Buildings boarded up as Francine approaches the Gulf Coast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Morgan City, Louisiana, with final preparations underway before Francine's expected Sept. 11 landfall.

Transcript

00:00Morgan City, Louisiana is going to be, if you know, we had to name one city that

00:05may face the absolute worst impacts. Well, like a moth to a flame, Tony Laubach

00:11find himself in that place once again. And Tony, Morgan City is going to be

00:15dealing with a big-time storm surge, wind, all kinds of problems out there. So how

00:19are you bracing for this one?

00:23Well, Jeff, it's interesting when you, you know, we always talk about this,

00:27especially as I come as a convective storm chaser, a tornado chaser. Usually

00:31you get in in the morning, things are over in a couple hours. It's a very

00:34different story when you come out here to track a report on hurricanes, and

00:37especially so the night before, because really it's just very, very quiet. It's

00:42just been kind of a gloomy day. We've had a light rain that has been falling. We

00:46landed in New Orleans. We actually had a pretty smooth landing, despite getting

00:49into some clouds and rain. They've had over an inch and a half of rain there at

00:52the airport in New Orleans. Out here, about the same, but it's been more off

00:56and on here. We haven't seen the steady rains, haven't really had much in the way

00:59of thunder either, but the wind's a very gentle breeze. If you were completely

01:04unaware that anything was going to be happening tomorrow, you would have

01:07absolutely no clue that we were going to be in store for such a dramatic change

01:11in what you mentioned, less than 24 hours. We'll just show you some of the

01:14video, because there have been some preps done here. We've only been in town a

01:17couple of hours, and it didn't take long to find some areas that were boarded up

01:20here in Morgan City. We saw several gas stations, convenience stores, a lot of

01:24them closed down, the gas pumps turned off, and the windows boarded up. We saw a

01:28few of these buildings, surprisingly not as many as you would think. I think a lot

01:33of people here still kind of rushing some of their prep work, but we didn't

01:36see a lot of people out and about. Even got into a couple of the shopping

01:39centers here as we were stocking up on a few supplies ourselves. Not a lot of

01:43people in some of these shopping centers. In fact, I saw more people stocking up on

01:47Halloween decorations than I did see for any real hurricane preparations, although

01:51we ended up having to get a little bit more water, because a lot of the smaller

01:54water packs were sold out where we were at. So, folks are taking those

01:59precautions. They are getting as well set up. Obviously, power outages, despite how

02:03strong the hurricane is going to be, certainly will be an issue for folks in

02:06this part. And of course, we all remember just a couple of years ago when we had

02:09Ida that rolled through this general area, so this is still fresh in their

02:14minds for a lot of these folks out here. But again, hopefully we're not going to

02:18be dealing with anything as significant as we saw with Ida out this way. You

02:21mentioned the storm surge threat. That's going to be an issue for us here in the

02:24Morgan City area as well, and those winds are certainly going to be pretty

02:27powerful. You see behind me here, it's getting a little bit on the darker side,

02:31but you've got a lot of elevated freeways. So certainly, once you get

02:34someplace tonight, stay in. Don't get out and about on the roads here. A lot of

02:38these elevated highways. It was one thing I remember from Ida, particularly as we

02:42were out traveling around. You're really susceptible to some of those higher winds

02:46as we get up to the higher elevations, though, on some of these bridges. And then

02:49this highway here, Highway 90, is pretty much completely elevated through the

02:53city. And this is kind of the area where it opens up a little bit, so the winds a

02:56little less inhibited in some of the city areas as opposed to more of the

03:00denser trees. And then of course, you've got the trees that are going to come

03:02down on the highway. So those are all going to be big concerns, despite us only

03:05getting to about a Cat 2 tomorrow, Jeff. And of course, we've been tracking as

03:09we've been going through the day here, just that slight eastward shift. It's

03:13something we're going to wake up tomorrow and kind of look at as well,

03:15because if we need to adjust ourselves a little bit to the east, we are going to

03:19go ahead and work our way east as we kind of stay in line with landfall

03:22between here and, say, Biloxi. Kind of that whole area is going to be an area

03:26we're going to be watching tomorrow with great intent as we head out the door in

03:29the morning. And it's certainly good to have wheels in situations like these

03:33here. Be mobile, be able to pivot west and east. Thanks for that report there,

03:36Tony. I know it's going to be a very busy and active day for you as you're right

03:39in the line of fire. Morgan City, Louisiana. Tony Law back there. Storm

03:44chaser, meteorologist extraordinaire.

Category

Transcript

Recommended