unidentified woman: oh, how pretty. i'm shepard smith on cnbc, and this is a special edition of the news life-threatening storm surge texas, louisiana, mississippi, all at risk. tonight, hurricane delta makes landfall businesses boarded up, people hunkered down, residents bracing for their second hurricane in six weeks. how much more can these people take we are on the ground as this strong category 2 hurricane threatens the state of louisiana, talking to the people trying to manage this crisis on the gulf

this is a special edition of the news with shepard smith. hurricane delta makes landfall and good evening from cnbc the hurricane moments away from landfall right now and frankly, about to make history. hurricane delta is closing in on the southwestern coast of louisiana as a very powerful category 2 storm delta is set to become the tenth named storm to strike the united states this year that has never happened in recorded history never have there been ten named storms i want to show you where we are right now. this is the radar. you can see part of the eye has already come ashore just south and east of lake charles, louisiana. the storm has been weakening throughout the afternoon it was 115 miles an hour four hours ago, maximum sustained winds now 100 miles an hour. the minimum pressure has risen that means the storm is getting weaker the higher the pressure, the weaker the storm, because it's a

low pressure center. right now it's moving toward land, and part of that eye is already over the land. i want to zoom in just a little bit and show you the area of greatest concern lake charles on the left-hand side here, that's what got hit so bad by the last storm lafayette on the right-hand side, that's where we believe the eye is going to pass jennings, louisiana, right there in the middle. let's take a look now. lake arthur in louisiana delta is hitting communities still recovering from hurricane laura's landfall at the endi of august this is lake charles right now these are live pictures. you can see this entire area is flooded. there are cars that are underground as the storm is coming in. blue tarps are roofs there the storm wreckage is still piled up in the streets. here's video from lake arthur just minutes ago when it was really getting pounded this from our storm chasers. we have four of them who were driving the area to get us brand new and live pictures throughout

this news hour there have been so many named storms this year that the national hurricane center ran out of letters they got to z and then started using the greek alphabet delta is the first greek alphabet storm ever to make landfall in the united states. that's never happened. the governor of louisiana says delta is expected to be a fast-moving storm and he's right. right now it's moving forward progress at 14 miles an hour, and at that pace it should be out of the state of louisiana in 14 hours we have live coverage all across the state of louisiana and especially on the western end. we have reporters there. we're live in lake charles, new iberia, and we start with sam brock. but first there is breaking news on cnbc five seconds ago, the national hurricane center made it official. sam brock, that storm has just officially come ashore sam, what are you seeing well, the storm came ashore and

we lost -- so instead let's go to cal cal perry is live in lake charles for us right now cal, what are you seeing >> reporter: hey, shep look, the way you laid this storm out, hurricane laura was six weeks ago. when you drove in it was roof after roof that had a blue tarp or having just been replaced folks who did stay or are trying to stay, but some people left. some people were trying to prepare their houses that's one thing officials are going to be happy about. for the folks who stayed it's a story of that debris that they had just gotten organized onto the street there is now landfall with this storm. ten storms this year i'll take it back to you >> cal perry live in the storm in a mask. think of it. he's so close to his photographer that he has to wear

it everyone in southwest louisiana is dealing with this now they're in evacuation shelters, they have to worry about covid, they have to worry about losing their houses and by the way, many of their houses got ripped apart on the 30th of august when laura came in there and changed their lives. we have four live cameras from storm chasers. here they are. these four will be live with us through the hour some are driving around. some when the weather gets worse, they will stop. top left there is just south of abbeville, louisiana these are all in the same general vicinity top right there, that's jennings, louisiana. on the bottom, both of those are near lake arthur again, all of this in southwest louisiana. just a moment ago we talked to cal perry, but i want to get to jim gray, who's live now for us in lafayette jim, you've been following this storm and the first responders and the evacuations. what can you tell us from there?

jay gray. >> reporter: shep, the time to evacuate clearly over at this point. first responders saying once the storm reaches a certain level, they're not going to get out and help those in place. we talked to a lot of those, police, firefighters who are a part of all of this. they are about to this level where if you decided to ride this thing out, you're doing it on your own. the wind has picked up dramatically, the rain as well over the last 30 or 45 minutes and then the flooding will be a major issue as well. this is the vermilion river. it's well up over its banks. you can see it's in an area here that used to be a walkway. i want to show you this sign we've been watching this sign as a way to measure the water this water is pushing into places it's not supposed to be in, bringing with it some unwelcome guests you can see danger, alligators and snakes in the area that's another thing they'll have to contend with here. this is just the beginning, shep we're just seeing the start of what are going to be some pretty

