good afternoon everyone and thank you all for being here we're covering this and everyone out there who's watching wherever you might be today i'm joined by benjamin schatt with the national weather service in new orleans and he will in just a few moments give you the latest update on hurricane ida dr joe cantor with the louisiana department of health will speak in a minute on covet and health considerations as we prepare for and respond to this hurricane we also have on hand today chip klein with cpra general keith waddell of the louisiana national guard colonel lamar davis with the louisiana state police and also secretary jack moniset with the department of wildlife and fisheries and jim wascom with gosep and they will be available at the end of the presentation in order to take any questions that you might want to direct to them i want to start by acknowledging that today is the one year anniversary of hurricane laura and while much progress has been made there's still a long road of recovery left as it relates to the recovery from hurricane loris particularly in southwest louisiana and here we are today faced with another storm setting its sights on louisiana this time southeast louisiana we have some very significant updates for you what i can tell you is hurricane ida is rapidly intensifying and the situation is changing it seems by the hour we now believe that there is a strong likelihood that this will be a category 4 hurricane at landfall that's how quickly the storm is developing i can tell you that i had an opportunity a short while ago to speak with the national hurricane center ken graham and he indicated that the storm is sort of ahead of schedule meaning they had projected it would be at a certain strength at a certain time and is beating those projections and what this means is the rapid intensification is happening uh as was expected it's just happening to a greater degree or at least faster than expected so we have a very serious situation on our hands and it's important that everyone take advantage of all the opportunities that you have all the time that you have to adequately prepare yourself and your family and make sure that you stay calm and that that you do those things that are required to put you and your family in the best possible position to successfully weather the storm hurricane ida is presently projected to make landfall somewhere between terrebonne and st mary parishes on sunday evening by tomorrow night tropical storm force winds will begin to move onto the coast of louisiana and so the next 24 hours are very very important now is the time to finish your preparations and i want to encourage everyone to understand that by nightfall tomorrow night you need to be where you intend to ride out the storm and you need to be postured as you would want to be as that storm approaches you make sure that you're paying attention to your family to your pets to elderly loved ones and neighbors last night i was able to send a letter to president biden requesting a pre-landfall federal emergency declaration i am very pleased to announce that he approved it earlier today and we are very grateful for the fact that he approved it and he did so very quickly uh i was able to speak to the president uh just a few moments ago and i will tell you i was able to thank him personally but this declaration is a key part of us being able to respond to hurricane ida and and really to prepare in advance of landfall yesterday as you all probably know i also issued a state of emergency declaration for the state of louisiana and so both my declaration and the federal declaration issued by the president are for the entire state of louisiana as it happens yesterday i was in lake charles with administrator criswell of fema at the time that we received the weather briefing 10 o'clock yesterday morning which was the first time that we really received notice of a forecasted storm that could be a hurricane when it hit louisiana and we were able to start our coordinations and communications at that time earlier today was with health and human services secretary basara in new orleans as well and able to thank him for his disaster medical assistance teams and all of the assets that they had previously sent to louisiana with respect to the covet emergency that are going to be much more important now that they're going to continue to work in their capacity as covid but but as this storm develops and then there are additional hhs resources that are being brought to bear right now as it relates to the storm so i had an opportunity to coordinate with him as well at this time i'm going to ask ben of the national weather service to come up and give us all the latest on what is a very serious storm and then i will come back up and give some additional remarks after that and we will take uh questions as well ben oh there you are thank you governor good afternoon everyone hurricane ida quickly developed into a hurricane way ahead of schedule just like the governor mentioned right now all forecasts tend to look to it will be a pretty strong category four when it makes landfall on the coast of louisiana sometime on sunday afternoon or evening at that time it's possible that we could have sustained winds getting close to 140 miles per hour with wind gusts close to or in excess of 170 miles per hour this is stronger than laura from last year this will be a life-altering storm for those who aren't prepared and ready to take what ida is going to throw at us later this weekend as you can see on the track here it's going to be crossing across a pristine environmental conditions for a hurricane to continue to develop if not rapidly develop which is why we're pretty confident about the category 4 forecast moving forward for landfall on sunday as the governor mentioned it looks to hit somewhere there close to the central portion of the coastline and then work its way into the central portion of the state this is where i think we can remember a little bit about also what laura did because i think we'll see some similar conditions here where you have a storm moving at around 15 or so miles per hour directly into the center of the state you are going to have a significant large path of wind damage trees down power outages and concerns uh from that wind over 100 miles per hour