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You can see the smoke on the ridge here. I mean, here's a closer look. You can see just how much is going. We're going to go back uh to the other side. Keep an eye on this fire. People started evacuating out and the fire department said it was okay for us to stay. This fire moving very, very quickly in this area. The winds starting to pick up now. this morning ahead of Hurricane Ida. It is an absolute ghost town on Bourbon Street. This is the French Quarter. So, the hope is that these buildings will be able to survive what could be the worst
hurricane ever to make landfall in the state of Louisiana. I'm Jonathan Petramala and I'm a documentarian journalist for 20 years. I focus on extreme weather. Hurricane Ida is heading towards New Orleans, a part of the country that I have a huge place in my heart for and it makes you hurt because you know that place that you love is not going to be the same the day after. My partner Brandon and I get there beforehand to document what's happening. We are west of the storm. We have ominous news coming from the hurricane hunters as they continue to track Hurricane Ida. It is strengthening. It is sustained winds at 150 mph. As a
journalist, you don't want to scare anybody, but we have seen what can happen with Hurricane Katrina. And you have a hurricane stronger than Katrina heading for that same spot. It's terrifying. I was born in New Orleans and since Katrina young, we kind of learned to just ride storms out. My kids and my wife, we stayed in New Orleans. That morning, kids kind of was running around still playing and then you see people making last preparations. You see people ordering up their houses and it started to get a little quiet. You know, it started to get a little dark. The sky started to get a little dark. You can feel the wind blowing, but we figured, hey, this storm can't be a Katrina.
All right. Now, we just got the 11:00 a.m. update. Landfall will probably happen a little bit before noon with a category 4 185 mileph winds. Those 185 mile perph winds are going to be right in here and that is going to just hammer Port Fushon and Grand Dial. Oh yeah, that's going to fly. It was the morning of the storm. We were watching our local news and we would just slowly watch it getting closer and closer to us. Once the power was out, we were just left in the dark. things started slowly intensifying and I had my Nikon camera so I just was like, man, I'll just take a couple of videos to show people what these storms are about.
Get it, Tommy. Hurry up. We made the last minute decision to stay. It was just It was a split-second decision. We weren't prepared for it, but of course we thought we were, but you really can't prepare for something like that. There it went. Oh, the machine was coming off. OH, there the whole house came down. Holy. No, not really. The storm kept getting stronger and stronger. If this house falls down, I'm going to get hurt for sure. I know I don't talk to you often over the next several hours, but right now this is serious situation. I need your strength. Please do Lord. to keep this house in one piece.
Please keep this house in one piece. All you could do is just really hunker down and just pray for the best, you know. Oh my god. I don't think we're there yet. Be honest for y'all. I don't think this is it. Not good, y'all. They're not good. The hurricane is making its way from the coast up towards where we are in New Orleans. You can already see the outer bands here. Hurricane Ida. Those clouds are moving around and that cyclonic action might be one of the worst days in history for Louisiana or New Orleans.
We're constantly scanning through radar as well as satellite because these storms make little adjustments on their path. We're getting close to the hive right now. We're starting to lose all the roofs. It's unbelievable. You got this tractor trailer that's coming. tractor trailer right here. Hurricane Ida is a major hurricane and it's heading right towards the biggest population center for the state of Louisiana because New Orleans is essentially in a bowl. The most dangerous part of a hurricane is not the wind, it's the water.
So this is the storm reduction system behind me. You can see the floodgate blocking the highway. This is Highway 90. And you can see what's ahead of me, the storm surge. Just the beginning of it. This is what these leveies were rebuilt for. Hurricane Ida is going to be the first real test this has had since they were rebuilt after Katrina. Possibility of 15 to 20 inches of rain in New Orleans. Your concerns about that? We are seeing life-threatening flash flooding from this intense rainfall, life-threatening storm surges. In September of 2024, I was living in an apartment complex right on the Swanoa River. My younger sister and her fianceé
uh live in the same building as I do. That morning, the river was high, but we've seen the river flood over the road before. That's nothing new. We are seeing evacuation notices, but we're not really thinking that this is any different than anything we've seen before. Some flooding and we'll be all right tomorrow. We're in the thick of tropical storm. All the wind and rain really just picking up in the last hour or two. My name is Jonathan Low and I am a reporter with the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina.
This is the Swan Noah River. Just within the last hour, those rushing waters have eliminated about a foot of space. That river was violent. I can see that the situation is escalating and it's escalating fast. I mean, that's got to be what, a couple feet in the last hour, hour and a half. We started really to notice that maybe this was going to be a little bit bigger of an issue than usual when we started seeing some debris coming down the river side of the building. Oh, the scale is just crazy. I've never seen water rise that fast. We're pretty terrified. There's not really a way out of the building for us.