rough and violent conditions for the next several hours here. so the wind is going to pick up dramatically we've already seen tropical storm force winds as we get a pretty good gust here. it's going to reach hurricane level at some point in the next hour maybe, hour and a half at the moment these sheets of rain are just going to continue to fall, so that's something that so many across this region are going to have to deal with. as you talked about coming into all of this, it was just six weeks ago we were in lake charles, just 35, 40 miles to the west of where we are right now. that city ravaged. they have been working for a month and a half to do what they can. get the power back on, get the water working properly again now they have to worry that it's going to happen again. they're going to have to deal with another recovery on top of what they have already been working toward, shep, so it's a very rough go for a lot of people in this region. >> jay gray, thanks so much. i want to show you where we are on the big map behind me this is lafayette right here 75 miles to the west is lake charles. you can see the eye coming in in

the center there it's just come over the land i want to go over west to lake charles now. 75 miles west of lafayette nbc's sam brock is there what are you seeing? >> shep, good evening. we are actually in lafayette right now. much as jay was describing a second ago, we've seen some of the strongest bursts of wind coming up the last hour or so. to pick up off of what he was just talking about, power outages right here wind damage was the foremost concern and certainly flooding as well. the issue that we have run into is the fact that this area did not see the wallop that perhaps laura did. you see the wind picking up. there were no mandatory evacuations here many of the folks i talked to weren't worried about this but maybe they should have been. there are commercial developments and homes nearby where this flooding could occur but a lot of people did not leave. we know from the governor of louisiana, that right now there

are some 9,500 people in shelters in the state. 6,000 of those are from laura. 2,000 of those are from laura in texas. the remaining 800 are in a mega shelter in alexandria, louisiana. you talked about covid a second ago, shepard they hit the capacity of 800 they can't have any more people in those shelters. so for folks who decided not to leave and now decide they're not comfortable for conditions, there's no going back. they're encouraging people if they can to get to hotels instead. but the wind as this storm has now made landfall still very strong here and the flooding for neighboring communities is a concern as we track the progress of this. shep. >> are these some of the heaviest gusts you've felt tell us -- describe what you're seeing. >> reporter: at the moment sideways rain that's hitting me in the face. certainly we're seeing what was at one point a walkway where you could go down there. as of yesterday, shep, you would see water, dirt and embankment now it's just one giant lagoon of water and it's starting to

extending in the parking lots toward the areas right around here so flooding would be a problem what i did see earlier today as well, shep, i should add, people only 5 or 10 miles from here who told me they had their roofs pierced on their homes in the middle of laura and decided to move to another place nearby, perhaps at a home that's on stilts, but they'restaying in the area there's grit, there's resolve, there's stubbornness here. i'm seeing crews going out getting ready to try to repair -- a hotel right now is teeming with linesman and tree cutters ready for what the next day holds and they have to clean up the mess. >> how many people stayed behind, do you have a clue >> reporter: so there are 250,000 people in lafayette parish from are what i've seen, most of the traffic was going out from lake charles on i-10 west. people here, you did not see the mass exodus like those images you've no doubt seen from the last couple of days in this

area many people here stayed. i asked why. i was told by the mayor that there's no history of mandatory evacuations in lafayette didn't think that it was strong enough to merit that call. as a result, it certainly appears, although there's no science necessarily on that, that most of the people here decided to stay back. >> sam brock in lafayette. let's go back across that's lafayette, that's lake charles over there see this spot right here that's lake charles. that's the eye that's about to come to lake charles in maybe the next 10, maybe 15 minutes. so the wall of that eye, that's where the strongest winds are. so let's get there now in lake charles we have a couple of people. who are we going to? cal perry is there cal, you should be very near the very worst of it. >> reporter: yeah, this absolutely feels like the worst of it by far i'll leave it to the meteorologist but when that wind and rain gets stinging, that's usually when those hurricane

force winds are coming i got a little muddled earlier, but it's so incredibly sad here in lake charles that you have some people that left six weeks ago because they felt like it was going to take a fewmonths to repair their houses so many houses here as we have a little break from the wind so many of those houses are halfway repaired they have the blue tarps or the debris sort of neatly put out onto the street. as we were driving through town today trying to get a look at what thedamage would become, i was remarkable it was looking at a fresh hurricane. so i think the concern officials have, and you heard my colleagues telling folks you need to take shelter and not go anywhere a lot of the concern that officials have, rescue officials, is that debris created six weeks ago in hurricane laura is now just going to be projectiles and become very, very dangerous in these places where the storm is coming onshore. >> you're going to be in the eye, i think, in about 15 minutes. if you can describe for our

viewers where you are, how you're sheltered and what's going on around you. >> reporter: i'm on a low-level balcony of a very large hotel. so it's blocking the wind coming from this way but not this way the crew is happily inside this is as bad as it's gotten, shep this is pretty bad this feels like hurricane-force winds. what it's doing, there's a little beach behind me that comes off of this cove and it's clearly moving the sand off of the beach. as these bands come through, it gets really, really bad. >> i believe it. i'm looking at the radar and the eye wall, the strongest winds, the eye wall, that's it. it's on you right this second. >> reporter: it feels like we're getting buried now in it what is sad about when you come to this hotel in the middle of a pandemic, this hotel is packed