working way inland and i'll show some graphics to give the exact extent of that kind of push of the wind later on there are multiple other threats with this storm a lot of folks will focus on the category and they should in this case with it being a category four it does have um you know obviously a significant win threat but there are other significant threats that are life-threatening as well and i'll kind of work my way through some of those through the rest of the briefing here as the governor mentioned this is the earliest time that we expect to see the beginning of conditions starting to deteriorate if you notice on the graphic there it shows it being somewhere late saturday night into early sunday morning spreading into the state the color part of the graphic there is the percentage that we will see tropical storm force winds as you can see almost all of southern and southeastern louisiana are an excessive 70 or 80 percent chance for uh you know tropical storm winds at least so this is definitely something for everyone to prepare for i show this graphic here also to try to remove the i'm only interested in the center line part of the mississippi and portions of central louisiana and that is something that everybody including baton rouge lafayette you need to be prepared for that possibility this weekend as you move a little bit further to the east north shore area of the new orleans area there covington mandeville slidell it's still possible you could see a winds gusting from 74 up to over 100 miles per hour again you do not have to be near the center of this storm to have significant impacts winds of 100 miles per hour will do significant damage to post both trees and and possibly the power grid for exposed lines so for those who are in those areas i would definitely consider in this time left to make sure that you have consideration for what you would do if you were without power as we move later on in the weekend surge is another uh devastating threat is probably one of the number one killers when it comes to hurricanes and straw horn canes so across most of the southern and the southeastern portions of the coastline we're talking about extreme surge a 10 to 15 feet surge possible from the mouth of mississippi west to about morgan city from morgan city to intercoastal city just a little bit less of that roughly around six to nine and then three to five to the texas line as you go the other way and you work your way from the eastern portion of the mouth and wrap around the boot up towards the tidal lakes um you can see uh 7 to 11 on uh the boot portion of the louisiana coast and then in the tidal lakes four to seven so again the extent of the impacts are going to be far away from where this makes landfall so for anyone with coastal interests understand that you will see a significant amount of water move in and depending on how large the field grows to and the movement and speed these numbers may increase as we move a little bit closer to the storm making landfall so that is definitely something for for folks to watch because higher amounts like that obviously will bring a lot much larger amount of risk especially possible in the tidal lakes area where there may not be a full levee system for everybody to be protected rainfall is another huge uh issue with this storm we're talking 10 to 15 inches of rainfall over a large portion of southeastern louisiana there may be pockets of 15 to 20 plus depending on the speed and location of these bands setting up with the rainfall that we're expecting today that happened already today excuse me and tomorrow on top of the effects from ida itself there could be significant inland river flooding and so with that everywhere that you see the the purple there across southeast louisiana is where we're looking for the possibility of extreme flooding to occur this is right on the edge of the city of new orleans so obviously we could have some water problems there and that'll be something we'll have to consider as well as things set up but i i just want to highlight again that it's not just the wind threat here that could do most of the devastation it's the water threat that's usually one that ends up being the biggest killer and unfortunately a lot of people tend to try to move around when they start to get worried or scared as the storm starts to come in and this is probably the worst time to move especially with this coming in on sunday evening sunday night as you go in the night time you do not want to be trying to drive around when we're seeing heavy rains that could be creating all sorts of river or or flooding that could cause your car to go off the road and into into water and then unfortunately you know put you at a severe risk for loss of life so just a quick overview of the threats here the confidence is fairly high on the track the track really hasn't budged for uh the last day or two we are becoming more and more certain when it comes to the intensity that cat 4 at landfall looks pretty much like it's a really solid forecast now and with that all the threats of a very large storm with a little bit larger wind field are in play with the surge and the heavy rainfall the one other thing that i did not mention is the possibility of tornadoes as well and so as this comes on shore especially on the eastern side of the shore which will encompass much of southeast louisiana and portions of coastal mississippi and southwest mississippi they'll be under the gun for possible tornadic spin-ups which is very normal for land falling hurricanes so there are multiple threats there are multiple things for people to be watching and keeping their eye on and making sure that they're prepared for because again i'll start off with the same comment that i started with is i believe unfortunately this is going to be a life altering storm for many people and so the actions that you do now are what can prepare you to make sure that you can successfully navigate what ida is going to throw at us with that uh thank you thank you ben and uh i don't know about you but that's a very sobering assessment of what we can expect with hurricane ida and i guess the the biggest challenge is not just the strength of the storm but how quickly uh it is approaching after its initial formation and we don't have uh the normal time that