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