like all the hotels in lake charles. so people are sheltering and trying to keep an eye on it. this storm is so fast-moving that maybe in a couple of hours it's past them but until the eye wall gets past and then that storm shifts, you're really not out of danger. that wind shifting at times can be really dangerous, especially with debris in the area. >> don't go anywhere, hang tough if you could if the weather producer could pull out just a little bit, i want to get a better sense of this eye this has been happening over the last about three hours, but you can see right here, it's very hard to point, but you can see that most of that eye has just sort of -- it looks, at least on this radar, like it's just collapsed. there was a lot of wind shear coming in from the southern part of it. we know that the pressure has come up. the pressure is up around 970 millibars now so it's been rising throughout the day. that means the storm is weakening. in addition, this storm was over

very hot water in the center of the gulf, about 90 degrees when it was in the center of the gulf of mexico about a day and a half ago. where it is now or where it's just passing, the water is closer to 80 degrees and it's that really warm water that gives the hurricane its fuel it's like gas in a car let's go to morgan chesky now. morgan is also in lake charles where, morgan, the eye wall is on you >> reporter: yeah, shep, forgive me it's a little tough to ear. that eye wall is making its way to lake charles right now. it's a very surreal feeling, shep, because it was almost six weeks ago i stood on this exact balcony and watched hurricane laura tear into this community, leaving behind just a trail of devastation. those winds from hurricane laura hitting about 150 miles an hour. right now the strongest gusts from delta hitting right at around 100 miles an hour, maybe

slightly above that, so that gives you just a little perspective. so what i'm standing in right now, this rain, it's stinging. and you can only imagine what this wind is doing to this already battered community of lake charles, louisiana, so much of which is suffering from that category 4 hurricane now, because of that hurricane, shep, we do know evacuations were taken significantly more seriously. driving through that city today, it felt very somber, almost like a ghost town and the few people we met who chose to stay behind here, they stayed behind because they're simply overwhelmed they're tired of running because this storm fatigue is setting in and you can feel that with the arrival of this category 2 hurricane. shep, these outer bands -- i'm sorry, these are not the outer bands. this is the eye wall this might be the strongest we see from delta here tonight. shep. >> i think you're a few minutes away from the interior of the eye wall could we go back to that live

storm chaser picture that you just had up? that picture is giving us an idea of what's happening here's the thing, you look at this and you go, all right, they have 100-mile-an-hour winds, gusts a little higher than that, this is right around lake charles. so you figure this is likely today's damage, and i'm told that it is you see the power line that's come across there. but there's so much damage in lake charles already one more thing i want to show you and then we'll get to the national hurricane center. see this down here that's the tip of louisiana. you see cameron, louisiana that's the marshy area that is the tip of louisiana you can see they're in dry everything there is in dry because that's the center of the eye. so the eye is over the coast it's heading toward jennings, lake charles and lafayette let's go straight to the national hurricane center. the head man is ken graham and he's live with us. well, it's ashore and almost exactly what you predicted, ken.

>> it's right on the track and the intensity did exactly what we thought we thought it would get over that warm heat ocean content of the gulf and increase like it did last night and weaken when it got to shore. weaken is a relative term. i saw some of the images with people in the field, the eye all at lake charles, just an incredible amount of wind, damaging wind and really so close to where we saw hurricane laura. >> show us what you can show us. >> yeah, you look at this. you saw the radar analysis that eye wall, just an amazing amount of wind all of this tropical moisture is going inland alexandria and look at these rain bands, 40, 50 miles away, you can see tornados, you can see heavy rain but this is what's scary you start looking at the actual water levels and we were really worried about that storm surge at low tide this is where you're supposed to be, shep, but look

at the water we've got 7 foot of storm surge in that area, and you still haven't even had high tide yet we're going to add another foot and a half or so so the dangerous storm surge is happening. 7 to 11 foot in some areas it's life threatening and that's what we're keeping an eye on the next several days. >> thanks so much, ken i want to show you where this thing is going so you see where the eye wall is coming ashore right now, right here the track is that it heads up in the general direction of alexandria, louisiana. and then right on this corner right here, this is natchez, mississippi. that is going to go right between those two areas, loop over in the general direction of jackson, mississippi, and head up to tupelo in the northeast area of the state. elvis' birth place all of that area getting rain. now, jackson, mississippi, has had 10 inches of rain over the last 24 hours, but it's been quiet through much of the afternoon. the rain is getting there now. you can see natchez is just beginning to get hit as well

i want to go to the mayor of lake charles nick hunter is with us and he's on the live line thank you so much, mr. mayor you've been warning your residents for a while. how are you at the moment? >> well, me personally, i'm safe our community is reeling right now. we are in the middle of a battle and it feels like we just got out of a battle. so this community is pretty weary at the moment. but we are resilient i tell you, as soon as this thing passes, we're not going to sit on our hands, weav're goingo start picking up the pieces. >> it will be quiet for a little while but not long because it's only the western edge of the eye. maybe it will be calm for 15, 20 minutes. no one can go outside at that point because the other side is bad. >> i agree as i look outside right now, it definitely looks like a hurricane is in town. >> it definitely is. you've got maximum sustained

