlier today it's some surge video oh wow and uh yeah catry and this is you know this is about right too this is not massive storm surge you can see those peered homes it's staying under them but this is why you don't stay on the coast because you are housebound at the very least if not in a much much worse way let me ask you Josh so kokri got hammered in Ida by surge is there any comparative here yet on the how many feet of surge there was here uh no we're not going to have exact numbers yet that'll be determined likely after the fact we can look at some Peak gauges and that that might be available for they online I'll make that a point for the next time I visit with you guys which you know we'll still have some more time together tonight I can look that up but obviously the final tallies are done by high water marks the next day or after the water recedes so we'll get those official numbers in days or weeks but we will have a few buoys and gauges that will say oh look they maximized at a height of about nine feet or something like that I'm just I just threw that number out there the forecast was six to n I'll be able to go check that in a little bit here but I haven't yet stick with us for just a second we have uh we're going to get to Joe Collins in a moment but first we have EV Sheriff Sid goo joining us on the phone sheriff good evening good evening what's what's happening what are you seeing out there sir well I'm at the uh headquarters building at the airport right now and and you know we're still getting some light sometimes moderate rain uh you might can hear the winds blowing now I think you know it's been pretty much steady winds that uh I would say 15 25 miles hour and we're getting some gust higher than that uh but as far as the parish is concerned uh you know we got we've been having a deployment of Chainsaw crews out to get some trees out out of roadway but I think they would last count it was I think about 15,000 or so without power uh we've been getting a lot of calls for trees across the road but I can tell you I thank you all for what y'all done as far as notifying the public and uh and so forth and so on and and and and getting them well versed on what need to do but I I can tell you in my riding around since dark uh there's nobody on just only emergency vehicles on the road so the public is hearing to that and I commend them for it because uh you know if you don't have to be out don't and they they're responding to that but uh we we're going to be here uh we are we we started our emergency operation plan put it in effect uh yesterday in fact and the plan covers every all of our operations here and everybody knows what their roles are uh we got we've got people working over on shifts people coming in early so we can try to put as many people on the out on the streets as we possibly can and of course we got all of our equipment ready to go if we need to but so far we had got any reports of any any High hopefully that a h stay that way through the night I think I don't want to say we dodged the bullet to us over but uh I I certainly certainly looks like we may not get that 70 mph wind they were talking about I hope not well let's just let's just keep praying for that for sure let me ask you um if in fact there is not as much of a need here in EBR um can you send can you respond to the call in other areas other parishes that may need assistance yes and uh we we're for every sheriff in the state is part of the uh Louisiana Sheriff's Association emergency task force uh and I'm the southern Commander now for the southern part of the State uh I've been in touch with uh our people over at LSA and we've been calling sheriffs uh down in the affected area so far none of them have said anything but I know they all got their hands full but I fully expect that uh we'll deploy sometime tomorrow or or early Friday morning somewhere wherever we needed but uh you know we I'm thankful that we're one of the larger Sheriff's departments uh in the state so we've got the equipment necessary uh we self-contained wherever we go uh we got we we take care of our people we got our own bunk trailers and our emergency uh operation equipment down there boats whatever we need uh so yes I'm I'm fully I fully expect that somebody's going to be calling for some help soon as this thing gets through Sheriff you mentioned uh down trees chainsaw Crews and deputies are are there any substations in particular that are dealing with uh more issues than the others yeah down south a fim feeder sub in the Southeastern part of the parish uh uh we've got some calls in central uh up in the north part of the parish but uh but mainly uh the bulk of the calls we've gotten as far as down trees block roads has been uh down what else are you expecting to see at Daybreak tomorrow when your your teams are out your uh deputies are out well we we we're going to um assess we'll go over and assess everything that's take transpired tonight uh and see you know just exactly uh where where we need to be and what we need to bring uh or or do but uh we always take care of our citizens here in the parish before we go anywhere else so we going to make sure that everything's that we need done is is is is done but uh I've got volunteer deputies we we got enough to deploy actually to two locations if we need to uh but but we'll assess everything you know uh we keeping a running log right now cost for we're getting for help as far as trees down water but so far uh we really hadn't had any uh any problems with the water and I I think because all of our little local tributaries were uh at a at a normal stage or below I think and and it doesn't look like this is going to be a major rain event for us and uh the speed of the system's moving I think it'll be out of the state well well before daylight okay Sheriff s goo thanks for S taking some time call back in if you have another update well I certainly will if anything else develops that that I know y'all want to know about I I'm certainly call you okay thank you for having me stay safe so you heard him mentioned there that Klein Peter substation down there kind of uh that's what I thought of Airline that's where you're thinking and I I had that question right before you ask was ask if you guys minded if I jumped in and played a news anchor for a second took off my meteorologist that but that that was the question I had that I would have predicted that it doesn't shock me the farther east you are the more wind issues you have the farthest Southern eastern most point of the parish is where he's seeing the most wind issues tonight so that that tracks and also rain uh once that statement he said is is accurate this is not going to be a major rain event in Baton Rouge which is good news elsewhere a different story that's major flooding issues let's send it over to uh Joe Collins he is uh standing by at the Livingston Parish office of emergency preparedness Joe what can you tell us yeah guys like you said we're back at the Emer emergency preparedness Center but just for the coup last couple of hours me and fellow news2 reporter David Hamilton we were out driving around near denim spring near Walker in Livingston and we saw a couple down trees what we really noticed when we were driving around was quite a lot of branches that were on the road we also saw a lot of power outages according to a report that was published on our website wbrz.com about a little over 9,000 uh people in Livingston Parish or without power that's a little bit over 10% of the entire Paris but as the winds continue to get stronger and with rain we can expect those numbers to go up higher speaking of rain and wind the wind is really intensified since we've been here I don't know if you can see behind me but you can see the American flag she's been waving proudly all day A Little Bit Stronger now than before but one thing we definitely noticed also while we were driving around as we saw the rain was going was being was there was quite a lot of rain and the rain was sort of blowing across the road when there's very high winds that tends to happen we saw definitely a lot of that it was very hard to drive at times because we kind of just had to hang on to the steering will because of the high winds I did see a lot of people that were I did see a couple people that were still out driving my message please just everyone B be indoors the only people that really should really be on the road right now are people are emergency preparedness teams teams helping out other people and speaking of emergency preparedness we had talked to the parish president a couple hours ago and he kind of talked a little bit about his plan for tomorrow they expect that around anytime between 7 and 900 a.m. that they're going to be up in a helicopter surveying damage image and then kind of going and creating plans off of that and what they see in the meantime we'll continue to bring you coverage of Livingston as winds intensify and more rain comes live in Livingston Paris Joe Collins WBZ news2 thank you Joe what can Joe expect the rest of the night uh probably starting to get the worst conditions he'll experience about right now I think I'm going to uh get you guys a rest and we'll talk about some of that the winds radar and things like that we showed some flooding video earli let me show you a map that goes along with that right now uh storm surge in our area the expectations this is all kind of uh remained the same uh throughout this event but I want to bring you this now because it is updated just like anything else with watches warnings advisories bulletins the National Hurricane Center updates all of their products and this is their updated surge product so from this point forward here is the the additional surge that we can anticipate look how much lower it is than earlier it maximized in St Mary Parish at about 6 to 9 ft again we'll take a look at some of those topped off numbers in a little bit I'll have a list for you later on today or tomorrow about what our Max surge was but we're still going to have surge of about six feet or so in tabone Parish and we can see that extending I just I you know what this makes perfect sense just had meteorologist Malcolm Byron show me a video from the Tibido area and sure enough look at this we have estimated surge of about 3 to 6 feet in that area and it looks like water has made it into a few structures in the Tibido area so there we have that as we look farther to the north we can find that we get some Coastal surge on the south excuse me the NorthShore uh parts of St tamon Parish Tango Parish extreme Eastern parts of Lake morpa likely washed over in some places there in between Lake Pon train and Lake Mora and we'll have about a foot or two of water inundation on the lower am River and along Lake Mora this is going to be some Backwater flooding up the am River just simply the winds driving the water a little bit higher up there again see that blue it's a but it's not major nothing we haven't experienced before nothing groundbreaking areas that commonly flood will do so in this particular event that's just simply due to storm surge along the coast and wind driven Lake surge coming up some of those bodies of water and on the immediate shorelines let's get in that radar tour now take you around the area and show you what's happening flash flood warnings remain live especially south and east of Baton Rouge note Tango Parish Hammond and ponchatula now on a flash flood warning that's until 11:45 we talked about that flash flood emergency in New Orleans thanks to extreme rainfall rates good news if you have friends or family in the Crescent City tonight the heaviest rain has ended there but there's likely still some big time issues with remaining water one of the fortunate things in this event is that Francine is moving this Sheriff said go said that that has helped us out we're sure that this is going to be getting out of our area here in the next couple of hours it's not going to slow down and stall and rain out he also noted and this is not surprising when we look at radar not going to see a major rain event here in the capitol city uh we saw that Trend majorly East earlier even still at a 3 to six inch event we' have been able to handle that but I think our totals in East bat and Rouge Parish are generally going to be in the range of two maybe three inches on the lower end of things overall and also we are seeing some dry gaps now in parts of Northwestern East bat and Rouge Parish no flood bulletins are likely in those areas farther to the South we're still under a flash flood morning and St Mary parishes for all the water that was left behind earlier and some advisories for standing water in St James and assumption Parish too but all of these areas to the Southwest your warnings will likely be allowed to expire on time we are just not adding much additional rainfall in those sections all the heaviest rain is now focusing around morpa Pon train Eastern Livingston Tango Parish we'll go out a little bit wider do have the National Hurricane Center forecast path on this and we have our new update in this is our 10 p.m. advisory storm motion Remains the Same to the Northeast at about 16 this is the track we've been following looks like it's going to hold true and we also see Max winds have come down that we have tropical storm Fran scine Max winds are now at 70 miles per hour and that's going to be just near the center of the storm they will weaken with distance Away From The Storm Center there's its latest position and oh look at that I would place that don't have an exact coordinate for you but I would place that right on the tip of Eastern Ascension Southern Livingston and Lake moral right now so that's where the storm's centered so uh it's a pretty good distance from the metro area which is likely why we've seen uh the wind threat somewhat mitigated in the capol city really strong uh winds continue though in eastern Livingston Parish tonight Southern Tango and over the Lakes Malcolm and I talked about this earlier but because you lose a little bit of the friction effect of land buildings trees over bodies of water none of that there to exu obstruct the winds so we're likely going to see some really strong gusts on those immediate Northshore areas in Tango and Washington or St Tam Parish here uh with time as Francine continues to push to the north looking at our rainfall map our estimated rainfall totals via radar since 12:00 a.m. you see this Corridor where the blues show up of maybe eight nine Ines in some cases that goes from Morgan City through Eastern assumption and St James into Southeastern Livingston Parish and now Southern Tango I'm going