Let loose. Oh, that's not great. as we're watching the river, debris keeps getting bigger. I'm looking up river and I can see a massive object coming right at us. Hey, there's a building coming. It's going to hit the corner. Yep. This is the scariest moment. If it does hit us, I'm convinced it'll knock the foundation out of the building of our corner of the building. Oh, come on, baby. Miss us. It's going to hit the pole though right here. My name is Jonathan Bigliotti. I'm a national correspondent with CBS News.
Leading up to January 2025, the last measurable rainfall had been 8 months prior. You had vegetation that had been dried out during the summer. It becomes the perfect tinder for a fire. You suddenly have all of the ingredients for the perfect storm. At any moment, something could spark. But I had no idea the scale of this disaster I was about to cover. Just to give you guys a heads up, uh, currently it's a 10acre brush fire heavy fuel on top of a ridge line. It is 100% in alignment with the wind.
Hey, it's Amanda Stantino. Um, I am trying to get information about a fire in Malibu. I'm Amanda Stantino and I'm a reporter for CBS News Los Angeles. We had no idea what we were driving into and we just followed the smoke. We are in Pacific Palisades where a fire just started. You can see just how intense this smoke is. You see people are quickly evacuating. It literally looked like a movie scene and people just yelling at each other, "We got to go, we got to go. We got to go." It was not okay and you knew something bad was happening. You can see the smoke on the ridge here. I mean, here's a closer look. You can see just how much is going. We're going to go back uh to the other side. Keep an eye on this fire.
People started evacuating out and the fire department said it was okay for us to stay. This fire moving very, very quickly in this area. The winds starting to pick up now. It's got really, really, really hot. The smoke overtakes your throat. It just literally feels like you're burning, but you're not even touching it. The conditions of the winds was completely unprecedented. And with how dry it was, the area was just a tinder box ready to go.
It was about an hour into the Palisades fire. Me and my producer, we made our way up this street trying to find a perfect live shot, trying to find a place that really hits home the trauma and tragedy that a community is going through. This home is going to go up in flames. There are not firefighters around here. They're simply stretched too thin. You can't even see through the smoke. This entire mountain side is covered in flames. The wind pushing them up to 50 ft into the sky. This neighborhood under threat right now. At least five homes destroyed and you've got people in panic as they're trying to evacuate.
You have 23,000 people that live in the Palisades. This fire is closing in around them on all sides. Not that there's information, real time information that they need to pay attention to. There's a fire, Dad. You see it? Where's the fire? Right here. Look at to your right, Dad. There's one of the fires. My name is Aaron Samson. My dad, he wasn't doing so well. He was kind of bedridden for the last week and a half. Are you okay? That's really close to my house. We just got in the car and, you know, tried to get out of there. Fires everywhere.
Right here. And there's a fire just a few feet from us. Another one right there with our law enforcement on fire. You realize, oh my god, now we're actually surrounded neighborhood. It also includes the western section of Sunset Boulevard. So, this area has gotten doubled in size. Also looks like it's extended to paint. Police officer started yelling at everybody, "Get out of your vehicles. Go, go, go. We've just been evacuated." This is crazy. We're having to walk. We got to No, not that way, Dad. Okay, Yeah.
Okay, I got you. He's very wobbly here. Which way do I go at? This way, Dad. To the sidewalk. Let me guess. To the sidewalk, Dad. Let me get the walker. No, no. I'll get the walker. Dad, just get to the sidewalk. Where's the sidewalk? Over here, Dad. Look, they're pulling. They're pulling over. No, no. This is a car. Come here, Dad. You know it's a car. I'm trying to get in front of it. They've just kicked us out of our car.
Okay, just walk alongside the car. Okay, GRAB THIS POLE. HAVE THIS PULL. THANK YOU. I'M GOING TO get your walker done. Hold on to that. Okay. It's a little windy today. It's the beginning of the wind season across much of the southern tier. They can easily gust over 70 mph. And when it's been extremely dry, as it has here, it can kick up dust, known as haboos. That's an Arabic word to describe literally a blast of sand or dust. And it can be blinding. Hey everyone, I am currently in Amarello, Texas right now.
Sign's tearing apart. I had to back up. I was parked right there. Matter of time, that thing's flying across the road. I'd find a spot to pull over cuz the wind is getting worse. So, the winds are picking up dramatically. I know that the highway is not a safe spot. We need to back up. Oh my god. I don't know what's going on, but they need to shut this down. There it goes. The visibility is almost zero in a lot of locations around Earl. So if you don't have to drive, do not drive. Um it's not a good idea. At this moment, Amarillo is a no drive zone.
The dust is making the situation way dangerous. You already have pileups, wrecks happening everywhere. Just looking at the devastation, it felt like there was a lot of fatalities. At this point in time, our computer models are saying this is just the beginning. The leninia infused jetream producing huge storm systems is minutes away from producing multiple tornadoes across Missouri and Arkansas.
