good afternoon everybody uh as you can see i have a number of folks here with me this afternoon um and at the conclusion of my remarks we'll take questions and certainly they're going to be available to answer any questions you might want to direct to them or that require their knowledge unfortunately there's not been a lot of change in the forecasted track or intensity of hurricane ida since our last press conference yesterday afternoon so we're still looking at a very strong category 4 hurricane making landfall likely in terrebonne parish tomorrow afternoon or evening now the forecasted landfall is for 7 p.m what i want to make sure people understand is that's the point at which the leading edge of the eye wall will cross from the gulf onto land at that point in time about half of the storm is already over land so don't don't listen to that and think you have until seven o'clock tomorrow tomorrow evening but before the the storm itself is going to be over land that that is not so uh the wind speed uh at landfall is projected to be sustained in the neighborhood of 140 miles per hour this is a very strong storm ben shot of the national weather service is not here today he is in new orleans he is working extremely hard but i do have some of the most recent slides to put up and share with you one of the things that you're going to see is just about the entire state is under some type of warning or watch and so everybody out there needs to be very careful i don't want folks who are further inland to be caught off guard because there's a potential for 110 mile per hour sustained winds as far north as the louisiana mississippi line but also from lafayette through baton rouge to new orleans and all points south including the river parishes and i would point out that 110 mile per hour wind that's like a that is category two strength winds so that's a cat two hurricane there and so while the the storm will weaken after it makes landfall it is such a strong storm at the outset that it's going to be extremely powerful as far north as baton rouge and even further we expect storm surge of 10 to 15 feet between morgan city and the mouth of the mississippi river from 7 to 11 feet from the mouth of the river to ocean springs mississippi and so if you just look at that geography the storm surge will impact saint mary parish terrebonne parish lafourche parish jefferson parish the most but there will be impacts well away from that and certainly plaquemines parish and saint bernard will be challenged with storm surge as well 8 to 16 inches of rain with locally higher amounts possible that higher amount could be 20 or more inches and that's sunday through tuesday and as a result and by the way there's a big confluence of all of these areas but again stretching from lafayette through baton rouge over to new orleans and points south that's where they're expecting the heaviest rainfall rainfall and you hate to make comparisons with other storms because every storm is different but remember that last year with laura we had very strong winds extending through most of the state because of how strong it was and how large that storm was but we're going to see something very similar with hurricane ida with the rain amounts that i just mentioned flash flooding is a very real concern and this is a very large storm one of the things the national weather service told us that from the center of the storm extending eastward it could be up to 160 miles and then another 120 or 130 miles over to the west so you look at something that could be 300 miles long river flooding is also possible especially on the north shore area now we're catching a little bit of a break here because the rivers don't start off at flood stage and we haven't had as much rainfall over the last couple of weeks as we had been experiencing earlier in the year but it doesn't take many hours of rain that's falling at the rate that they're talking about before those rivers could be at flood stage one of the things that we were told today by the national weather service during our unified command group meeting is that they are extremely confident in the current track and the intensity as forecasted for hurricane ida and you really don't hear them speaking very often about that level of confidence so we can sum it up by saying this will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit anywhere in louisiana since at least the 1850s we can also tell you that your window of time is closing it is rapidly closing and just like we said yesterday by the time you go to bed tonight you need to be where you intend to ride the storm out and you need to be as prepared as you can be because weather will start to deteriorate very quickly tomorrow by 8 00 a.m we expect tropical storm force winds to start to move into the inland uh across southern louisiana and while you've been preparing so has the state so has local government and we have certainly had assistance from our federal partners and i'll just give you some updates from state agencies at this time i can tell you that the department of transportation has has waived the hours of service for truckers responding to hurricane ida i've been watching the traffic cameras across the interstate systems of louisiana for much of the day and the part of the good news is that many many people are heeding the evacuation orders both mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders and they are evacuating this is causing some areas with high congestion we just ask people to be patient this is going to be part of the process everyone can do themselves a little favor by checking with 511la.org or you can go to the 511la app for traffic information find out if roads are closed if detours are in effect and if alternate routes are needed at the present time we have 137 coach buses in place in louisiana spread from lafayette across east towards the new new orleans area and multiple vehicle staging areas the vast majority of these resources will be focused on southeast louisiana we also have 19 paratransit buses and they've already been assisting in the evacuation of a number of nursing homes we will have another 37 38 more coaches on hand by monday it is important to note that debris on the roadway and how water can occur at any time during the storm because of the impact of the wind and flood waters dotd crews may not be able to get to these locations to erect signs and barricades and provide warning before motorists experience these things so please be mindful of this don't drive unless you have to once the weather gets bad when there's water on the road and you're not 100 certain you know exactly how deep it is and what the current is do not drive through it turn around don't drown you should treat every downed power line as if it's live and deadly i can tell you that the cpra is tracking 692 gates across the coastal zone as of this morning's briefing 246 of those gates were closed and that's up considerably from yesterday's report for just the second time in the history of the hurricane risk reduction system in new orleans we will fully activate that system tomorrow morning coastal parishes across southeast louisiana have been working extremely hard to shore up certain areas in their protection systems for example terrebonne parish is performing super supersac operations to shore up low-lying errors areas and lowered the large lafourche parish completed sandbag operations to shore up low areas on reach k of its system in the morganza to the gulf levees the national guard currently has 4013 national guard soldiers and airmen activated in support of emergency operations we will get to more than five thousand guardsmen available to respond to the