to take the same view and I'm just going to fade the map on to the rainfall forecast watch the colors that's a really good rainfall forecast from the National Hurricane Center that heaviest Corridor of rain I'm going go back again just to show you get the clicker watch these Blues essentially over the same exact areas where the heaviest rain was expected to be Brilliance from the National Hurricane Center in those sections where you're seeing those totals of about uh six seven 8 Ines I just remarked on this was the expected rain fall for the entire event about 3 to six with more along the track it's exactly what we're seeing play out now for Ascension in Livingston Parish where some of that Heavy Rain is ongoing know that for us to have flash flooding issues we would need to collect about three or 4 inches over a three-hour time span and that certainly seems to have played out in those areas there are some estimated accumulations and look at the really sharp Northwest to Southeast gradient or transition from heavy rain radar estimated 7 in just east of sarento to just about 2 in south of praireville long I 10 and then as you get in East Baton Rouge Parish obviously those amounts are even lighter like I said two maybe three inch storm totals what we're going be dealing with in most of the uh Capital City over Eastward to Denim Springs and maybe even Northern parts of Ascension like praireville but Eastern Ascension lower Livingston we're dealing with those much higher amounts as for tracking out Francine from here we'll continue to see that Heavy Rain flying in those Northshore sections for the next couple of hours Future cast is really putting our initial position here I'm sh checking a clock like to keep clock track of time to make sure everything's driving here yeah it shows Center just about where it currently is uh in that area near Lake morpa and as we take it to the 10:00 hour it's continuing on that northeastward motion this storm's now essentially going to run parallel to I55 and we'll continue that across the state line into the 1:00 hour tonight uh by 1:00 tonight I think we're going to see the winds really slackening off along and south of i12 the rain will have about L up for all of those locations and we're going to be talking about some clearing happening Southwestern Louisiana and for those areas really hard hit earlier assumption in St Mary Parish uh winds letting up quite a bit by tomorrow morning that will be true areawide and look at futurecast showing the potential for a good bit of sun breaking out tomorrow still will be kind of muggy out there a tropical air mass remains in place but we are going to have days of quiet weather for the recovery in the areas that do need it now because of this fast moving nature of the storm and the overall we'll say in check rainfall totals the river forecasts are not terribly dramatic once again the Mississippi and the chaal are really not affected much by local rainfall and runoff it's those smaller Rivers so at the bottom of the screen there you see the Tango River at Robert flood stage is 15 ft we're projecting it to about 17 A2 It's Not Unusual we've actually seen that River at that location Crest a little bit higher earlier this year some heavy rain events pretty common to do so the a meat at Den Denim Springs we bring up to 28 ft flood stages 29 think we're going to be okay there might not even make it that high based on uh the runoff north of that by the way these rainfall forecasts and are factored into our River stages only once a day so this was last updated with our rainfall forecast from this morning when we get that new update in tomorrow I think these levels are going to look even lower than this because of uh rainfall totals staying well in check from from what was initially expected so you're in good shape there I'll note that Port Vincent and French Settlement those forecasts May hold not because of rain runoff but because of remember what I showed when I just got started here that surge map that shows some Backwater action coming out of Lake winds forcing water uh reverse in the channel in the AM river that may get our level up to maybe four feet or so at French Settlement which is close to the flood stage and same is true in Port Vincent then the tick fall at montar and Holden this would mainly be rain related think these numbers are a little bit too high from the earlier forecast based on rain totals coming in a little bit lighter than expected in those Northern parts of the Basin and the com at Jore also might end up being a little bit too high so we don't have huge flood concerns in some of those key areas from this event 76 at Metro Airport in Baton Rouge latest sustained wind out of the North Northeast at about 25 and we can see that our Tower camera is actually fairly stable I've seen it wobble worse and just some frontal passages in our area uh get a gust and you notice a big difference Max Gust in the capital city I've been keeping tabs on this with uh meteorologist Malcolm Byron and I I just don't think we've seen many over 45 miles per hour we'd be pretty certain that from 6:30 onward we'd have seen something a little bit more than that we'll have to check if that number needs to update here's a new one that is more recent 93561 in Gonzalez total sense the center is only a few miles away from there to the east in New Roads 31 around 655 was our Max Hammond 35 at 8:30 just before 976 hurricane force wind gusts in New Orleans and Morgan City seems to have gone offline because uh certainly Morgan City saw higher winds than New Orleans but that last observation was 456 right around the time of landfall power likely knocked out to that station latest winds 26 sustained in Baton Rouge gusting to 41 Gonzalez 39 we got that gust to 53 of course an observation of 61 was noted a few moments ago New Orleans at 3 6 sustained right now and gusting to 56 and look at some of those Northern locations mome starting to see the winds come up a gust to 31 baloa gust to 26 sidel gusting to about 36 Western Louisiana the spot to be right now drier North Breeze that sustained at only about 5 to six miles per hour let's go to futurecast and show you winds moving forward into the night I think we can fairly say this model is overdoing it a little bit so this is kind of your worst case scenario that by 11:00 we still have uh the potential for a 50 mph wind gust and Baton Rouge Gonzalez I think that again that's a little bit High mome Hammond I55 Corridor this tracks I think this is about right uh say an hour or so from now we're still seeing some wind gusts nearing tropical storm Force along I55 that's exactly where Francine will track and then uh into four o'clock tomorrow morning these gusts uh lingering around 30 miles per hour across the capitol area and then easing through midday we're going to see those winds largely relieved in our area and uh learned for just the first time earlier from our news Associates here our news colleagues that 30 miles per hour is the magic number for those power Crews to get out and start working I'll remember that one uh for future events but that's good news that we're going to have basically all day tomorrow with the winds below 30 miles per hour those power Crews to get out the linesmen to get doing their work getting Louisiana back on line after the storm as far as the Windfield goes we know that the strongest winds most of the heavy rain in this case east of Center that's typical of any hurricane especially true here with Francine which is now a tropical storm and look at the wind field by midnight very unlikely that we have many tropical storm force winds I would say west of the Mississippi River and maybe not even west of the am River at that point so by midnight if you live west of that am River I think you're going to start to see some dramatic improvements with winds you've already seen the rain starting to let up still though around I55 we are going to deal with some strong winds and because of that lack of friction I talked about look how the windfields kind of lopsided south and east of the storm just because there won't be as much land to slow the winds down on that Eastern side so over the Lakes Mora Pon train lakeborn the gulf The Sounds out there are going to continue to allow those strong tropical storm Forest winds to continue in that region of extreme Southeast Louisiana as well here's what the wind has left behind Ascension Parish is about 61% out of electricity that's almost 37 38,000 customers in East Baton Rouge Parish whatever Woods nearby knock on it has fared really well in the city Only 10% without power there's an unlucky 21,000 right now dealing without but uh could be much worse and certainly just a little bit farther west on this storm and it would be Livingston Parish numbers are climbing 177,000 and change 24% of that Parish St Mary is 73% out assumption is nearly 80% with without power that's 8,300 customers at this time did want to go through a couple of reminders as we're now getting closer to that aftermath stage of the storm tonight you've heard the message from Joe Collins earlier just before that sheriff Sid goo he's really happy to see that even in Baton Rouge where the worst has been dodged there are very few cars out on the roads other than emergency vehicles important to keep it that way for your safety and for the safety of those First Responders so unless you yourself have an emergency keeping it inside until at least first daylight tomorrow's your best bet talked about this earlier too but hitting the roads at night not only do the First Responders need that space Not only does the weather make it a dangerous drive with the Gusty wind and maybe the reduced visibility because of the rain but at night you can't see what's in the road it could be large tree limbs it could be some smaller branches but enough to drive you off course you hit those lose control and go off the road it could be even smaller than that nails and screw Cruise pieces of metal from damaged structures nearby even if it's only little pieces we have major structural damage have been avoided you can still see shingles and just weak material blow around and you risk flat tires and stalling in this weather and becoming stranded and things like that just nighttime immediately after Hurricane good idea to stay off the roads looking out for hazards tomorrow such as tree branches and power lines debris here's another one gas leaks any structures especially closer to the coast that have sustained more heavy damage don't know if a line has been ruptured especially if it's exposed underneath the home go looking around in there and you need some light especially at night using a lighter or a match can do that math so battery powered powered lighting is the best bet especially at night till first daylight tomorrow avoid flooded structures as we're seeing especially as the water gets deep if you haven't already been if it's not a home maybe it's a warehouse or a work building that nobody had been in you don't know what kind of Critters or animals have made it in in the flood water snakes you know fire an mountains can float and whatever else we have the nearby Bayou that can get in and then finally generator safety is really important you saw all of those places without power look at the number of people in our area quick math over 50 over about 70 uh we're getting into the 80s here we have nearly 100,000 people without power in our area we know a strong percentage of these people without power are going to be running generators generator safety really important carbon mono monoxide poisoning is a real danger uh Sports 2's Michael Cobell joined us in our storm coverage earlier to go over some of this but just as a reminder you got to keep them running outdoors and in properly ventilated spaces as a personal example something I had to consider with our generator where we wanted to run it was outside but was fairly close to our window which is going to have our window air conditioning unit in it don't want that intake coming in our house they had to go around the other side of the house to run the generator safety just small things like that that in a rush you might not consider make sure you keep that generator running and pointed away from anywhere where you might be inhaling uh air from nearby common sense I know but In the Heat of the Moment sometimes these things we lost we see tragedies in every storm because of simple oversights like that all right I'm going to wrap up here with just some bigger picture stuff we'll do a little bit of quick meteorology other than the impact talk looking at this system now it is really fascinating we've watched the health of it decline rapidly as it's come Inland as you would expect but that started to happen just before landfall seeing this really lopsided storm where the center of circulation we know is near Lake morpa but look where all of the really intense cold cloud cover is showing up of the shower and storm activity all of it is now east of Center none of it is on the western side we are not seeing any in intense activity on the the western side there only still be some surface winds that are gusting on that western side but certainly no heavy precipitation or convection as we call it thunderstorm activity and as I promised Michael who just joined us back in studio here at the desk it would show why and look at at that dry air taking a toll on the western side you can plainly see the tan shading representing the dry air that's not only eroding the storm from within wrapping into its Center and weakening it but it's really harmed that rain shield on the western side we've seen the rain bands and the shower activity dry up in Baton Rouge and points to the Northwest dry air is our friend in a tropical event we've had help in previous storms with some dry air on all directions and in this particular event on the western side it has been beneficial storms St 7-day forecast speaking of dry that's what we want after a hurricane and we do have a pretty dry forecast over I'll tell you we've got that 30% up tomorrow for a straggling shower a lot of that's for immediately after midnight and before Daybreak most of us do not see any additional rain during the daylight hours tomorrow I won't rule out a a tropical shower on the trailing side of this system but coverage should be extremely low and extremely brief and the Breezy conditions will only linger early in the day I think for most of the day we're talking about maybe a 10 to 15 mph wind if that and then going forward lots of sunshine lots of warm temperatures but even in the middle of next week those 10% rain coverages we're showing