winds in lake charles at about 100 miles an hour with some gusts a little bit higher than that the storm will start weakening, but the rain is going to keep coming, at least for a little while. how flooded are you and what do your people need, going all the way back to august 30th? >> well, that's a loaded question when you talk about the water, absolutely what you said is very true that a storm surge could actually come and water is going to rise after the initial storm passes through with the way our waterways are here in lake charles. so we're very concerned about flooding, very concerned about the rain that we're seeing right now, and you said what do we need look, right now we're going to get through the immediacy of this event but we are going to need help in the recovery part of this. we were already reeling from a historic and catastrophic event with laura when you put delta on top of it,

we're going to help each other here in lake charles we're going to help our brothers and sisters. but we're going to need american help we're asking america, the federal government, not to forget about southwest louisiana once this thing passes and a lot of the news cameras are gone. >> we've been following a woman who was just a real inspiration to us. i don't know if you saw it, but just an incredible woman who was a home health care worker. when she had to evacuate august 30th, she took an elderly man with her and went on one of those airbnb to motel to airbnb treks as evacuees from hurricanes do. she's had this elderly man with her the whole time they set up a go fund me for her. where can people donate? what can people do >> well, the first thing i tell people is pray on it you donate to the agency that feels right to your heart to give your hard-earned money to but i will tell you that our local community foundation and united way both have funds set

up for laura quite honestly, we're just -- after laura, we didn't get the national attention that a lot of other places got if the immediate rescue and recovery had been an absolute screw-up, maybe we would have got more attention but we need american help right now. and if there are people out there that want to contribute to one of those funds, it is very needed right now >> we appreciate it. nic hunter, who's the mayor of lake charles, louisiana, and hunkering down at the moment on the wall here, it looks like the eye, it ought to get quiet outside in just a minute you can see right here, there's lake charles, there's the eye. it's moments away. same way at lafayette. first, though, to jay ecker. he co-owns two restaurants in lake charles rick and jack's brewing company and panorama music house in old downtown district. it looks like you've got a heck of a storm out there how are things and how are you >> it's starting to get a little bit scary.

i'm seeing debris floating down the street, which looks more like a river right now but we're safe we're hunkered down. >> i see behind you, i don't hear it, which is surprising, but i can see it behind you. what's back there and what's happening back there >> well, that's my backyard. i used to have a fence there until laura. it's now gone. so some of the trees that were back there are gone as well. >> and so this -- what we're seeing that looks damaged back there is damaged from august 30th >> that's right. >> and what you're getting now is wind and rain. >> exactly. >> you said it's starting to get scary. you lived through a storm a month and a half ago does this seem like a cake or is it like -- >> well, we evacuated for laura. i'm glad we did when we foupnd out it was a 4 at the time we took off. we decided to stay for this one because we didn't feel it would be as bad and kind of fatigue from running away. >> and now are you glad you

stayed for this one? >> so far. >> i hear you. we have some roaming cameras around your town there's a lot of flooding, a lot of power lines down. there's damage it's not like last time, but my god, you can't take any more there i'm guessing people must be just beaten up. >> well, i know as a business owner, it's a 1, 2, 3 punch. because there was covid, which causes a lot of problems and then laura, which we're of course still recovering from and now this so it's all up in the air. >> well, we're pulling for you thank you. we'll check back in with you throughout the hour. jay ecker is a businessman there. i want to get to janice huff, chief meteorologist at nbc new york to take a look at exactly where the eye walls are. you have some traffic cams too show us around. >> hi, shep. we have a road in lafayette, louisiana. not much happening on the roads, thank goodness people are staying at home or in their evacuation area, wherever they

are. this is our radar and satellite over like the last 45 minutes to an hour. you can see some of the wind gusts in the last 15 minutes or so over 50 miles an hour, but near that eye wall of course you're seeing higher gusts, heavy rain bands too so they're seeing the worst of the rain as well as the wind, the storm surge when the eye wall came ashore some areas have already received upwards of 8 inches of rain and flash flooding is occurring in and around lake charles, up towards glen mora and lafayette and kinder they're getting some of the heaviest rain as we speak. the storm still at a category 2 with winds of 100 miles an hour at the center is moving off to the north-northeast. the pressure is now up to 970 millibars. it's still going to produce a lot of heavy rain and power outages as it moves toward alexandria, jackson and into