we typically have in order to prepare for a hurricane of this magnitude and that's why it's important that everybody take advantage of every minute that you have we have announced that state offices in 38 parishes will be closed on saturday august the 28th through monday august the 30th and we may be announcing additional closures on sunday but we know these will be closed saturday through monday and i'm going to go through those for just a minute acadia allen ascension assumption of oils beauregard calcium cameron east baton rouge east feliciana evangeline iberia ibraville jefferson davis jefferson lafayette lafourche livingston orleans plaquemines point copy rapid i'm sorry repeats saint bernard saint charles saint helena saint james saint john the baptist saint landry saint martin saint mary saint tammany tangipahoa terrebonne vermillion vernon washington west baton rouge and west feliciano i want to remind everyone please do not drive once conditions deteriorate that's why it's important that you do everything possible in advance and get to the place where you want to ride out the storm if for some reason you absolutely have to get on the road make sure that you are mindful of debris down power lines and flooded roadways do not drive around dotd barricades and if you see standing water please turn around don't drown i encourage you to use 511la.org or the 511la app to see what state routes are open or closed because of the weather or other causes and if necessary find alternate routes before you actually get underway dotd also partners with google maps and waze which are also travel resources that are especially beneficial in times like these the cpra is tracking 692 gates across the coastal zone as of earlier today a total of 182 of those are closed we are anticipating the full closure of major floodgates in the hurricane risk reduction system around the greater new orleans area the morganza to the gulf and the larose to golden meadow we are aware of voluntary and or mandatory evacuations in five parishes these orders differ depending upon where you live in the parish so if you live in jefferson lafourche orleans plaquemines or tashbo please refer to your local officials for instructions on evacuations and whoever you are and wherever you live or where you happen to be make sure you're paying close attention to your local officials especially the offices of emergency preparedness and parish presidents and so forth and follow their guidance currently the louisiana national guard has over 1600 guardsmen on duty preparing for this hurricane but also doing all of their normal coved operations as well i've authorized general waddell to activate the entirety of the louisiana national guard there will be more than 5 000 soldiers available to respond search and rescue assets are currently staged in 13 parishes we do have 64 high water vehicles 60 boats and 13 helicopters ready to support and assist the citizens of louisiana the department of transportation and development led by secretary sean wilson uh and his team they've mobilized their high water signs and barricades and other equipment that may be needed to address issues related to the storm this equipment will be utilized when it is appropriate to do so through an existing contract dotd currently has more than 70 coach buses and 20 parrot transit smaller buses in louisiana they are staged at two vehicle staging areas one in the new orleans area one in the lafayette area by tomorrow morning we will have a total of 125 buses staged in louisiana the majority will be at the new orleans vehicle staging area this afternoon just a little while ago i did direct that the saints preseason game with the cardinals be cancelled now that we've had update on the weather forecast and the severity of the storm is increasing and knowing how valuable every minute is for people to be preparing for this storm i did not believe it was appropriate for there to be an nfl preseason game taking place on saturday afternoon knowing that we're asking people by dark tomorrow night or bedtime tomorrow night whatever you have you want to say it that they be postured and located wherever they need to be and how they need to be to ride out the storm it's never too early to start talking about post storm safety as well and i will remind you that in hurricane laura we actually lost more people after the storm than we did during the storm to things like generator safety because of carbon monoxide poisoning to people who who were exercising uh using chainsaws and on roofs and that sort of things and and heat related issues as well so everyone please be mindful of this and and there is a very good likelihood that for some period of time a considerable part of our state will be without power not that we're not doing everything we can to make sure that we can respond quickly i can tell you there are already five thousand linemen in the state ready to respond and almost 12 000 more postured to come in when they're called but there's going to be a period of time if the past is any indication at least where many louisiana's be without power many of those will rely on generators please make sure that you have those located well away from your home at least 20 feet not in a crawl space not next to a window and certainly not indoors or in a garage and when you refuel the generator let it cool off for at least 20 minutes before you do that finally i know that the fact that we're still in a pandemic makes this much more difficult for everyone as we prepare for and respond to uh this hurricane but the pandemic isn't going to leave just because it's more inconvenient and so we just have to deal with it um and i'm going to ask dr cantor to come up uh he will briefly go over today's numbers as well as some other safety tips because as we have one of the concerns that i have is we're going to have tens or hundreds of thousands of people moving around louisiana at a time when our percent positivity although it's improved it's still well above 10 percent there's an awful lot of cobit out there and transmission remains too high cases and hospitalizations and if anybody has been paying attention to the death reports this week you'll see that we've had some of the highest numbers at any point in the pandemic and and so i'm going to ask him to