nothing major we do not have another major event in the storm station 7-day forecast at the very least that'll get us into the middle and end of September so there we are we're still tracking Francine our coverage continues tonight it's on all of those platforms we gone through them uh throughout the day rigorously and we'll continue to do so into the evening Michael and syvia thanks Josh we will take a break we'll be right back is it possible to be more capable and more practical be able to perform here and here make a statement while barely making a sound and command the road as well as what lies ahead how we get there matters get exceptional offers at your local Audi dealer the smartest people on Earth know how to spot a good deal that's why they shop at alli's first you'll save up to 70% off the fancy store prices so you go you smart and Savvy Shopper you know where the Real Deals are where they sell good stuff cheap good stuff Che if can't do it mobile hes whe buying a single double or triple wide is going to be by you know Rob W the best deal is going to be we've got AC and of satisfaction makers do it right now at prabon Toyota sell us your used car truck or SUV take the cash or put some down on a great selection of new Toyotas seriously simple right here right now at priceon Toyota Airline Highway The Storm station is tracking Francine we have a couple of live reports of damage reports to get to and we will start in Gonzalez I believe in Gonzalez with Sarah gay bar yeah I'm in Santa we got out in Ascension Parish around noon today we have seen rain coming on and off as you can tell right now the rain and the wind is starting to pick up you might be able to see the trees behind me they're starting to blow really hard we've seen leaves in the air we were riding along with riding around with the Santa Mall fire department earlier today we saw debris on the ground we saw down power lines we saw trees on the ground as well at one point we were filming a tree that had landed on a home and then we heard a cracking sound we looked across the canal and there was another tree that had just Fallen it is some scary stuff these are definitely conditions that you don't want to be on the road for a few maybe half an hour ago maybe an hour ago we talked to some storm preppers you may have heard them they talked about what they were doing to prepare to stay indoors they talked about getting food getting their friends together working throughout the week to cut down trees that might hurt their homes we also on the way over here saw a gas station attendant this employee was wrapping we might have some video I think we going to take a look now the employee was wrapping cling wrap around all of the gas station pumps and he told us he was doing this so that way tomorrow when the storm is finally passed his job is just that much easier we talked to him here's what he had to say take a listen here trying to uh prepare for this storm um fixing their pumps up and uh trying to keep them from getting wet so we can have some gas tomorrow yeah tell me about the process of wrapping up the puns putting on the duct tape tell me about that well I wanted to try to make it a little more secure and U so I went and got some duct tape out of there and I said was going to tape it up do the best I can you know and try to do a little more than others yes and he was also telling me that one of the things he was doing is that he was actually Hing down the trash cans cuz the last thing he wanted to do was come to work tomorrow and have to fetch them all the way from the wind Dixie as you can see the rain has started to pick up somewhat it's coming toward me before when we first started talking it was up and down now it's coming toward me you might be able to see how the light pole the electric light pole is starting to Shake in the wind I'm not sure if you could see it but way to my right is a carport and in our last hit we heard this clanking sound this metal sound I don't know how to describe it it well if you can see it almost looks like a can of tuna right now because the wind is so strong it is starting to actually pale the roof off this metal cport that just shows you how strong the wind is out here today and these are definitely conditions that you just don't want to be on the road for with earlier around noonish when we started this travel when we started driving we saw a lot of roads but now as the wind is picked up as the rain is picked up as we have gone later Into the Night we've seen fewer and fewer people on the road more First Responders more people with the Ascension Sheriff's Office more people with the fire department more people with the electric companies and those are the people who should be on the roads right now not not you probably not me but that's why I'm staying put right here and trying my best to stay safe stay off the roads let the First Responders do their thing and we're going to continue to monitor conditions and with that I'm going to send it back to you okay Sarah great bar thank you for that update at last check Ascension Parish just looking at the dico outage map here Ascension Parish is about 80% that was maybe 35 and 40 minutes ago it's now up to 94% of customers you see here on the dim Coast side of things without power in Ascension Parish Livingston Parish up to 31% East patent rou at 11% Josh touched on it earlier and we had uh Sheriff Sid goo also talking about how power outages weren't necessarily a huge issue in East bat rge Parish at this time that's easy for the for for us to say unless you're sitting at home in the dark right now in the heat yeah this going to be hot by tomorrow for sure yeah it sure will all right all right so let's send it to uh Gabby Davis next in West Baton Rouge for an update Michael Sylvia we're here in Addis on Elizabeth Lane um on our way here you could literally see the street light swaying back and forth it's very windy there is light rain but the wind is really something you have to worry about and um behind me there is a Fallen Tree an officer did tell me that the scene has been cleared but we're going to um describe the scene to you guys it looks like it broke off from this tree right in front of it it's too dark to show you guys but the branch did break off and it was blocking the street but now it's been cleaned up and moved to the side and Cones are here to make sure drivers are aware of what is on the side of the street and you can also see some leaves on the ground from it falling so guys now although the rain is not that crazy over here the wind is really you something you should take Serious please stay inside please stay informed I'm going to send it back to you guys in the studio Gabby Davis reporting live for us tonight in West bdge Parish a lot of down trees there a lot of down trees everywhere we've been touching on that as well did they just say we have some fresh video coming we do actually from Morgan City so let's take a look at that uh this is where of course Balin Rogers has been and we're seeing the debris and um from a lot of the trees that he was describing from earlier um you know we saw him um during some of his live shots and the when the I mean when it was in the eye right of the storm and the trees and the the limbs breaking off and falling and um so now we get to see what some of that actually look like you can see the fire department there they have line stretched into this house it's clearly some sort of house fire earlier today balum was talking about this that uh it appears as it appeared as if earlier that First Responders were still dispatching to various calls in St Mary Parish we were trying to get the parish president or the mayor of Morgan City on the phone to kind of get an update on what they've been dealing with over the past 8 to 10 hours uh of course we are still going to check in with them and hopefully have some more information tomorrow morning you know during his live shots remember a couple of times we saw those blue flashing lights in the background and first respond is heading off to different scenes so we can see at least a lot of the the uh streets with littered with the debris there tree limbs and such we hope as you said to get an update just to find out the status of um whether or not there were injuries uh and just whatever additional information we can get about what is going on in that area and what they'll be dealing with tomorrow morning we wanted to show you this as well the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office saved a woman pinned under a tree earlier tonight deputies say this happened around 8:00 on Elizabeth in first streets that's in Donaldsonville on the west side of the river the woman only suffered leg injuries a State Trooper was hurt after he was hit by a tree while working to clear debris on it this happened uh while the trooper was removing down trees from I eastbound west of la22 um the good news is he only suffered minor injuries they had some road closures down there dealing with that in a Singin Parish we just showed you that uh I 10 was closed in a portion of Ascension Parish heading eastbound because of down trees and also I believe Airline Highway between us 61 and 22 also in sento still closed tonight because of they had initially reported the State Department of Transportation said that it was debris over the roadway you can presume that that is from down trees as well all right so uh we are going to okay never mind that okay what we're going to do is we're going to regroup we'll take a break we'll be right back right here at price on ethon we're buying and selling new and used cars trucks and SUVs buy new great selection or sell us your used car truck or SUV get cash right here right now at Price B Ean fall in love all over again with Shrek theal an epic tale filled with h Jinx adventure and lots of gassy fun Shrek the Musical tickets on sale now are you ready to rock does God ever call you and ask you for I heart you I heart you can we get rid of that CH Alive new week nights on ABC get your groove on with three new groovy games from the lottery put your Boogie Shoes on and pick up wild nines you could win up to $99,000 add in some smooth moves while adding up your cash play added up win up to $15,000 this game is out of sight play crossword cash top price is a whopping $30,000 boogy on down to your nearest Lottery retailer and play all three games today the Excellence of driving a Buick is matched by the Excellence of the dealership experience when you own a [Music] Buick Buick exceptional by Design get a 2024 Buick invista starting at 23495 see your Bou Buick [Music] dealer hi I'm Jacob with arrow pest control pest can be a nightmare protect grandma with Arrow's $20 initial pestol control special and our eco-friendly Termite Control starting at just $349 call aerop Pest Control to schedule your free consultation today the storm station is tracking Francine and we want to get back down to laville I believe we have Alexis Marin on the phone Lexi can you hear us okay we're going to work on getting that back in the meantime uh forine is now tropical storm that's correct and what can we expect moving next couple of hours well you know we were just talking about where Alexis was she's in laville sumption Parish things are rapidly improving in that part of the State uh right now the worst impacts are in the northeastern part of that boot part of Louisiana and I mean past midnight this is going to be moving into Mississippi and then overnight the rain and the wind should generally subside and I think by tomorrow morning we're waking up into much nicer conditions and may even see some sun tomorrow but I think we're in the home stretch right now we still have Breezy conditions out there and in some areas up the tropical storm force wind still so it's not over yet but uh the farther west you go the Lesser impacts we're seeing at this hour we love the dry air we do we do like the dry air can we bottle that and bring it out tell you what it felt really nice on Sunday too and it's actually interesting that same front that brought that humidity relief on Sunday do you guys remember that yeah yeah it was a very short lived humidity break that front actually lifted back to the north and uh well this is interacting with that front right now I see that same one it worked yep all right so listen let's uh I think we do have Alexis now on the phone Alexis are you there hey Sylvia hey Michael hey malcol hello conditions better yeah guys look we I think a couple hours ago we were showing you guys we were we were swaying back and forth um with the wind and now a lot of that's it's subsided a bit but now we're kind of driving around we were headed to the Sheriff's Office um and we're seeing some damage on the road that includes um power lines are down um we actually we're taking our own advice and we are turning around as soon as we saw a power line um we're seeing crews out working on trees on the side of the road we sent some of those pictures into the station um but it from what I'm hearing from the Sheriff's Office the storm was intense here but they're not seeing a whole lot of calls for damage which is a good thing right now right that's that's what hearing oh my God oh my God oh my God uh oh did we lose you no no no we're seeing somebody that that might be trying to drive over a power line we want to get out and warn them not to do that um okay so we're gonna we're gonna stay on the phone bre do you want to yeah I can take over Lex's gonna go warn them um the wind is still kicking pretty bad out here guys U it's not as bad as it was earlier thankfully um the rain's pretty steady that's not coming down as hard we also saw some flooding as we were on our way like going down la1 towards Napoleonville um and we saw just we saw some tree branches and stuff but we also saw just like a bunch of leaves and stuff on the ground just that kind of debris uh we saw some tree uh crews out there trying to um clean up some of that debris so it hasn't been as bad as we expected it to be but there's still been Emergency Services driving down the roads making sure everyone's okay um and kind of reeling everything it's not as bad as you know we may have expected but it that's a good thing right oh certainly Bri you're from that area tell us about this experience for you and what you remember from growing up yeah I'm I'm from Leo Parish which is right next to assumption Parish actually I'm not too far from my hometown and my parents and um it's it's different experiencing things from a different perspective from this side of things being the one out here actually covering it I have a lot more of a a different