Nightly News   |  August 28, 2012

Isaac threatens Gulf Coast with storm surges, rain

Isaac, now a category 1 hurricane, has already brought flooding rains to Charleston, S.C. Later Tuesday night the giant storm will move up into much of Louisiana and Mississippi bringing a storm surge threat to coastal cities. New Orleans may see as much as 20 inches of rain. Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore reports from New Orleans.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> we want to check in with jim cantore . he's in new orleans . this is no katrina. this is a category one hurricane. bad news is, of course, nobody needs this, especially not right now. it's going to be the first test of all the new plumbing behind you there in new orleans ?

>> yeah, absolutely. let's take a look at this thing, brian. the satellite picture shows us how big it is. we've had flooding rains from the outer bands of this in charleston, south carolina , for goodness sake. it's still raining in florida, look at the radar. we can see the beast we're dealing with. mike, of course, in one of those yellow/purple bands. that's where the most intense weather is going to be. that's what's going to be moving up across mississippi and louisiana this evening. the surge, 6 to 12 feet, we're already getting 7 feet in southern louisiana, that's only going to go up as the storm comes on shore. then the rainfall, 12 to 20 inches for any city, is going to flood it. pumps or no pumps, that's the concern in new orleans tonight. you can see, it will probably be close to the city tomorrow morning , during the early morning hours and crawling north with these heavy rain bands, should they set up over the city of new orleans . the worst of isaac coming up.

>> as we said, it's going to be a long night where you are, jim cantore