come up and go through some of the covid related information i will then come back up make a few additional comments and then we'll i'll take your questions good afternoon thank you governor as you heard from ben um from the weather service this is a powerful and dangerous storm um it's moving a little bit faster than we had thought it would be which means that we have a little bit less time to prepare so that's the first message of folks your normal timeline of preparedness for hurricane has been cut down a little bit now so take stock make use of the time tonight tomorrow morning to prepare as the governor just said we are thankful that our coveted numbers have softened just a little bit over the past week in this really unprecedented fourth surge um we have reported out an additional three thousand four hundred and twenty eight new cases of copied today that's on thirty seven thousand five hundred twenty tests and today there are now two thousand six hundred and eighty four covert patients in hospital beds throughout the state that number is down just over 300 count over the past week which is encouraging because we were at a place a week ago where the hospitals just could not take anymore so we are thankful for that but um as the governor said the level of covet out there the amount of transmission out there your risk your chances of being exposed to and infected with covid remain higher today than they have been at any point in the pandemic leading up to the beginning of this fourth search percent positivity has gone down a couple points from our peak but now it's at 14.1 which is still very very high there's a lot of covet out there there's a lot of risk out there and as folks think through what their hurricane plans will look like and their contingencies they need to take stock of how to keep themselves and their family safe from cobit in most circumstances that's going to mean limiting themselves to their family unit as much as possible and when not possible masking and distancing this has been a difficult week we reported earlier in the week our single highest fatality count from kobe to date at 139 deaths we also unfortunately reported out two pediatric covert deaths this week one of which was an infant less than one year old there's still a lot of risk out there the storm is not the only risk out there covid increases the risk please take stock of that please incorporate that into your hurricane plans again if you need to be an environment where you're mingling with people beyond your family unit the things that will keep you safe from a covered perspective are masking and distancing please keep that in mind i'll also like to ask people although our hospitalization census from coping has gone down a little bit it still is higher than it was in any of our three prior surges the hospitals are still very busy the hospitals are still in their own contingency plans many hospitals are still postponing elective procedures please avoid emergency departments unless you need it throughout this storm if you're sick by all means go to an er but if your condition doesn't warrant an emergency department please avoid the ers throughout the storm because we're trying our best to preserve their capacity for what they have on their hands now and anything else they might have to deal with throughout the storm if you have special medical needs including electricity dependency or oxygen dependency do what you need to do right now to prepare contact your vendor make sure you have your supplies stock up be prepared if you need assistance with any of those particularly with oxygen and you don't know where to go start with 2-1-1 there are oxygen pick-up points throughout the state 2-1-1 will have the most up-to-date listing if you need assistance with life-saving medical supplies that you and your family require and you don't know where to go 2-1-1 is the first place to go for that the majority of the kova testing and vaccine sites throughout the state are ramping down right now most south of i-10 have already closed and the remainder will close at around 5 p.m today so please keep up with those sights uh throughout the weekend there won't be much activity of that throughout the weekend if you already had your first dose of coping vaccine and you were scheduled to get a second dose this weekend it's likely that will not happen but that's okay you should schedule you should reschedule that second dose appointment for as soon as possible after the storm rolls through we would like people to get their second doses on the specific date that they're supposed to 21 days after the first for fives or 28 days after the first for mederina but if that's not possible with the storm it's okay to do it later it's okay to do it one week later it's okay to do it three weeks later just remember to do it later so if you have to postpone your second vaccine donors appointment because of the storm get that rescheduled as soon as possible it still is beneficial to you i want to talk for a second about preventable deaths during hurricanes and the governor just mentioned this we want to do all we can to limit preventable deaths during a storm some deaths are not going to be preventable but many deaths are during a storm the number one preventable death is from motor vehicle accidents particularly involving high water last year storm season we had 42 deaths two of which were from motor vehicle accidents in high water and during the floods this past may four of our five deaths were from people driving through high water if you don't need to be on the road during the storm don't and do what you need to do now to enable you not to be on the road then once the winds get above a certain speed first responders are not coming for you fire ems and police are staying put after the winds get above a certain speed which means if you get into an accident you're by yourself until the wind slows down and if you get into an accident involving water they might not be able to get to you at all so please don't put yourself or your family or our first responders in harm's way if you don't absolutely need to be on the roadway during the storm don't stay home once the storm passes as the governor mentioned there are a couple other ways that we see preventable deaths every single storm every single season