kind of respect for you know the job that we all do in this business because this wasn't easy it was an adrenaline rush from the time we got to work today up until now um it was it puts things into perspective that you know things can really change very quickly um when you're a kid growing up in this um you don't really know you play in the puddles yeah you're playing the puddles like the kids that we saw earlier today right you don't really understand it how um you know adults see it now being an adult and working in this business especially um you get a whole different perspective and I'm really grateful for the Emergency Services that were out here helping everyone and especially our weather team the storm station keeping everybody informed and uh keeping everyone safe well thank you for sharing that personal perspective as well we just need to establish for folks just joining uh we're talking to Bri uh and Alexis they are in laville they've been there for most of the afternoon I'm just bringing us us they kind of uh experienced the eye of Francine as she was moving through very close to it I mean they definitely experienced the eye wall at the very least we have to go back and take a look at some of the radar images to see if that eye moved over that particular region but they did experience some of the most intense parts of the storm yeah okay guys thank you all right and we're g to they're trying to make their way to the Sheriff's Office to try to get an update from assumption Paris Sheriff Leeland Falcon as soon as they do will bring that back to you I want to point something out as well this is kind of what we've been talking about in terms of the dangers the First Responders are experiencing at this hour uh we had heard of a house fire in sarento so uh Sarah grey bar has obviously been covering as sent parish for us she checked on that turns out it was a small fire thank goodness it was extinguished but that fire was storm related due to I guess the wind gust maybe connected to a tree of some sort it pulled the service line wow out of the side of the house which ignited the this side of the house but they were able to get it under control and that's a lot of what these First Responders are dealing with tonight yeah and you got to think you know we still saw impacts on the western side of that track and we always think you know it's the dirty side on the east side but uh we're still seeing impacts just to the west of that Center of circulation and we'll say the impacts did quickly drop off the farther west you you go I mean you look at rain totals uh which I may zoom into in just a few minutes here look at the Southeastern part of Ascension Parish due to or compare that to the northwest side the rain totals just are dramatic so what are you watching for now in the in the what 2 Three Hours That Remain of this storm before it's completely out of here rainfall is letting up at least in Baton Rouge the city itself the heaviest rain is likely going to be over parts of Eastern Livingston Tango parishes that's also where we're going to see uh the flooding potential over the next couple of hours that's also where we're going to see the highest wind speeds uh Bri and Alexis mentioned this over the phone the wind is still going pretty good down south in assump and Parish there's still going to be wind after the rain ends and we could still see tropical storm Force gust into the night but gradually that will start to taper off so things get better in the overnight hours but at least for the next few hours still dealing with uh some high gusts out there can you talk a little bit more about Livingston uh we heard Randy deat earlier in the day just talking about their concern about flooding there right uh you know the farther east you get of the center of circulation the higher the rain totals have been and we've been watching this for the past several days the track has been shifting a little bit east with each passing day and that's where we see that highest axis of rain right now and we'll show the rain totals in just a couple minutes here but uh I mean we've seen several spikes over six inches even some spots getting maybe 8 inches or above and it's a corridor going from around St Mary up through assumption uh up towards Lake pona train morpa and that access really is going to extend Northeast into Southern Tango Washington St Tam parishes Livingston may find itself just on the western edge of that but it looks like the highest rain total is just to the southeast of Livingston Parish to your point about how we're not quite out of this yet as a weather viewer whenever we look at the radar loop and we look for the oranges and the Reds thinking that that is the extent of the storm it does look though like over the past couple of hours the oranges and the Reds that's all kind of shrank inid and it's confined to one particular area we mentioned that the flooding risk is highest getting to the north Shore areas Tango Parish Washington St Tam parishes uh that's why I mean that region of oranges and reds is getting confined to that region east of the center of circulation whereas in Baton Rouge I mean looking at the last couple of runs of radar imagery I mean it's becoming a little bit more scattered out there in terms of shower activity okay good okay I think we're going to take a break yes and we'll be right back okay this is your city that's what I thought too these are your streets injured in a car crash this is your lawyer cashio injury attorneys between the songs and stories the crisp evening air and the crackling fire are moments like these Traditions that warm the glow in all of us share your Traditions visit jimf firearms. net the all new new spectacular extreme circus presented by the Cardon International circus is coming to your hometown with more extreme acts than ever before featuring BMX riders Cardon spectacular animals acrobats interactive entertainment aerialists and so much more the all new spectacular extreme circus get your tickets today come see the spectacular circus September 14th and 15th at Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales between the songs and stories the crisp evening air and the crackling fire are moments like these Traditions that warm the glow in all of us share your Traditions visit jimf firearms. net this is your city these are your streets injured in a car crash this is your lawyer Casio injury attorneys the Excellence of driving a Buick is matched by the Excellence of the dealership experience when you own a [Music] Buick Buick exceptional by Design get a 2024 Buick inv Vista starting at 23495 see your Bou Buick dealer don't a victim twice call me attorney pton Murphy at 928 8800 the storm station is tracking francene welcome back everyone let's get another update on the weather here we're in the home stretch there are still some impacts especially getting east of the capol area but as we get into the overnight hours things should generally wind down there is a live view over our tower cam things pretty quiet overlooking the Mississippi River Bridge I do see some cars and trucks driving over the bridge right now uh it's not raining too heavy right now it's kind of a misty drizzly appearance temperatures in the 70s it's awfully muggy out there too still a North Wind at 28 miles hour though but it has been a little bit higher earlier on we've seen routine gusts pushing a 40 to 45 miles per hour those are tropical storm Forest gusts in the capital city but I think the highest winds we've seen today have been just to the south and east of Baton Rouge closer to where the center of France seen track here are some of the peak wind gusts up to 45 mph in Baton Rouge and that's what the uh latest data is showing now I think we're going to have to review some of this going into tomorrow these numbers May jump a little higher but that was around 636 Gonzalez not too far of a jog to the southeast they had a gust up to 61 miles hour New Roads I mean this just goes to show you go a little bit farther Northwest the wind speeds go down 31 m per hour Pete Gus and New Roads Hammond at 35 that number may still go up because there's still some heavy rain moving in that direction New Orleans Hurricane force wind gust 76 milph Morgan City I've got a feeling that number is going to jump higher uh because they took the brunt of the storm we were uh showing you conditions live in Morgan City with meteorologist Balon Rogers all through the morning and afternoon sidel up to 39 miles per hour just just goes to show we have seen observed tropical storm Force gusts this is where we stand right now we showed you that 28 mph sustained wind at Baton Rouge Metro Airport the G though is up to 44 so even at this hour still dealing with tropical storm Force gust Morgan City sensor unfortunately has dropped out I think that's probably a big reason why the peak gusts for the day was 62 miles per hour we just haven't had data so we have lost some time where we were able to sample winds in Morgan City at least from an official standpoint 60 m per hour gusts now in New Orleans you know when we talk about severe thunderstorms you see a wind gust 58 M hour above that triggers a severe thunderstorm warning those are severe gusts in New Orleans 35 mph sustained winds and uh well still pretty Breezy across the Capital Area so uh we'll take a look at Francine's Windfield now that's where the center of circulation is now at the present moment very close to Lake Mora Southeastern Livingston Parish and this is going to pull into Tango Parish right along the I55 Corridor before too long we have gotten to a point where the Hurricane Center has stopped issuing hourly updates we'll get our next one at 1:00 a.m. so we'll get another position update in about 3 hours or so here right now it is uh 10:30 so 2 and 1 half hours there so this is going to continue Northeast watch what happens to the Windfield gets out of here pretty quickly and I think by Daybreak tomorrow we will no longer be dealing with tropical storm force winds associated with Francine so uh this map here is kind of piecee together and uh we're going to have to unpack this a little bit here Francine is no longer a hurricane it's a tropical storm and uh we still need to see the National Weather Service in New Orleans actually update the product but there is no longer going to be a hurricane warning for West Baton Rouge East Baton Rouge Iberville pretty much anywhere you see a red shading that's denoting a hurricane warning that is no longer in effect these have been downgraded to tropical storm warnings as the system continues to pull away as well there is no longer a need for tropical storm warnings in Southwest Louisiana nor hurricane warnings so pretty much everybody in the Baton Rouge Metro Points East now going to be in a tropical storm warning and uh once uh the product gets updated the map will reflect that that's probably going to happen very shortly once the New Orleans Weather Service Office updates that so there's the current radar perspective you know several hours ago we were looking at a welldefined eye and that made landfall in tabone Parish earlier today round with the uh 5:00 advisory it made landfall as a category 2 hurricane and we were a little surprised by that it wind speeds jumped up to 100 miles per hour despite it fighting negative influences that would tend to inhibit strengthening but nevertheless hurricane hunter aircraft found evidence of that and so it did make landfall as a category 2 storm now Peak winds are at 70 mph that's a 30 MH drop and now it is officially a tropical storm once again and it will never become a hurricane again that's good news moving Northeast at 16 miles hour with that 10:00 advisory that means by the time we get to midnight or shortly Beyond Center circulation will likely be past state lines into Mississippi then this will push into the I20 Corridor by the time we get into tomorrow morning so here's the official track from the National Hurricane Center this is going to go right through Tango Parish Jackson Mississippi right around there there's the I20 Corridor Peak winds around 45 miles per hour not everybody in that region is going to see 45 m per hour winds but well there's where the track goes still a tropical storm by early tomorrow morning and then it should become post-tropical and just continue to weaken thereafter and become a you know standard area of low pressure pretty disorganized appearance on radar as well but you still see some heavy rain occurring over portions of the NorthShore lighter rain for Baton Rouge we'll take a closer look at Baton Rouge in just a moment here is the rainfall totals since midnight you could see we were talking about this before the last break where most of the rain fell an axis from St Mary Parish through assumption Parish especially the Central and Eastern part of assumption Parish labille right about there experiencing some of the heaviest rain all of St James Parish just saw some pretty heavy rain these blue shadings indicating over 5 in is there so a lot of rain falling in St James Parish that went all the way into New Orleans too much rain fell too quickly in New Orleans it actually triggered a flash flood emergency a little bit earlier on we brought to you some images of cars submerged in water there was not a great situation in the New Orleans Metro there's Lake pona train some heavy rain occurring over those Waters and now we see these Blues extending into Southern Tango Parish south of i12 and along the I55 Corridor that rain is still ongoing there and we are adding on to those totals so we are likely seeing over 5 in of precipitation there and that will likely extend a little farther north before the last break we also mentioned the gradient in rainfall totals check this out this is just incredible the far Southeastern tip of Ascension Parish radar estimating over 8 in of rainfall in the northern tip closer to praireville 2 in that's a 6 in difference in just a matter of Miles here in fact what I'm going to do here I'm curious how many miles that is so I'm going to step into the weather center real quick and actually measure that distance so we're talking a six inch difference and roughly a 20 mile span that's a pretty healthy rainfall gradient there and totals did continue to diminish the farther north and west you go right now we have flash flood warnings in effect through 1:00 a.m for a Hancock County in Mississippi St Tam also Tango parishes this includes Hammond ponchatula remember how we showed you those really high rain totals in southern Tano Parish this is why we have the flash flood warning because we still have some uh pretty heavy rain