northern mississippi by tomorrow just in comparison in terms of the track between laura and delta, very close to the same track, not the exact one but extremely close. those tracks differed onshore only between 15 and 20 miles between the two storms that moved onshore. so this is very, very rare we probably have only seen that happen one or two other times. one thing for sure, another record, you mentioned this earlier, that delta makes the tenth storm that has made landfall this year and that's the most in a season since 1916 when nine storms moved onshore. this continues to be a record-setting hurricane season, shep. >> just incredible can you show us, are you able to zoom in and show us who's in the eye right now way down there in the louisiana coast. >> we can see it -- let's see if we can -- i'll say to my producer if we can zoom in a little closer to our radar picture and show exactly who's within the eye or close to the eye right now, if we can zoom in

just a little bit closer the eye is here. so here's cameron, louisiana, which is close to where laura made landfall. >> iota is about to get it. >> iota is about to get it here. and there's that eye wall here this is where you're going to see the strongest winds within this band, maybe some gusts close to 100 miles an hour we did have one unofficial gust down near cameron right along the shore of 89 miles an hour. that was not an official recording but we did see an unofficial recording there of a 90-mile-per-hour gust. i know your reporters are out in the field getting battered right now. >> yeah, they are. janice, thanks i want to get to morgan chesky right now. they ought to be in the eye in a few minutes but the worst of it could be immediately morgan, are you there? >> reporter: yeah, that eye wall making its way through that area right now. janice was absolutely right on

the flash flooding our phones just went off a short time ago saying that the flash flood warning is definitely in effect for the lake charles area i have to tell you that right now, one big fear is all of those blue tarps that are covering so many roofs here in lake charles, shep, this is the strongest wind we've felt so far right now. bear with me here. it is really picking up now and we just have a river that runs into lake charles behind me. there we go. all right, and right now, though, as i was talking about those tarps, shep, thousands of those cover the tops of roofs that were ripped off by hurricane laura. and we know that they're not going to stand up to this wind and right now we're talking about even more damage that's coming to this community still reeling from hurricane laura i had a chance to speak with one man earlier today who evacuated because of delta he said that if he came back

from this storm, shep, and if his home had more damage from it, he wasn't going to rebuild he was going to move his family out of this simply because of this incredible storm. it's tough to make eye contact with the camera right now, forgive me, just because this wind and rain has picked up to the strongest we've felt here in lake charles so far today. shep, back to you. >> anybody who's been on a boat knows the feelings like needles in your face but at 100 miles an hour, it's rough, isn't it? >> reporter: it absolutely does. in fact you mentioned the boats. we heard from some folks who were taking their boats out into the water away from the piers because that's where the damage can happen for the fifth time this hurricane season. think about that people have evacuated four times in certain areas whoa, here we go people have been taking their

boats out time and time and time again. it gets old and it wears on you. here we go, shep bear with me now this is the strongest gust we've felt so far. oh, boy. all right. so if that eye wall had not come over lake charles -- hold on, let me grab the balcony here goodness gracious. >> hold on, man. >> reporter: i can't hear you right now, shep, but i can tell you if you are out and about in lake charles, you are going to want to hurcnker down for this keep in mind, this is a category 2 hurricane. this is not a category 3, definitely not a category 4 that we saw with laura and you do not want to mess around with this folks. shep, we'll send it back to you. >> going to cal perry who's in a different place. cal, give it to us. >> reporter: yeah, we are getting absolutely buried. i think right in the center of

the eye wall just as the eye wall is about to break it would be great to be in the eye and have a break as morgan was saying, if you are anywhere in the area -- here we go you've just got to stay where you are and shelter in place once that wind gets up to where it is now, emergency officials are not going to be able to get out and about and that becomes a problem. so wherever people are in the lake charles area, it's time to shelter in place i can echo exactly what my colleague was just saying. again, just four landfalls this year in the state of louisiana alone. it is exhausting it just is relentless for the people who live here shep, you know this very well, even evacuating for these storms is uprooting people's lives. it is really something so this city has been through so much i think people thought louisiana was going to catch a break when new orleans wasn't hit and then -- i'm going to hang on here now you have that irony now of this

storm just 15 miles from where hurricane laura hit six weeks ago. it's pretty unbelievable, shep. >> yeah. whoever would have thought this was even possible. i think in about 5 or 10 minutes, you're going to be clear and only for a few minutes. see, look at this. lake charles, that's the outer part that's the very hard eye wall. and then clear that clear is on its way >> reporter: hopefully there's not much behind it there we go. i'm like morgan, i'm going to hang on to the balcony now >> good idea. >> reporter: you know, people here were hoping there's not going to be much behind the storm. but with winds this strong and that much debris, i don't think it will matter i think the damage probably will be done, shep. >> cal, morgan, thank you. we'll go to our live storm chasers in a bit as our coverage of hurricane delta making landfall continues more stories of people riding out delta. in business you have to be able to shift-pivot-adapt.