number one is from unsafe generator use and poisoning by carbon monoxide during last storm season we had nine deaths from carbon monoxide related to unsafe generator usage carbon monoxide is silent you don't know it's there until you or your family dies if you do need a generator it always must be used outside it always must be kept well aware from any air intakes don't keep it in the garage don't keep it in your house don't keep it just below an open window or an open air vent and never use a stove to heat your house or to buy any other type of cooling the other preventable death that we see every storm season is heat exhaustion during last storm season we had another nine people die from heat exhaustion so if you have to do work on your house after the storm rolls through try and avoid the peak of the day stay hydrated and don't push yourself it's not worth it to remind folks again this is this is a fast-moving storm which means you have less time than normal to get yourself and your family prepared if you're going to be evacuating and you're going to be around people beyond your immediate household please mask and please distance it's not worth putting your family in jeopardy of getting covered because of this evacuation thank you thank you dr kenner while we're talking about covet i'm going to go ahead and address the public health emergency that you all know is set to expire next week and we have started to see some improvement in our data that literally started exactly two weeks after the current mass mandate was put into place in terms of reducing percent positivity of our tests uh cases hospitalizations which have improved by a total of 15 percent but even with these improvements we are still much worse off than we ever were in our first three surges and none of the gains that we have made are irreversible and that's especially true since 100 of all covet cases in louisiana today are attributable to the delta variant which is much more transmissible uh and potentially more virulent as well and so uh with all that we're going to be dealing with next week and because we are preparing for and responding to a major storm uh during covid we have every potential to lose whatever momentum we've been able to get with respect to to those numbers that i just mentioned i can go ahead and announce today that our next public health emergency will maintain the indoor mass mandate in public spaces for those vaccinated and unvaccinated it'll start it'll be the exact same mandate that we currently have in place we know that these mitigation measures work we know that the vaccines are safe and effective we're going to continue to do those things that are required in order to make sure that we can preserve as much hospital capacity as possible to deliver life-saving care so as it relates to the hurricane again remember that while we're going to have lots of people lots of boats and helicopters and we're going to do urban search and rescue just as soon as we possibly can everyone is encouraged to have three days worth of supplies on hand that's the rule of thumb the first 72 hours is on you uh and and spend your time between now and the arrival of the hurricane to make sure you and your family can withstand 72 hours uh if you are in uh a difficult spot and we can possibly get to you sooner than that you know that we will but you won't be the only one in difficulty and so you can't count on that response being there as fast as you might like so remember the first 72 hours is on you uh and do what you can now and in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane to control as best as possible the spread of covid19 that means where you mask it means distance where possible wash your hands and so forth so we have some time to prepare not as much as we would like but preparation is key panicking is the exact opposite of what we should be doing right now if you haven't done so it is not too late to visit getagameplan.org and you will get a list of the things that you should be focused on between now and tomorrow night closely monitor your local weather and your local officials please do as you are directed keep your phones charged and if you want to sign up for updates from my office you can text ida you can text ida to 672-83 and i know we've been through this many times before that doesn't make it easier and no nobody should assume that this storm is going to be just like any other storm they're all different they all have their personalities but this one has the potential the likelihood to be very serious and very strong potentially catastrophic for some so let's prepare let's pray for what comes our way let's be good neighbors uh to one another so check on that elderly couple next door or across the street uh call your mom and your dad or your grandparents see if there's something you can do to help them tomorrow to get in a better position to withstand the hurricane and with that we will take a few questions and you can direct questions to myself to ben shot to joe cantor or to any of these public officials over here to my right yes sir yep so where evacuations uh have been ordered most are voluntary there are some mandatory uh those individuals should be looking for shelter and guidance from their local officials we obviously have state shelters that that we are setting up that will be operational as needed if individuals want information about state shelters they should call 2-1-1 i can tell you we will focus on north and northwest louisiana based on the track of the hurricane that you just saw for our sheltering and we always have medical special needs shelters that are open as well but the first thing people should do if they need shelters is to contact their office of emergency preparedness in the parish where they live and take instruction from them but if if they do need sheltering that their parish isn't providing two one one and get that information yes ma'am well we we have um and the other thing is we actually have uh contingency plans that in certain scenarios and perhaps not this one where we would actually uh evacuate hospitals in certain coastal areas that is impossible we don't have any place to bring those patients not in state not out of state so we have been talking to individual hospitals and to the louisiana hospital