falling in this region it's broaden out the view once again you can still see some more heavy rain over like pona train and like Mora so you still got some time in southern Tango Parish to deal with this here's Livingston Parish rain rates letting up just a little bit more out towards uh let's say Springfield Killian moraw and the rain just continues to lessen as you get closer to the Baton Rouge Metro arguably becoming a little more patchy in coverage Zachary at the present moment is dry you can see a few more scattered showers out towards point cap parish and that's likely how things are going to be for the rest of the night but again the wind Still Remains despite what the rain is doing check out the power outages and you could kind of tell where we saw the most significant wind based on the number of power outages I mean 63% of Ascension parishes without power and most of those issues were in the Southeastern part of the parish Livingston Parish about a quarter per of or a quarter of residents rather are without power Tango Parish about 20% without St Mary that percentage out really jumps high almost 3/4 of the parish are without power and even higher an assumption Parish 80% not having power at this hour let's talk winds going forward we still have tropical storm force wind gusts at this hour it is still awfully Breezy I think we've already seen our breeziest conditions but at least in Baton Rouge but that will likely subside going into the nighttime hours still keeping those tropical storm force wind gust all the way through 1:00 a.m. and then getting close to Daybreak that's when wind speeds get below that magic 30 mph threshold that would allow power Crews to get back out and restore power I'm still waiting to see whether or not I will be able to go home tonight based on what the roads are looking like and well the jury still out on whether or not I still have power so we shall see but if you don't have power this evening you're probably going to have to wait till tomorrow morning before those Crews can get out here's what futurecast looks like doing a good job showing what's going on right now some more patchy your scattered activity in the metro area areas near the coast things are drying out still windy out in this direction but a little better heaviest rain along the NorthShore let's take things into the night there's 1:00 a.m. continuing to lift North by 1:00 a.m. most of the rain is along and north of the interstate system we're likely dry along in south wind still remaining somewhat by 4:00 A.M rain continues to pull into Mississippi and the winds continue to subside and I think by the time we get to 9: or 10: a.m. on Thursday things are getting better we even might see the sun poke out by the time we get to the afternoon maybe a stray shower too but tomorrow afternoon is looking pretty nice and unfortunately if you do have to clean up there uh that weather at least should cooperate some new changes to the tornado watch I totally agree with this everybody's been removed from it except for Livingston tanbo and St John parishes and points off towards the east as well in fact I'd argue even these parishes it might be a stretch to get a spin-up tornado tonight I think the greatest Threat by far is a little farther east in this red shaded area that includes Sidell and there are still some spiral rain band that might impact Gulfport going into Southeast Mississippi maybe even as far east as Mobile Bay but even there tornado risk does look pretty low at this hour that's why that tornado watch expires at 11 o' let's talk safety here there are uh we we talked to Bri and Alexis and they were talking about power lines on the road they had to warn somebody actually not to drive over power lines drive only when necessary in fact I'd argue you don't have to just stay inside tonight and uh if you do have to go out you got to look out for the hazards like trees branches power lines debris uh and as far as flooding goes obviously we don't want to D drive through flooded roadways it gets really easy to uh stall your vehicle out in those and as far as generators are concerned we've been talking about this at several points throughout the evening only run those outdoors in very well ventilated spaces we see it all too often with carbon monoxide poisoning and we definitely want to avoid that want to give you a look at your storm station 7-day forecast we showed you future cast for tomorrow small chance for a stray shower in the afternoon maybe a few lingering showers in the morning that 30% rain coverage might even be overdone breezy early on the winds subsiding through the afternoon High pretty warm in the upper 80s weekend if you have to continue the cleanup process depending on where you are the weather won't be too bad partly sunny skies highs in the lower 90s but it will be humid just typical summertime weather in Louisiana then as we go into the middle part of the week keeping the 90s maybe a small 10% rain coverage some of you are wondering about River levels as well fortunately with the fast moving nature of Francine that should limit how much the river swell most gauges are not forecast to get into any sort of uh flooding issues any or whatsoever check out the Mississippi not even forecast to get close to flood stage might see the levels rise in the chaalia Basin out towards crot Springs in Morgan City but should be well below flood stage there maybe a few feet off in Morgan City but uh probably not going to do that with the latest expectation Tano River at Robert could get into minor flood stag but that's not necessarily out of the ordinary it is not major flood stage by any means am's looking okay might get close to minor flood stage but again this is not going to be a major issue Port Vincent French Settlement also nothing too crazy getting close at French Settlement but it would only be minor flood stage as things look now and the comate uh should Spike sometime tomorrow but that's a fast response River uh May inch up closer to flood stage we'll just have to see in the next 24 hours continuing to track France scene all through this evening uh coverage is on air is going to uh last in a continuous sense for just a little bit longer but we're going to continue to track things through the night and uh tune in tomorrow morning we're going to have a comprehensive review of what's happened damage Etc and uh we're continuing to provide updates on our mobile app online also on social media Michael Sylvia yeah no doubt Malcolm I think when the sun comes up we'll have a better perspective of exactly what south Louisiana is dealing with over the next couple days restoring power and whatnot uh best cerly and Joe McCoy are out surveying what's happening right now in Baton Rouge with the weather conditions best what are you seeing well syvia right now we're driving around the Garden District the rain is picking up a little bit more than it has been actually but uh main problem we're seeing is down branches and leaves in this neighborhood if you if you're not aware there's a lot of older oak trees pine trees crate myrtles pretty much every tree you can imagine so all of the foliage and uh acorns pecans all the fruit growing on those trees is pretty much dropped on the street and the Street's pretty bumpy from all of that debris so tomorrow morning you will probably be spending most of your time cleaning up all those leaves and branches in your yard uh do not know what the city's plan is for the street streets but uh it's not like they're impassible you can definitely still drive over them uh because we know that the wind was the main issue with this storm not so much the rain That Knocking around all those branches you can see hopefully it's not too dark right in front of me just all the little twigs and uh leaves acorns all that um but again the roads are not impassible uh we did see a couple down trees earlier in the evening uh one on North Foster and one on Harding exit um and those were quickly cleared as well it's not like the the uh City Parish crews are stretched thin right now they're able to respond very quickly when something does happen so as I said tomorrow morning look forward to cleaning up your your Lawns your yards of branches but uh I think that we have probably um made it through in the Baton Rouge Capital Area here and uh we'll send it back to y'all in the studio all right best thank you for that yeah the Garden District lots and lots of so I suspect that she is very much right that there will be lots of debris tree limbs and all of that on the streets tomorrow we'll have guidance on that tomorrow typically the mayor's office will send out how to bag that how to put it on the curve so that they can get the contractors in to your street to pick up that that uh tree and and Woody debris that may have fallen during the storm I do want to point out though uh we got a a message from the the mayor's office about 4 hours ago I thought that this kind of tied into what best was saying they will be be out doing curbside garbage and recycling service tomorrow except that there will be a delayed start so if they typically pick you up between 5 and 6: a.m. obviously they won't be out there'll be later in the day so good there an emailed saying today is our normal it's still Wednesday right today's our normal trash day they didn't do it and they'll pick it up tomorrow so that's good all right we'll 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population difference in East bidge Parish uh as we come down the list here you can see lefou almost 36,000 let's switch it over to dico which also Services a large segment of our area and this is telling I mean this is jumping up substantially since the last time we hit this maybe 20 minutes ago dico is reporting 99% of Ascension Parish customers are without power so I'm looking at it here they Service 15,37 uh there are according to this only about eight homes that have power in the cinin parish Livingston Parish doing much better at 30% East Baton Rouge 12% of their customers are without power so Michael Cobell talked about this earlier today with how those bucket trucks are already kind of stationed and and ready to move in to restore power which I assume will happen at sunup yeah because hopefully that wind will not be an issue and that's normally the determin it when it reaches what goes below 30 30 35 miles an hour uh then they're a to get in there and do it uh to try to restore the electricity to homes we're going to um switch over now to David Hamilton who is in Livingston still David what's going on yeah syvia I'm right here in the emergency office of of preparedness center right beside me is Chris Anderson who is the director over the center now it once in our time we've seen like of um when we me and Joe was out like he told Joe we seen a lot of things a lot of trees branches and well matter of fact we've seen this one tree I'm 6'2 I'm going to put that out there now if I laid down five times I probably even be the size of that tree that was knocked over just to let y know give you a general size of how big that tree was but Mr Anderson what are what currently do y'all have planned for like those type of areas who have seen those type of trees on the ground right so uh tomorrow morning we're going to make those assessments right now everybody is Sheltering in place we've already hit that you know after 10:30 hours so uh right now the wind speeds are picking up that eyewall is coming on it's coming towards parish and we are going to get out there first thing in the morning make all of our assessments the sheriff's department the fire departments all of our DPW which is Department of Public Works uh we will be uh mobilizing all of those units at first light and making assessments uh trees down power lines down all of those things that we will assess we're going to focus our efforts and move everything and shift South uh because we are really concerned about the flood waters coming into the parish uh more so from that wind pushing in to the uh to the River stages so as we get South and assess whether or not they need to make any um pushouts or if we need to do any water rescues that'll all be done at first FL yeah and some notes I've been hearing um over the day in the last 30 minutes matter of fact we've having power aages everywhere from East Baton rout to Ascension assumption everywhere what kind of AI have are we seeing in Livingston Paris yeah so uh I think the last count was somewhere around that 8,000 Mark I haven't looked at it in the last 30 minutes or so but yeah as those outer bands are moving in we're losing that power we're seeing it on the outage map Demco and energy is the providers for Livingston Parish and look we're going to do everything we can do to work with them I've met with them prior to this storm and told them we want to work with them firsthand to help them get the power back on fastest as we as fast as we can and that of course is of us clearing the roads and and also making sure that we do it safely because those power lines that are down can still be hot so we have to make sure they're safe for us to move and then get that stuff cleared out so that those energy people can come back in and get those l put back where they belong uh and with that you know remember sightseers and I've said this many many times let let the energy people do their work stay off the roads that's going to help us get the power back on uh faster than than normal if you if you don't have to have that uh sight scene out there going on and look I can say this um as as much as we have been out and riding around we haven't seen that many cars on the road to be honest so like a lot of people have caught on to our dust toon curfew that well not ours but yours the curfew y'all had released um a little bit more about that what what is something else have y'all been putting out besides of going through us with this uh letting them know what's going on uh just the curfew side of the world that was put in place to give our First Responders some downtime so that they can be rested and ready to go tomorrow morning now as far as getting some information about how things are going to be working tomorrow what we'll be doing we have a new Parish app Livingston Parish uh gov on your app store you can find our app we push your notifications through that uh we have our website Livingston Parish la.gov also Homeland Security on that section you can see the information about current sandbag locations uh if we have to open any shelters that will be pushed to that uh information at that time uh and besides that Facebook I mean you know the the social media push is where we're sending