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get started with powerful internet and voice for $64.90 a month, and ask how you can get one free year of amazon busines prime essentials on us. call or go online today. comcast business. hurricane delta has come ashore along the louisiana coast. you can see the eye there. it's splitting the difference between lake charles and lafayette, louisiana this storm is moving at 14 miles

an hour, so it will be out of louisiana in the next 12, 14 hours or so. it's headed toward jackson, mississippi, which would be in that general vicinity and then up toward tune loerpelo, missis. this storm will be a problem by late on saturday and into sunday nashville is going to get rain they're not going to get heavy winds. 30, 35 miles an hour, but lots and lots of rain morgan chesky is in the middle of it all in lake charles. the eye is coming, but not yet. >> reporter: yeah, shep, the eye is not here but it's making a convincing case with these wind gusts moving through right now we are feeling some powerful, just torrential rain make its way through here unfortunately, it's only going to get stronger. right now i can tell you that all across lake charles, the good news is that the people took these evacuation orders seriously and got out of town.

and that is important, because one of the problems we've seen with past storms in this area is that people have not taken them seriously. we've heard time and time again from officials, don't let the cat 1, cat 2, cat 3 storms fool you, they can absolutely pack a punch. we're seeing that firsthand right now. this is a category 2 hurricane that weakened from a category 3 right before landfall. had we not had hurricane laura come before in this area, we could be seeing the problems in that a lot of people could still be at home having to face this flooding, these high winds face to face. so if there's any silver lining at all in this horrible storm coming six weeks after laura, it's the fact that lake charles for the most part has cleared out. those mandatory evacuations went into effect several days ago, and i can tell you i saw i-10 out of this city

bumper-to-bumper for miles and we are talking about people packing up as best they could and getting out of town because nobody wanted to chance it after having seen what laura was capable of now, right now -- here we go we might be feeling that eye wall start to move in right now. these winds only getting stronger here. bear with me now now, if there is one similarity between -- aside from where they struck from laura to delta, it's the fact that these are relatively fast-moving hurricanes i want to compare what we're seeing right now to hurricane sally, which struck the mobile, pensacola area i was there for that that was a slow-moving 2 to 3-mile-an-hour hurricane this moving significantly faster, which as you can see with these wind gusts moving through here, that should mean that the worst of this storm

should not last much longer for this area. and so we're going to be keeping a very close eye on delta as it advances what's very -- i mentioned it's surreal to be here because we've been here before, but just on the other side of this balcony, there is a gazebo that they use for weddings here that laura wiped clean. took it all the way down and i watched that happen from inside my room and it's hard to believe that those were 150-mile-an-hour winds and we're not even standing in probably close to 100-mile-an-hour wind that gives you a perspective if you think you can make it in one of these storms or if you think you want to get out and about, do not. it's not safe. my crew is in a safe place right now. they're just inside the hotel

room in a very dry, warm place i've got a balcony to hold on to right here so you can see. but if there's ever any proof of what a category 2 hurricane is capable of, you're looking at it right now, shep. we're in the middle of it. that eye wall if it's not on us, it's about to be any minute right now. and i can't help but feel for everyone in lake charles when i drove through those neighborhoods today talking to those few people that stood behind with debris piled on the sidewalks, blue tarps over so many roofs, and you can only wonder what it's going to look like this time tomorrow when this storm passes. the saddest part of all is that we still have a significant amount of hurricane season to go, shep and these people, the storm fatigue is setting in. it's a trauma of sorts and so right now in the midst of all this, you have to look at

the longer impact and the wear and tear that delta is going to leave behind on this community. >> your heart breaks for hem morgan, thanks i want to show our viewers something that's been happening. this eye, it's breaking up you see that, the eye walls have collapsed in just the last 15 minutes or so. part of this is about it coming ashore obviously the fuel isn't there and it begins to lose shape, but it had really been happening throughout the afternoon i've been watching these things for 30 years in many of your homes, previously in another place. but the great thing about this place, we have the resources of cnbc, nbc news, telemundo stations and nbc owned and operated stations and one of the best forecasters and hurricane people i know is meteorologist steve mclaughlin with us krae crazy hurricane season for the gulf and louisiana tell us how they have been battered all year. >> shep, good evening. keep this in mind. only once before in the history

of keeping tropical records back in 2005 have we made it into the greek alphabet back in that year gamma and delta both happened in mid-november we're in the first week of october and already we have those two storms and this mess right here, these are all the landfalls in the gulf coast in 2020 of tropical storms or hurricanes we've got hannah that was padre island, texas we've got sally, came across south florida and up toward the florida/alabama border but then laura, cristobal, laura, delta this blue right here, that's laura, came in with winds of 150. it gall strongot stronger, up t 4 as it approached right here we have delta shep, check this out 14 miles, 14-mile difference between two landfalls in the same season. >> zoom in on the worst of it if you could, steve.