association about them making all the preparations possible and and of course we provide resources upon request to make sure that their generators are working that they have way more water on hand than normal that ppe uh be on hand and and uh and the amounts that they might need and then to look at things that aren't necessarily things that we would typically experience so you know what is it that that's necessary in order to to make sure that your efforts with respect to cobid can continue uninterrupted and then you start looking at things like oxygen supplies and so forth and so we're we're working with them on a full range of issues and we're encouraging them just like we're encouraging into individuals to make use of every single minute uh to be prepared uh for this storm uh but but evacuations are just not uh possible and and so you know we're having to work for example with the nursing home association too uh so that they can implement their point-to-point evacuations those that that are evacuating because there have been times in the past where the more acute patients in nursing homes might end up in a hospital if something like this happens where the hospitals don't have room for them either so the the implications of having a category 4 storm with a southeast strike while our hospitals are full are beyond what most people normally contemplate and and quite frankly beyond what our normal plans are which is why we've been working so hard today to fully coordinate and i was on the phone earlier today with the device i'm sorry the president and he had the fema administrator in the office with him and i just told her i said be prepared to receive emergency requests for supplies that you wouldn't normally get and we went through what some of those might be because this situation really and we use this word a lot unprecedented unique but this one really is and so we we were able to have that conversation and certainly i expect that that they will work as hard as they can to provide whatever those needs might turn out to be yeah well we have plans to to with certain strikes to evacuate uh hospitals that is not something that we would do in this in this situation anyway at least not those within the hurricane risk reduction system if you had one or two small hospitals that are much further south you know potentially but it's not something that we would do for this storm but we always have those those contingencies in place any any other questions yes ma'am it's possible there are plans and we we expect that if we have to shelter enough individuals that that's what we would do it's another part of the conversation i had with the president today would be on the need to quickly shift to non-congregate sheltering which means hotels now we're already in contact with hotels all across louisiana to figure out where there's vacancy and we are modifying our shelter capacity to reflect the realities of cobit and so our shelter capacities are not what they would normally be although we can still shelter many thousands of people but but even if we were to do that we would as quickly as possible transition away from that mass sheltering to non-congregate shelters as as we are able so it absolutely is part of our planning and it's something that we would want to execute if if it becomes necessary again it's just one of the realities of of doing this in a pandemic such as the one that we're currently experiencing the good news is we have experience doing it and at the height last year we actually had 20 000 individuals who were in non-congregant shelters actually spread across two states so we know how to do this i hope and pray we don't have to do it anywhere near that extent but if we do we will it won't be as easy simply because last year when laura hit there were many hotels that were practically empty there are far fewer hotels in that situation today and so cobbling together the room space could be a little more difficult and that that makes it logistically harder if you have to spread your shelter population across more hotels than would be necessary otherwise yes sir well you know so so for example we we've actually had uh over the last couple of weeks some disruptions and they were primarily uh related to certain vendors uh with respect to oxygen and so the number of patients who need oxygen both in the hospital and at home right now is greatly increased over what it would have been before the pandemic and what we don't want to do is to create a situation where people start running low on their oxygen going to hospitals uh that are already full and and and extremely busy and so making sure that we have uh a number of oxygen canisters on hand which by the way we're already working on for ourselves but you never know how long this event could last we might need additional help bringing some oxygen canisters into the state getting those positioned so that individuals don't have to unnecessarily go to the hospital as dr kanner was saying that's something that we really need to avoid so that's just one example but the truth is we can't sit here today and know exactly how all of this is going to play out so look thank you very much we will let you all know tomorrow uh when we will have another press event i can tell you we will have a unified command group meeting in the morning we're going to take a a hard look at the 10 o'clock forecast everybody out there should be doing the same thing tonight and tomorrow and please make use of all the time that you have between now and tomorrow night to prepare for this storm for yourself and for your family uh take it seriously uh this this is going to be a very serious strong storm you saw uh the category four winds uh that we are anticipated uh the storm surge uh that in areas could get um you know up to 15 feet and and so forth and also when you start talking about rain that in localized areas could approach 20 inches i mean this this can this can pose a lot of difficulties a lot of threats and dangers i should say so let's let's all do what we can to be prepared and then let's respond as intelligently as we can and as safely as we can and as quickly as we can to our fellow louisianans who will be in need so we will let you know when our next press conference is again let's prepare and let's pray and thank you first