all that information out as fast as we can yes yes sir my last question um are there any shelters open for people that may have need them in in these outages and a lot of like one house I went to the tree actually fell onto the house did didn't do that much damage for people who have experienced it that even y'all might not have heard of where is are there any shelters open not in livon par at this time but again that'll be assessed tomorrow because uh we didn't want to be too preemptive about opening the shelter because if this turns in from a wind event to a flood event and we have to shift gears we're going to make those adjustments first thing in the morning and open shelters if we need to for that that purpose yes sir and so as y'all just heard from Mr Anderson they will make adjustments as needed for residents or for whatever they needed to do after this hurricane has did whatever what now has been up downgraded to a tropical storm but with anything else that comes out you can catch us on wbz.com with any more information but reporting in Livingston Parish back to you at the disc we'll take it from here David thank you very much really good information out there for our viewers in Livingston Parish and you know just peeling behind the curtain here that is why we remain on the air this evening we want to make sure all of our residents that uh count on our forecast in Livingston and St Helen as well as Tango Parish even and to an extent Southwest Mississippi are covered uh before the worst of Francine continues to move through our area and we are winding that down but there are still some areas that are under the gun this evening tonight and in tropical storm warnings you know when I was on air just a few moments ago when I showed this same map I said uh the hurricane warnings have been canceled but they still showed up on the map The Weather Service just had to go in and actually hit that button on the computer that says cancel the hurricane warning they are incredibly busy over there at that office at Slidel and they finally got around to canceling that Hurricane Warning so here it is nicely put on a map all the orange haded parishes everybody is under that tropical storm warning uh let me Zoom farther south because I can't see St Mary Parish on that map but I'm curious if they are within that too and it looks like the northern part is North of Highway 90 but and that's primarily for the remaining wind impact you're still going to deal with tropical storm Forest wind gusts in this area for a couple more hours but yeah the storm is past you the Deluge is past 75% of our area but that warning is issued because of the wind conditions that will hang on for another couple of hours we still have tropical storm force winds even in Baton Rouge I can hear it outside the station but I've noticed that the the time gap between those wind gusts has increased from the last several hours so things are winding down things are getting a little bit better still have some very Gusty winds out there they are strongest to the east where Francine is still tracking is right now the center track is still near uh Southern Tango parish and Southeast Livingston very close to L but morpa actually yeah and we have uh seen that those winds and the heaviest rain bands have followed that track we expected east of Center and you just listed off the areas that are getting hard hit hardest right now we're also seeing that the flood issues while they're still out there are alleviating in these Southern sections where the heaviest rain fell earlier and we're not adding additional rain which is a big deal and we're not seeing I would say the same coverage or frequency in additional flood warnings as we move to the north still won't rule them out right but but I think goes to show overall to the weakening effect of the storm even the rain is getting a little less intense as the system weakens across land I mean all things considered the tornado threat today has been very low too and there are no complaints about that there is where the center of Francine is for the 10:00 advisory may be a little bit farther Northeast now with time because we're coming up on the 11:00 hour but uh they actually extended the tornado watch till 6: a.m. I don't think Livingston Tango Paris you're not going to have a threat till 6:00 a.m. in fact your a tornado threat is very low right now but non zero maybe for about another hour or two until France scene pulls away that would be the timeline I would give once it reaches that state line you're going to be in pretty good shape you called this earlier but the threat may be maximized for any tornadoes way over here in Southern Mississippi and even over toward Alabama some of those outer bands some of the larger pictures on radar and satellite show that most of the action is from this point now to the East and still pretty heavy and impressive in those sections we thought this would be a ragged lob sided asymmetric storm which will continue to look that way through the nighttime hours we're kind of at a point now where we're receiving a ton of damage reports flooding reports Etc trees down on roads and I expect we'll probably see more at first light tomorrow because for many of us uh the significant part of the storm occurred after dark here what I have next here is all the storm reports and this icon looks a little weird that's a little hurricane icon right there that's a a tropical storm or hurricane uh report per the national uh Weather Service and what I'm going to do is step off camera here and I'm going to sample through some of these a lot of these are are wind gust reports but some of them are actually damage reports and uh we'll read off some of these just to kind of see what's going on I know uh there is one very close to the station actually you can see where that LSU uh label is just south of Baton Rouge and that happened around 654 uh where a piece of a neighbor's metal roof blew into somebody's yard so clearly some strong enough winds but I would imagine the structural Integrity of that building probably wasn't as strong with the winds that we saw in Baton Rouge right right um we we saw several scattered instances of wind damage in and around the Capital Area in increasing in coverage as we've moved to the southeast we've had uh news 2's best Casserly and Joe McCoy kind of roving around uh the city this evening and and as we heard from Sheriff Sid goo on the phone earlier uh the damage has been patchy and kind of focused in the Southeastern corner of East Baton Rouge Parish not surprising that's closer to the Storm Center closer to Ascension in Livingston where the damage reports have become a little bit more widespread highlighting another one there in Walker around 6:31 uh looks like some tree on a tree down on a house there in East Lake we actually sent David Hamilton out to that as well saw that himself earlier and he was just commenting on it was a sizable tree and just go you just never know which one all those we have these big trees near our properties they look like they're fine they may have been in some weakened State perhaps struck by lightning previously perhaps harmed by last year's drought we know some of these water roaches especially they spent half their life living and half their life dying they can be hollowed out in the center and we don't even know that they've expired and those are the weak ones susceptible when their day comes just the wrong wind gust at the wrong time will take them down and put them on the wrong place like unfortunately tonight no homes in our area more trees down just to the north and Watson tree fell down on a trailer that one not in the six o'clock hour that one actually not too long ago we'll say that uh was uh trying to do math in my head right now A little over an hour ago and and additional wind damage reports are I would say less and less likely now from the am River and West you're going to see them concentrate a little bit closer to I55 Eastern Livingston Parish but Malcolm made a good point the reason all these little dots are on the map is because people have had some time and especially in daylight before nightfall some of these sections got to get out and assess what they're seeing we may see this map much more heavily populated in eastern Ascension Livingston and Tango Parish come first light tomorrow when we can really identify where some of those trees have gone down across side streets or maybe some structures um and even in some rural sections that that just people don't have access to just yet so I think the scope of the damage will become a lot more clear tomorrow and I do expect it to be um greater than what we're seeing right now in those parts East of Baton Rouge not necessarily in the capital city but closer to that I55 Corridor going a little farther south to where we saw some of the worst impacts later today because remember this made landfall as a category 2 hurricane earlier today and this is the region where we saw the strongest winds there's St Mary Parish there's assumption Parish right there St James Tibido we had reports of flash flooding up to the front steps of a house in the chak Bay Area in fact I remember showing you a video shortly before you about to go back on camera of actually water coming into someone's homes you even remarked on the storm surge potential in the area yeah and that's because we have some of those bayus that are taking some of that kind of back water flooding reversing course water being driven North by the winds and there is even on the storm surge map a possibility of like one foot of inundation it was showing uh coming up to some of those bayu in lefo Parish and that was likely the culprit for for that flooding you were seeing there I doubt just standing water rain of five or six inches would do it in that area and clustered over there by you in New Orleans a lot of those reports were flooding had that flash flood emergency just a little bit earlier and that could have got really bad really fast I think we're lucky the speed of Francine in the Crescent City with regard to this because the the fast six seven inches we've had hurricanes in the past that have moved a lot slower than that and that could have turned catastrophic in a hurry now it may be really bad there but but believe it i' say they dodged it in New Orleans for as bad as it may have got and most of the rain was on the Northern side too didn't have more rain to encounter on the southern side as well that's a look at some of the storm reports here's a look at some of the current conditions because the the center of France Cen is very close to Livingston Parish this is French sediment at least the report there West Northwest at 26 miles per hour a little farther removed I would Hazard to Guess that the winds are a little bit higher in Killian yeah Killian Springfield uh be coming up on Albany here too on the Eastern side of the parish uh also say near the natalbany river and East over towards ponchatula and Hammond is where some of the strongest winds are going to be right now as you cross uh the Parish line over into Tang post it's going to kind of ride that I55 area here uh in the short term also a sign of a tropical system relative humidity Almost 100% there is a ton of moisture out there and it feels awfully muggy it's yeah wild I mean I actually stepped outside a few moments ago to kind of tidy up our weather patio shut the lights off out there didn't plan on going back out there and using that shot again this evening but even in the wind moving around as it is you immediately start sweating because of that tropical air mass that is in place out there so pleasant unpleasant windy rain night across the Capital Area we now go to Tano Parish I was hoping to give you a wind speed but it looks like the data dropped out evidently the winds may be strong enough to where literally knocked out either power to the sensor or maybe it took out the sensor entirely it's that's not uncommon with tropical systems that Northern uh what's left we we were calling it The eyewall earlier it's not that anymore but this is kind of that Northern quadrant of the storm that's lifting through Tango Parish now this is probably some of the heaviest activity left out there associated with Francine at the moment in the southern half of Tango Parish there is a flash flood warning in effect and it's it's not radar indicated it is observed flash flooding for pretty much points along and south of Hammond that may get extended a little farther north with time because we still have some fairly High rain rates moving North along the I-55 Corridor here's Baton Rouge that wind speed's come down quite a bit M we're still hearing it you're still noticing it and I've actually uh my wife actually in our property was saying it she she came away from a friend's house she's saying safely we we leave our home because of a really strong or big old Tree near our house uh that we worry about she returned home with a short drive and noted that from the west side of the parish to the east side of the parish was remarkably more windy makes sense we would expect the East Side to be a lot more windy so this is at the airport that's kind of North Central East Baton Rouge Parish we're probably seeing slightly stronger winds as we work our way toward the am River some slightly higher gusts and this is by the way close to ground level uh right off ground level you can hear it in our TV tower outside of our station it is roaring through that Tower right now and you noted can't quite see it now uh sometimes if you get enough clearing the levels or the rain's lighter you can see the clouds moving but they're whipping through the skies out there as Francine races off to the north right here's a look at the wind timeline for uh Baton Rouge and it may be a little bit steady for the time being still have a few tropical storm force winds out there I think the window for sustained winds in the capital city the tropical storm force is probably running out that's a different story to the east of course but uh once we get past I'd say 2 or 3:00 a.m. we'll leave even see those gusts coming down yeah and that's going to be great the focus number all day has been 30 for restoring power in our area and I don't think there's going to be any concern that Cruz won't be able to hit the ground uh Bri and early tomorrow morning hit the ground running try to get restoration going I'm not aware is it gust or sustain speed for 30 I defer almost the news folks on that looking at sustained yeah sustained so so that might even drop a little bit sooner yeah and and I I don't know in some of those areas that'll get started right