>> let's zoom on out and show you where the center of the storm is right now you were talking about that eye wall it's right up there at about i-10 on the big picture you can see where the heaviest rain is there's i-10 so lake charles, lafayette, williams, oakdale, dry creek, ft. polk these are the areas in the worst of it right now. >> steve, thanks i need to get to greg hennigan, the general manager of the golden nugget hotel and casino right there at lake charles. i think the worst of it is on you. what are you seeing? >> it's pretty fierce out there but the wind is roaring back there. >> is this about what you expected have you been able to survey at all? >> yes, i stuck around for hurricane laura as well so we kind of knew what to expect. it's right on us. >> how in the world can you recover when you keep getting hit over and over again? >> it's frustrating, very frustrating. it's got to be frustrating for our first responders that are

with us as well, to go out and start from square one again. so it's tough. >> you have evacuees there too, right? how do you deal with covid amid these storms >> safety is still our top priority so we're still enforcing the mask policy and social distancing. but we do have over 500 first responders staying with us and they're ready to get to work tomorrow morning after this passes. >> i was going to ask you, what is your plan tomorrow? i know what you do the day after a storm, you go outside and start picking up, but you've been doing that for six weeks. >> yeah, exactly and so tomorrow morning we'll have to go out and assess the damage i'm hearing we're suffering some roof damage already. we're on generator power right now. we are without water but we went through this with hurricane laura. we were without power and water for a few weeks so we know how to deal with it. >> greg hennigan, good luck to you, appreciate it i want to go to russel hono

honore now you may remember in the days after katrina when everything was unbelievably destroyed and no one quite knew what to do, he came in and got us organized he coordinated the military relief efforts across the entire gulf south you ought to be getting a little rain there how are you? >> doing fine. a lot better than those folks out there surviving those torrential rain, wind, and then the trauma of going through this twice in six weeks, shep. >> lake charles, lafayette, new iberia, it's just that whole region again >> absolutely. you've had great coverage over the last half hour i've listened to the mayor and some business people that have highlighted the dilemma we're in, and you've eloquently in your own expert way told this story over the last 45 minutes but i think we need to focus on

making sure that the government understands this is not normal we need a new fema model that's going to take into account that this community was fighting covid with very high unemployment, because of the entertainment industry and the restaurant and other industries in this region that oil production was down many of the oil workers and people who work in the energy business, the third largest energy producer in the united states. >> that's all shut down. >> we're going to need a different kind of model from the white house. the old fema model is not working. >> what do you mean? do you mean organizationally what do you mean you need a new model? speak to me. >> well, i tell you what, fema has done a good job in this initial response, in the response phase getting the blue roofs on with the corps of engineers

great work over 6,000 tarps on. they have been present they have done everything i know the governor has asked for but when it comes to the amount of this money the state is going to have to pay back, pay 25% or even 10% of this back, the state is still paying back from katrina because of their portion of the expenses that go with cleaning up and taking care of people we need a new model and we need speed, shep. the houses from harvey, irma and maria have not been replaced, shep now we see this area that's been devastated by two storms in five weeks using that same model. we have to find ways to tell people yes this place had high unemployment because of the covid the oil patch is down and now we've been hit by two

hurricanes we're going to need a different model to help these people what they have done so far has been great work but the next phase is helping get people back in their home. we have a need for speed, shep. >> i don't have to tell you, general, that they haven't put more money in, they pulled money out. the budget is smaller, the agency is smaller, the need is greater. >> absolutely, shep. i'm glad you're telling that story tonight with the mayor on the ground talking about the pain and suffering but as we talk about the pain, there's been good news we've had volunteers from red cross, salvation army, from all over the country we even had first responders drove down from connecticut, shep, and came to search and rescue we've been blessed, but the need is great we're the second poorest state in america the nation needs louisiana 52% of all the barges in the

united states are in louisiana on any given day 35% of the fuel come out of that gulf between lake charles and houston. we are valuable to the economy of the nation. because oil prices are bad, people tomorrow will not wake up and pay $5 a gallon for gas. that's good news but that means a lot of our people are out of work we're in a state and we need an intervention from the senate to help the people from louisiana and we need those volunteers to continue to come back. we're so grateful for everything the government has done and what volunteers have done, but the need exceeds the capacity we have now to take care of our people. >> lieutenant general russel honore, it is an honor, sir. thank you so much. >> good evening, sir. >> it's so easy to forget when you watch the wind and the rain and the reporters in their shiny jackets and the guy standing on the big wall that these are

individual people and how badly they are hurting and have been hurting. louisiana got wrecked by katrina and as general honore just put it, they have never fully recovered. now southwestern louisiana has been hit twice in six weeks. they're individual people who don't have jobs because covid took them away, who don't have roofs because laura took them away, and it's wet in their homes with their children tonight. this isn't an idea or a concept, it's not a statistic, it's real. it's human beings who are wet and will be for days to come they need help we'll have more in a moment.

