Lt. Gov. Nungesser urges safety as Francine begins to make landfall in Louisiana

AccuWeather

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

Transcript

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.

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