away they may wait until first light tomorrow when it's a little bit more safer and uh emergency crews can clean up the roads and take any trees out of the area and things like that but um you know there have been storms in the past where you have just daily thunderstorms that make it difficult or you have dangerous heat afterwards in terms of weather after a storm it's going to be fairly Cooperative in this case over the next many days for Recovery to to ramp up as quickly as possible Josh what I'll do real quick is I will pull up a map of some of the wind speeds it may be able to easier to see that a little bit spatially and then while you talk on that I'm going to look up some of the highest wind gust reports that we've had across the capital area today so just give me one moment here as I pull up the uh current wind speeds across Southeast Louisiana all right we'll look at a couple of things here uh first of all actually and there's our we have a new Max gust for the day in uh East Batton rou Parish that's the highest we've seen it was previously 45 so we have a gust of 47 within the last hour in the capital city 35 in Gonzalez that's kind of telling that we're seeing likely the strongest winds pull away from Ascension Parish gust still to 54 in New Orleans 32 in Slidel Baloo at 28 with mccom Hammond Malcolm noted a moment ago that the data dropped out there but also look at the wind direction you can pinpoint where the center of the storm is right now you got a Northerly wind in Baton Rouge kind of a Westerly wind in Gonzalez southeasterly in New Orleans so that Center is somewhere between Baton Rouge and Hammond right now and Eastern Livingston or Western Tango Parish lifting North of paralleling I55 and we might see the winds really dramatically increase across Southwest Mississippi here in the next hour or two but uh continuing to ease in Morgan City closer to H we'll ease up in Gonzalez here and shortly after midnight I'd say in the Baton Rouge area too we'll likely lose the possibility of tropical storm Forest wind gusts by about 12: or 1: a.m. um so those are the current winds in our area and again it should be all improvements from here especially south of i12 and and we're going to compile some of these numbers I'm overnight going into tomorrow right now I'm looking at this on the National Weather Service website some of the peak wind gusts obviously offshore earlyer on as the hurricane was approaching landfall I see a 105 m per hour gust close to the landfall location near Eugene Island I see a couple of 70 mile per hour Peak gust or excuse me 68 mile per hour close to 70 out in St James Parish and uh some of the highest gusts I've seen were actually out in New Orleans New Orleans uh International Airport reported a 78 mph gust there and imagine yeah air traffic come to a halt today when you got a hurricane moving across the area uh that's probably one of the underrated stories to look into after after tomorrow that we'll have all of those flights getting back on schedule surely there were tons of cancellations and uh we'll likely see not only the New Orleans delays lingering into tomorrow but you got to think about other nearby airports Metro Airport was probably affected and tomorrow morning it's going to be at least inclement weather with the winds for flying in Jackson which is another decent sized airport some Regional Air Travel halts of because of Francine I was talking with her own news's Mia Monae on Sunday night she had a flight today I don't know if she ever made that flight yeah it would had to have been bright and early I would have had to have been very early we I'll have to ask her this weekend the uh you go I see you pull up radar now we talked about wins this was that flash flood emergency big deal here is that that rain is letting up so we're not adding anything additional to that these is likely flash flood warnings remaining for standing water in these areas from whatever is Fallen no more will come down other than a light shower sprinkle and there are flash flood warnings right now on the North shore of Lake Pon train and over into uh Hammond South South Tango parish as well that's the heaviest rain band left in this area and I would say it's almost more moving northeasterly than du North at least the heavy part of the rain band so uh conditions going to rapidly improve there and Hammond and ponchatula within the next 30 minutes or so as well right and we just saw that gust of 47 miles per hour in Baton Rouge and it looks like there is a little band trying to set up nearby not a strong band but it may be bringing some slightly higher wind speeds a down to the ground and that's where we're seeing that elevated wind speed yeah I'll be curious here uh 11:07 I'm surprised they're not going to give us an I thought they were going to be doing the intermediate advisories in the hourly to update the wind speeds they stopped doing that at uh 8 o00 ah okay once we are far away from landfall so we we probably do not have a 70 m per hour tropical storm anymore these are going down quickly and uh remember their forecast Point showed at 1:00 a.m. we had Max winds expected to be around 65 I wouldn't be shocked if they come in a little bit lower than that uh as we move forward in time here right now the Hurricane Center is placing the center of Francine what's left of it right on that Tango Livingston Parish line and as Malcolm noted now an hour earlier was this right might be right near the uh merg of I55 and i12 at this point you know what else is close to there the radar so we could actually probably sample those winds very easily so you know Josh mentioned that we probably don't have a 70 M hour storm what we're looking at are the wind velocities and you see some Reds and greens here um Josh if you want to explain essentially what's going on with those colors Radar Site there in Hammond recently relocated Green's going to indicate wind that's moving toward the radar Red's going to indicate wind that's moving away from the radar so that tells us where you have that tropical system right now kind of swirling in this area and as Malcolm is going to do he's just going to click on a few locations here in the brighter Reds and the brighter greens and this is going to estimate the wind speeds above ground but because we're so close to the Radar Site not that far above ground so um just above the surface between killing and Springfield about a 57 mph wind again that's above ground when you start dealing with the surface and friction uh those winds likely come down a little bit we also have a 39 mph Gust in Livingston maybe 50 to 70 over in central Tango Parish above the ground so mix that to the surface and I would say yeah this storm isn't at the surface producing much more now then about 60 to 65 mph winds finish out with a quick hour by hour forecast here you see range chances going down into the night as the system pulls North and by morning wind speed should be much lower and then hey look at that sun pokes out into tomorrow afternoon yeah pretty impressive uh what show you guys get a lay of the land of what we're going to do here we're going to continue to follow the storm through Tango and Livingston Parish for you get you through uh the last few moments of this being within our area we will have another we weather update and even as our continuous coverage pauses tonight Malcolm's going to provide topof thee hour updates on ABC at least just beyond midnight to get this storm see it properly through our viewing area but we do have some more live shots we want to get to out in the community tonight and uh we're going to do that in just a few minutes we're going back to Michael and Sylvia I think all right Josh thank you we uh do have some uh curfew updates that we want to pass along as well in a meet the curfew is until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow until further notice in Morgan City and Berwick the curfew goes until 6:00 tomorrow morning in Tango Village uh it'll go until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow as well in Livingston Parish curfew is d Dusk to Dawn in St Mary Parish the town of Franklin goes until 7 a.m. tomorrow in Franklin Parish the curfew um is until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow as well in lefou Parish the curfew goes until further notice also in St gabrial uh Parish the curfew is until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow and in Covington uh the curfew is from 4: p.m. until further notice in Zachary it goes until 7: a.m. tomorrow Dan Gonzalez you saw there also the everville Parish Sheriff's Office in the curfew at everville Parish in effect for everville Parish starting T earlier tonight at 6:00 and Lasting until 6:00 a.m. Thursday in Franklin curfews from 400 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. in lefou a curfew in effected there until further notice mention St Gabriel one more time curfew until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow and then Covington curfew until further notice we'll be right back I look at cancer as a very unique disease to an individual patient so cancer is a ubiquitous problem getting everyone's input that's related to the specific case is important in delivering the best care and then once we understand their needs we plug them in with all the right Support Services in addition to continuing a collaborative approach and an individualized approach to their care your support is our Focus together we Triumph visit mary.org to learn more we're rev business a local provider with nearly 90 years of experience so when it comes to business in Louisiana we know that personalized service is key and we're here to go the extra mile with all fiber solutions that deliver what every business needs reliability and quality we're not just providers we're the local team dedicated to helping you succeed true Partnerships are homegrown rev business internet phone manage services visit us at let's rev. biz there's DNA then there's heavy duty DNA H DNA it's engineered into every aspect of the GMC Sierra HD with the pulling power to prove it tow hitches of the world prepare for Glory get 5.9% APR for 84 months on sier heavy duty Denali models that's over 5,300 in average Finance savings a wreck with a big rig can cause serious damage and serious injuries but 18 wheelers aren't the only kinds of big trucks that can destroy lives I'm attorney Gordon mccarten if you've been injured by a delivery truck dump truck box truck or any kind of big truck we'll fight to get you every dollar you deserve we've recovered over $3 billion for our clients I am Louisiana's big truck lawyer just call me get it done call 888888 88 bad wreck with an 18-wheeler I'm attorney pton Murphy call the Murphy Law Firm now the storm station is tracking Francine we want to go back out to Ascension Parish and check in with news2 Sarah grar yeah we're still out in Cent Parish we were riding along with the Santa volunteer fire department they received a call on Penny street saying that there were wires that were sparking off the side of the house as we were coming down the road we started to see like the water slowly get deeper I don't know if you can see behind me there's these giant pieces of metal and so we thought to ourselves okay we're coming down Penny street Penny Lane we see all this metal we see all this water where is it coming from walk with me walk with me we are actually standing Penny street and La 431 and photographer Justin Moore is coming with me we're going to walk all the way around the side we are actually in the parking lot of the Cajun Dairy Place turns out all that Meadow you're seeing we think it's part of their roof as you can see the wind has been strong throughout the day the rain has picked up and let off picked up let off same with the wind and at some points I guess the wind was so strong enough that it could take roofs off this is some of the worst damage we've seen so far today we also saw a tree that fell down on a house you you might be able to see in this parking lot right here these according according to the officials I spoke to they say that these are cable wires I'm going to trust them if you don't recognize what a wire is don't walk near it cuz it could be electric and good roll of thumb that would be bad um but we are just seeing so much damage out here today and we're going to follow up tomorrow and see what the recovery efforts look like but all of this just goes to show you that you should have stayed inside and if you didn't I don't know what you were doing I don't know what to tell you about that one but we see the roof coming down we've seen trees we've seen debris we've seen standing water the wind has picked up it's let up the rain has finally started to lift a little bit it's not as severe I don't feel like I'm being pushed around it seems like right here in Ascension Parish the conditions are slightly less worse than they were during our last hit I can even hear the metal I can see some of the street lights flicker but it's nothing like what we were seeing an hour two hours ago and we'll continue to monitor these conditions all night but for now I'm just going to send it back to you okay all right Sarah grebar she's been doing a great job just showing up in the places where things are happening taking us right there to the scene as it's happening embedded there with the uh fire department down in U in Santa and it's she's you know that they they get the call for service Sarah grey bar has been right there with them uh every step of the way today all right so Jack Shimmel is in West Baton rou so we're going to send it out to him now yeah guys I'm in bruly and the conditions aren't too bad right now I mean we have some light rain and the wind has pretty much subsided over the last couple hours out here but you do get some wind here and there as we were driving out here I'm right by the water tower here in Bruley Elaine Street is right there as we were driving there were some tree limbs on the ground actually accidentally drove over one hopefully nothing goes wrong there but uh some tree limbs on the ground things still out and about so obviously you want to wait until those Crews clean those things up in the morning before you're out here driving around um the power in this area some houses have it some don't but overall the conditions are pretty mild right now still getting some rain some wind but nothing other than a couple gusts here and there right now uh so it seems like we're getting closer and closer to uh getting clear out here but even over the past couple hours since about 8:00 it hasn't been uh too crazy out here in bruly and