storm and in fact the entirety of the louisiana national guard has been activated and coordination for possible assistance with sister states for assets that we may not have or may not have enough of them in louisiana is ongoing but just in terms of the national guard their search and rescue asset search and rescue assets are staged currently across 14 parishes they have 164 high water vehicles 62 boats and 34 helicopters ready to support and assist in search and rescue operations 650 state emac and fema usar personnel now emac that's when we request assistance from another state fema is when we receive obviously search and rescue individuals directly from the federal government we have a total of 650 of these that will be in place by tonight and the number of boats there just with the louisiana fire marshal's office for example is 150 that are staged across south louisiana we have the potential to get to 900 such search and rescue people by monday if needed the louisiana sheriff's association and the alcohol tobacco patrol have also committed their personnel and assets to search and rescue efforts the fire marshal's office is always work i'm sorry is also working with two volunteer boat search and rescue organizations as well as state partners including the national guard and wildlife and fisheries and wildlife and fisheries currently has 169 agents with trucks and boats prepared staged and ready for movement i have an update for you on the number of linemen in the state uh prepared to respond to power outages we now have 10 000 linemen staged in the state of louisiana and that number will get up to twenty thousand uh very quickly with uh out of state linemen who've already been contracted they will be called in as necessary and when necessary tomorrow state offices will be closed in the same 38 parishes that we mentioned yesterday and we've also made the additional determination that on monday all state offices will be closed across the state of louisiana i gave you a break i didn't want to have to read through 38 parishes as of 6 am today shelters began to open across the state of louisiana we have just a few dozen people in state shelters at the time right now any individual looking for shelter in a parish that is called for an evacuation look first to the shelters in your parish so contact your office of emergency preparedness and you can also text la shelter to 898 or you can just dial 2-1-1 to get shelter information if you need to find out how to contact your parish office of emergency preparedness you can get that on from information under contacts at getagainplan.org you can also get that information by going through the 2-1-1 system as i just mentioned so you can text la shelter to 898-211 or call 2-1-1 if you can stay with friends or family outside of your air if you're evacuating that's wonderful uh you need to have conversations about that process and any covid related concerns ahead of time i would urge people that if you're evacuating perhaps from coastal louisiana don't have as your destination if at all possible a location in the baton rouge or lafayette areas the storm intensity the amount of rain that we expect to get the wind as i mentioned earlier is just too strong in these areas so please evacuate further west further north than the lafayette baton rouge area if at all possible when you evacuate evacuate with essential items you're going to need if you're away from home for an extended period of time including food water ppe medicine your pets if you have questions about what you need to do to prepare to evacuate to include any oxygen needs that you might have because of a health issue you can call two one one i don't have all the co-vid numbers for you today because it's a saturday we don't typically report them what i can say is currently we have 2450 individuals hospitalized across the state of louisiana with covid 19. and i'm very thankful that that's a drop that's a drop of about 20 percent in the last 10 days and that's very helpful going into this hurricane especially since we know that the evacuation of our hospitals is not an option but that still puts us in a very precarious position position because that 2450 people is still higher than the amount we had hospitalized at any time in the three surges prior to the current fourth surge and as i close out and prepare to take your questions i just want to talk to the people of louisiana i know that tomorrow for many people is a very difficult anniversary it is the 16th anniversary of hurricane katrina i'm also aware that it's very painful to think about another powerful storm like hurricane ida making landfall on that anniversary but every storm is different they all bring their own challenges but i also want you to know that we're not the same state that we were 16 years ago we have a hurricane risk reduction system in place because of the generosity of the people of the united states of america that we didn't have before and outside of that hurricane risk reduction system we also have tremendous investments in protection across south louisiana with levees and gates and pumps and having said all that this system is going to be tested there's no doubt the people of louisiana are going to be tested but we are resilient and tough people and we're going to get through this the state local government our federal partners we're all doing everything that we can to prepare for and be positioned to quickly respond to the needs of the people of louisiana with respect to hurricane ida but we need the people of louisiana to be prepared as well and really you have the the window is closing quickly because you have until about dark tonight to really get it done again the weather is going to degrade very quickly tomorrow and by 7 pm tomorrow night the northern half of hurricane ida should be over land please monitor the weather pay close attention to local authorities heed their guidance be safety minded many people are going to lose electricity that electricity can be out for a long time and yeah the absence of air conditioning can just make you uncomfortable but if you get out there and you work too hard you can end up and you don't have an opportunity to cool off you can end up with heat exhaustion if you operate a generator in a way that's not safe you can die from carbon monoxide poisoning if you try to operate machinery like a power like a chainsaw for example to clean up and you're not accustomed to that if you get up on a roof and and you fall you know all of these things i'm saying these things because this is what's happened in the past where the loss of life has resulted more from post storm activities than from the storm themselves so let's prepare let's pray let's be safe and let's help one another so please check on your elderly neighbors call your elderly relatives if you've got special needs individuals who live around you make sure you take a little time and check on them as well with that i'll take uh questions i'll remind i'll say we intend to do a press conference again tomorrow at about two o'clock um we'll let you know if that changes so we'll take some questions now and uh you can feel free to address your questions to me or to any of these individuals who are here anything okay well we will we will be back at two o'clock tomorrow unless something changes we'll certainly let you know um i don't need to drink this water i don't think uh but but thank you all uh very much for continuing to cover this uh and the work that the media will do over the next uh however many days will be incredibly important to keep people informed and to keep them safe so i appreciate the work that you all do as well so thank you all and god bless you