Louisiana Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser joined AccuWeather live on Sept. 11 as Francine bore down on his state to discuss how residents can stay safe throughout and after the storm
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00:00Hurricane Francine is on the move heading towards landfall in Louisiana this afternoon.
00:06Joining us again, Baton Rouge, Billy Nungesser, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Thank you so
00:14much for taking the time, Billy. I know we were talking yesterday about what you were doing to
00:19prepare and now that this storm is starting to get going, we're looking at landfall later this
00:25afternoon. What are your teams doing to focus on getting us through the storm? All the local
00:32parishes are prepared, the shelters are open, the people that were in trailers, most of them have
00:37moved into those shelters. I'm actually on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain where I'm over
00:43a few state parks watching that tidal surge as it gets pushed in the lake to see what impact that's
00:50going to have on flooding on the north shore. Surely it's going to have some impact, but we're
00:55hoping because this storm is moving so quickly and when it hits the shore it's expected to die down
01:01quickly, that tidal surge will not be as great as the high end projected for all of coastal Louisiana
01:09and also here on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Well that is certainly something
01:14we would hope for. You've been through a lot though with hurricanes. What is most important
01:21for folks on the ground to remember to do now? It's important that people that needed to get out
01:28got out long before now because the weather's starting to get bad, but you know every time we
01:33go through these you've got people that we've spent a while, obviously since Katrina 19 years,
01:39which was the last real major one. We had a major one hit Lake Charles, but this area that's going
01:45to take a direct hit has not had a direct hit in a few years, so people don't take it as seriously
01:52when memory fades as time goes on. So hopefully all those people in the flood prone areas have
01:58gotten out. We've got a lot better levees and flood system now, but there's still a risk of
02:03flooding in those low line areas and hopefully those people have gotten out and we won't see
02:10any injuries or loss of life from this storm. Of course that is something we also hope for,
02:15that people are heeding these warnings. And looking ahead to tonight, what are your biggest
02:21concerns for citizens to stay safe this evening and tomorrow? Knowing it's only going to be a
02:28category one and at very best a strong category one, after the storm passes we don't want people
02:35out sightseeing. There'll be power lines down and then of course if you're operating a generator
02:40because you lost power, doing it safely. It's senseless for us to lose light for things after
02:46a storm because of carbon dioxide or going outside, getting hit by debris or because power lines are
02:54down, electrocuting yourself. So the key is to keep people in the house until the emergency
03:01crews got a chance to make it safe after the storm. It looks like those winds won't be as
03:07high as projected originally, so hopefully we won't have a lot of major damage and they can
03:12get the roads cleared quickly and get people back out. Thank you so much Lieutenant Governor of
03:20Louisiana, Billy Nunz-Genzer for joining us. We're going to check back in with you hopefully as we
03:27continue to follow this storm on through. Thank you so much. Thank you.