in West Baton Rouge overall now back to you guys in the studio okay Jack thanks very much malcol and Josh joining us again here at the desk yeah uh things are quieting down across most of the Capital Area still raining in Baton rou still winds still gusting but uh not as strong as it was earlier the storm is weakening so we're in the home stretch of not only our coverage here but Francine overall um as Jack and uh Sarah GR pointed out and I think we're going to see some video of here coming up and you've been saying all night Sylvia and Michael um daylight will reveal a lot in our area and I think more stories will be uncovered tomorrow uh once the Sun is up so you guys can roll some of that video if you want we happy to take a look at uh what you've noticed so far I know we're going to see some trees blowing in the wind this is in h um blowing might be a kind word bending there that's probably more proper um yeah they got hammered in uh tabone and St Mary Parish earlier today some of the uh surge that we saw coming from there as well was was incredible and something they'll have to deal with tomorrow yeah we need to uh we need to check on some of those Nearshore buoys and some of the oil platforms we'll get some early estimates on what the surge heights were and um we also are going to show you now a map where trees are down near Lamar Dixon um and this is this is created kind of a kind of an issue as well so guess this is down on St Landry Road right near Lamar Dixon and since that is one of the shelters or the only shelter down in the Cent Parish they're trying to get that cleared as soon as possible in the event that someone needs to get there thinking the road there soon yeah the the interesting thing to that is just based on what has happened I'd imagine most of the folks that would need shelter would be coming from quite a ways away in the Eastern side of the parish toward Gonzalez closer to say sarento so um not only do they have to make the long Trek dangerous Trek potentially across I 10 but then they get to their shelter location it may be blocked off it's likely you know prer Ville in points North like that at night too it's hard to see out there there's no power 99% of Demco customers out power and uh as we'll show you now we're going to Loop some radar graphics and Sylvia and Michael feel free to chime in other than radar here a lot of these are about power and conditions and stuff just what you're seeing on radar right now is uh where we believe the Storm Center at this point is probably close to about Hammond you see that yellow line from the 10:00 advisory ends in southeast Livingston Parish but here we are an hour and 20 minutes later so that's probably right near that 10 or excuse me that 12 and 55 merge point right now and the heaviest rain is kind of displaced in Tango parish and also the NorthShore at this time Malcolm anything to add there to what we're seeing on radar yeah I'm starting to see uh some development of precipitation just along and west of Baton Rouge even extending south of just I mean even south of the ibol Parish line over the a chaalia Bas and what I suspect is happening is we're getting this current of warm air rising and wrapping around the system and that's enough to trigger some new shower development it should be mostly light rain but uh that'll continue to sustain a few showers into the overnight hours as Francine pulls North and I think by the time we get to early tomorrow morning most of the action most of the rainfall should be north of State Line you're kind of taking us through the uh the rest of the evening here into the early morning hours when M joins you what are your primary concerns what do you be looking for the primary concerns would be for our Eastern zones we're talking Tango Parish St helina Parish mainly at this point I mean obviously we'll still have some rain and Gusty winds in and around the Baton Rouge area won't even rule out you know a few more trees knocking down in the area but by far the strongest winds will be where the storm is headed and it's a rapidly weakening storm too and that's good news for those areas off towards the east we will get another advisory at 1:00 a so about an hour and a half away and we will bring that to you right here on wbrz we'll do some cuts at the top of each hour through about 1:00 a.m. or so probably worth noting look St Mary Parish at assumption are drying out rain is stopped and there hardest hit areas earlier today New Orleans where we had a flash flood emergency is drying out now so uh no more rain added to those areas that we're dealing with some flooding now onto the power outages Michael and Sil have been updating you on what the maps look like off camera Michael and I had a conversation about how that that energy map if you look at it online the red versus the Green Power on versus power off looks like the definition of scattered which is pretty much how this event was described whereas in Ida is a widespread everybody's losing power this was Pat work peace me power out due to couple of bad trees or some unlucky power lines coming down um and the percentages across East Baton Rouge and Tango Livingston kind of show that of course near the coast it's more wide reaching there's that map we referenced look at that it's just not I mean after Ida this was all red well we hope that is the case that it is Patchwork that they have to come in and and fix power poles whether it be in someone's front yard the bigger concern and what we'll find out early tomorrow morning is if if it's those high transmission lines that are feeding from a substation or actually from a power plant to substations if some of those you know some of those big lines you see like Crossing an interstate if some of those are down that's going to take some time because they got to bring in it's not like the guys in the bucket trucks are getting up there to fix the high transmission lines they have a whole another uh Fleet of infrastructure that they have to bring in to to fix that which obviously they're prepared to do so um what was interesting we were invited today to meet at uh entg Operation Center kind of like you know how uh the governor's office has the Homeland Security emergency preparers and the mayor has that Andre G has their own Command Center here in Baton as well so the plan is tomorrow morning to to get with them to see where they are going to be tackling the power restoration first so that we can follow those Crews to really give people at home an idea of how this process works because if you don't have power we've all been through that before why aren't they turning my power on when are they going to turn my power on I see the truck right down the street yes and it's it's our job to kind of show that process and how that works in the coming days I hope going be very interesting to see one other note about the power um and you'll see this after especially early in the season hurricanes I guess we're you know we're right near the peak right now October is a little bit of a different story when you have a tropical event we're not in that level where we're in the dangerous heat like we were in July and August but no power and highs in the 90s lows in the 70s is uncomfort so the restoration isn't necessarily a pleasant process not going to be along the coast um and every now and then you'll see the National Weather Service despite it not meeting criteria will issue a heat advisor remind people to kind of be safe out there you're cleaning up remember to hydrate uh I know we've just come out of the heat of the year but you're overexerting in our exhaustion after the storm so especially an assumption in St Mary uh keep that in mind we're still going up into the upper 80s low 90s the next few days well that's a good advice for folks that are going to be cleaning up tomorrow in the days to come yeah you never appreciate how much you like AC till you don't have it it's wild it's the worst part about a hurricane is is just you know of course during it's terrible it's terrible weather but and even even the loss of electricity it's different story in March versus September around here um had a couple more bullet points that Michael and uh Sylvia could probably chime in on with Malcolm and I and it's just I put this on my Facebook page and I said common sense is common sense until it isn't and when you're under duress sometimes you forget some of these Common Sense things that's what a lot of weather safety tips and reminders are that bottom one I mean can catch all of us even I had to double check my plan today when we went to set up our generator it was going to be in our back patio just feet away from the window that had the intake for our unit I was like I have to move this or the AC can't go in that window it's not just about an open ventilated outdoor space but it needs to be away from anywhere it's possible you could be breathing in because you don't want that exhaust uh coming into your your window unit or whatnot yeah what do they say they wanted like 20 ft away from from a house and and then Cobble brought up a good point today that when you're refueling your generator you need to wait till the thing cools down that can take some time as well yeah and it's also important to have carbon monoxide detectors in your home as well battery operated as well because you don't have electricity so they have that battery backup so they can detect if that's coming into your home uh as well you know some of those other hazards on there that's obvious when driving but especially at night that stuff can sneak up on you quick um Drive much more slowly than you otherwise would if you absolutely have to be out tonight and um you know the gas leaks that's kind of tips and flooded structures more for the immediate Coastal sections that's not going to be a big Ascension Livingston Baton Rouge issue but you never know damage structure you don't know if a line's structured I I've had the experience you mentioned that I've had the experience some nights of driving when it's not a storm and a tree it's Fallen big limb or whatever it's dark it's dark dark dark no street lights and so it's really dark so I've had the experience of P pulling right up on it and going whoa I didn't even see that you know and the next coming back and realizing that this was a huge Branch so that's why it's important not to get on the roads especially at night with no power anything to light the way yeah it'll be a lot easier tomorrow morning when the sun's up and and emergency crews are going to be aware of the the these down trees and even with the rain and the winds letting up they're going to start clearing tonight so we could see the roads dramatically improved by Daybreak tomorrow and of course that's when the power Crews will get out and about as well we talked about this but in the recovery um there's our temperature so yeah it is still going to be fair L hot and humid 90s absolutely 70s not necessarily comfortable sleeping but I I'd say the good news is no major weather impact over the next seven days so we'll have plenty of time without the weather bothering us other than it not feeling so great is this it for us for storms for the season you know i' love to sit here yes but uh that's the question I've gotten there's actually a new depression out there way in the Atlantic now but it's not coming here good thing the latest hurricane landfall in Louisiana history is October 29th it was Hurricane Zeta back in 2020 so right I always uh I call that my cut off date you know otherwise we're breaking a record you know you rarely forecast a record so yeah sure could there one be in one in November no we' be breaking new ground so still got a whole month and a half to go before you say it's never happened this late before we won daytime highs of about 77 75 77 every in the 50s did you feel Sunday morning I know but we talking about such a tease you know to go from that to this you could much more easily recover after a hurricane if that was the weather you could the windows open pretty happily that was the weather I think the takeway from this storm was dry dry air was the hero storm is for for Baton Rouge yeah not necessarily New Orleans and the NorthShore but um yeah another kind of that's two straight storms where a little wobble has helped the capital city more compared to some of our neighbors just to the South and to the east so Francine uh we're still tracking it and you said it Michael Silvia um we have about two minutes left here but Malcolm is going to be with us at the top of the hour at midnight he'll likely take take us to at least 1:00 a.m. with one more update we're going to follow Francine fully out of our viewing area to make sure that we have you covered um from landfall in St Mary to the northeastern corner of this viewing area am meet St helina and Tango Parish where we've got everyone's backs covered speaking of St Mary it's going to be fascinating to see what what that looks like when the sun comes up bayen Rogers and Joel down there uh just to get those pictures on on TuneIn which by the way will be starting at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow morning yeah and that that coverage throughout our our day tomorrow this is going to be the place to be we we got you before the storm during the storm and what do we say after the storm that's right uh storm station and channel two great work you guys today anchoring the coverage to absolutely all of us together hey the the crews in the field as well amazing you know amazing bin and Alexis and Bri taking the brunt of that storm down there today if you haven't gone to our YouTube or Facebook page to see some of that uh boy they did uh they did some hard work out those elements today one memorable line for me was David Hamilton saying I am just soaked right now understatement of the day this is the first time for a lot of us to cover a storm like this so and listen if you want to send us your uh pictures as you during your cleanup and all of that we would we welcome them so you can send out all the photos videos to news at wbz.com all right that'll do it here from the storm station once again our broadcast continues about 5 and 1 half hours from now is that correct at 4:00 a.m. right here on W BC good [Music] night after the car crash I was injured scared and overwhelmed if you you've been seriously hurt in a car or big truck crash put an experienced Law Firm on your side they won 10 times what was offered call me attorney pton Murphy so there I was in the thick of it I've been on hunts like this before but nothing this dangerous keeping Eyes Wide Open rounding blind Corners entering the dark abyss