we've been watching this from a storm chaser as the water has been rising up this building that's the storm surge coming in and it had been anticipated and it's happening i can give you some numbers. we're now expecting 2 to 4 feet around the mouth of the mississippi river, 1 to 3 feet along lake pontchartrain, and the worst of this is coming in now and the numbers are -- the storm surge they're now saying about 11 feet. and that's where the worst of it's going to be, right around lake calcashu which is around lake lafayette

compare that to hurricane katrina which came in not in louisiana but in south mississippi. sure, new orleans flooded, it was horrifying, but the storm hit south mississippi. and in south mississippi they had a 31-foot storm surge. 31 feet. so the entire town of waveland, mississippi, all of it, was removed from the planet. in some places the foundation of the building, the concrete foundation was eroded to the point where it broke apart and went away and you couldn't even find the slab. think of it. it pushed pieces of houses for two miles to a railroad track for 30 miles across the state of mississippi. it was gone and piled up like firewood this is not that storm this has a storm surge at its highest about 10, 11 feet. it has a lot of rain there are areas, jackson, mississippi, may end up with 16 inches out of this thing it will rain all the way up in

new orleans. it's not a killer storm. but you want to live through it? wendy harper is living through it she's in lake charles, louisiana. in late august, her home caregiver business was destroyed by hurricane laura we introduced you to her on the news earlier this week this is lake charles wendy, i'm so glad to see you. how are you? >> good. hanging in there it's getting a little scary. we lost power about an hour or so ago about three hours ago we started having raining upstairs and water coming through -- >> into the house? >> so we're going around emptying buckets in the house, yes. so we're emptying buckets every hour setting up little rigs of ice chests and hoses so it's been crazy. >> how are you smiling and laughing through all of this >> well, i don't know. i think it's just try to get through it all landfall probably happened about 30 minutes ago, so we're seeing

a lot of high gusts now. we actually just about ten minutes ago watched two trees just crack so it's pretty interesting but a little scary. >> wendy ran a place with 50 home caregivers. they go to people's homes, mostly older people and help them one of her workers took an elderly man with her on a multi-day, multi-week, shelter-to-shelter expedition. how are they >> they're doing okay. they actually had a little bit of a nightmare story yesterday she evacuated with two handicapped patients this time and with one other caregiver and they had prepaid for airbnb in houston, texas it took them about ten hours to get there. when they got there, the owner of the airbnb wouldn't respond to them or answer the phone. of course she prepaid it so she was stuck in the middle of the night and had to find a hotel room so we got her situated today in a new airbnb. >> she's a hero. >> she's a hero for sure.

>> there's a hero in every storm. every storm has a hero and she's one. >> and we recognize that i promised her a spa day when things got better. >> she has a teenage son there she is takes elderly people with her on her trek of evacuation, and now she got run over by an airbnb owner because some people are bad and some people are good and she's good >> she's very good she's very good. she's a single mom she puts her kids through catholic school here, catholic private school and i'm very proud of her she's amazing. >> we're proud of all of you, we're thinking about you and we're not going to forget you. i've got to get to the storm chaser, jordan hallow is with us jordan hall, what are you seeing in lake arthur >> we're starting to see some pretty decent damage going on, a couple of feet of water in some places the power lines are down some trees are down on quite a few power lines as well.

>> is it about what you expected, jordan i see a lot of power lines down. i see a lot of cars underwater, a lot of roads washed out. >> yeah, this is kind of what you expect, especially with a hurricane. it's pretty bad to say especially after what laura just did to this community and seeing these businesses go through this again is pretty tough. >> it sure is. and i know all you storm chasers have been out there. these are live pictures now from one of the other storm chasers it looks like -- i mean they told us there would be a bad storm surge and a lot of coastal eroding and they weren't wrong >> yeah, no. i know we're just on the northern tip of lake arthur and there is some pretty big waves coming in on there a lot of water surging in a little bit, so -- >> all right, man. be careful. >> yep, thank you. i appreciate it. >> so this will go on all night

in southwest louisiana the storm is between lake charles and this is lafayette right here if you can push in just a little bit there in 30 rock there we go. so that's where the eye is coming through it's going to move at about 14 miles an hour and it's just going to keep heading north. see natchez, mississippi, right up there on the corner tip historic, gorgeous place, incredible they're going to get spanked same with jackson, mississippi, ant and then up to tupelo, mississippi, and up in nashville by the end of the weekend it will be wet and you will be weary. it's great to have all these resources and be able to tell these stories. these stories are about people they're not about statistics and government and spats between one side and the other, they are individual victims of so many things right now in our society. think of the people who have lost their job because of covid-19, then lost their roofs because of the last hurricane, and are now losing hope.

that's how it is for some folks. the news continues and we'll continue to report nashville, good luck over the weekend. jackson, be careful. natchez, it's going to be a long night. night. we'll have you covered from the >> narrator: in this episode of "american greed"... the ringleaders of a&o resource management are putting an old twist on a new scam. >> the a&o management were incredibly bold, brazen, and creative in the quantity and quality of lies that they devised. >> narrator: they take a legitimate business and pervert it into a $100 million life-insurance fraud. >> they believe that they can outsmart the authorities, and they certainly believe they can outsmart investors. >> narrator: but a&o is just a lie that grows, devouring the guilty and the innocent.