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#Hurricane Isaac Lands on Katrina Eve; Nuclear plant Shutting as Isaac Precaution; Isaac Battering Gulf coast with Fierce Winds Heavy<Head: Hurricane Isaac Lands on Katrina Eve; Nuclear plant Shutting asisaac Precaution; Isaac Battering Gulf coast with Fierce Winds Heavyrains; Water Overtopping Levee in Plaquemines Parish Louisiana-Part 1><Byline: Connell Mcshane Lori Rothman Cheryl Casone Nicole Petallidesjeff Flock Maria Molina Sandra Smith Jennifer Davis Phil Keating<Guest: Steve Chabot Jeff Atwater Peter Wallison; Joshua Raymond Chip<Spec: Business; Stock markets; Storms; Politics>JONATHAN SERRIE FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: At least I'm not feeling it in the eyes. And that certainly makes things a lot safer. So we appreciate Ron (ph). CONNELL MCSHANE FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: You've been watching it live. Hurricane Isaac making landfall pounding parts of the Gulf coast with 80 mile-an-hour winds heavy rain. At this hour more than 200000 people without power. The worst may be yet to come. It is a slow-moving storm expected to dump more than 20 inches of rain in some areas. We'll going to have another live report just moments from now from our own Jeff Flock who is in the City of New orleans. Meanwhile Gulf coast residents won't be the only ones to feel the effects Isaac over 90 percent of oil production in the gulf has now been halted. We're going to be watching the oil price this morning minute to minute Then in politics the first night of the 2012 GOP convention turned out to be a memorable one with Ann Romney giving the nation a personal look at her husband and then the New jersey Governor Chris Christie tried to light a fire under the republican faithful. There he is addressing the convention with the keynote last night. Overseas meantime we have markets trending well. Optimism waning ahead of a big meeting today between the Italian leader Mario Monti and Germany's Angela Merkel. It is to say the least a very busy morning the 29th of August on a Wednesday it's a FOX Business Network Special report. The gang's all here. MCSHANE: Lori Rothman thank you very much. Cheryl Casone and Nicole Petallides on hand for this Special report. NICOLE PETALLIDES FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Yes. MCSHANE: Well it is actually worthy of a Special report. IMUS IN THE MORNING by the way will be back on Tuesday. So a lot going on this morning. LORI ROTHMAN FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: But as you said yes as we wrap up the first night of the convention Chris Christie and Romney speaking. And really the news of the moment here is this terrifying hurricane in the Gulf coast. We'll continue to cover the latest. In the meantime let's update you on the markets especially overseas Asian European futures as well as commodities hopefully we can show you. Start with Asian Nikkei is up four-tenths-of-a-percent in Seoul the Kospi also up six-tenths the Hang seng and the Shanghai though those indexes are down slightly. The Shanghai actually losing about one percent here at the moment. Switching to the U s. actually we did the European markets here first we've got red arrows across the board with the FTSE down one half of one percent. The Cac-Quarante down six-tenths and the Dax. The German Dax down six-tenths-of-one-percent. Late August they're still on vacation in Europe. Light volume light trading around the world these days. Moving right along to the United states here in the U s. the Dow was off 13 points the S&p down one point. And change of the NASDAQ is off two points. Markets early been in the week as we're here awaiting for the big Jackson Hole speech by Fed Chief Ben Bernanke--Connell. MCSHANE: All right. The breaking news Lori this morning Hurricane Isaac beginning to move inland through Southeast Louisiana now and you know high winds heavy rains new reports of flooding in the Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana. The water flowing over a levee in the town of--from what we understand. Jeff Flock is in the midst of it he's on the ground in New orleans. And what are you seeing from there Jeff? We just lost--all right that just happened and has happened throughout the morning when these satellite trucks as we say take a hit from time to time. Jeff Flock's shot just went down. Normally what happens is it will come back up here in a minute or two and we'll get back to Jeff. And he's been doing terrific reporting in the middle of the storm because New orleans really getting hit. Cheryl as you show this last hour about as hard as they've gotten it so far. CHERYL CASONE FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Well you know Connell I've been kind of keeping my eyes on the wires right now. And Connell what we're saying is there is concern about the levees. Obviously this is the first the troops has to these levees by--engineers. And at this point no levee in New orleans guys has been breached. But at the same time there are reports of one levy that has been overtopped. We're not clear if that is an army corps of engineer levee or that's an actual local levee that is felt in that parish. CASONE: So we're kind of try to find some reports right now to see what's going on. MCSHANE: All right. Here's one of them from Jeff Flock is shot is back up from what I'm told in the city of New orleans. Jeff. JEFF FLOCK FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Have you got us guys? FLOCK: I'm sorry guys. Thanks Connell. I tell you I was here seven years ago with Katrina and the interesting thing is of course we could not be reporting from the ground--we're right on the verge of not being able to report safely from the ground here this morning either. This is not even--(video gap. MCSHANE: All right. So there it goes again. I mean and Jeff said it himself. I mean you're on the verge of not being able to safely report from the ground. And he knows better than anyone when to take the chances and when not to but the satellite tracks--ROTHMAN: Right. Watching the show this morning with Jeff I mean what a tough guy. I mean he was blown really over in the wind gusts 50 60 miles an hour. Unbelievable stuff. All right. Let's get the latest on this storm on Isaac's position. For that let's go to Maria Molina who is standing by in the FOX Business Weather Center. Good morning Maria. Where are we to all of this? MARIA MOLINA METEOROLOGIST: Hey good morning. Good to see you all. MOLINA: We are still looking at a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour. We continuously receive updates from the National Hurricane Center and obviously much more often today because the system is making landfall. It did make landfall one landfall yesterday evening as a category one hurricane across Southeastern Louisiana. We saw a second landfall at about 2: 15 Central time early this morning across Southeastern Louisiana as well. We're starting to see some of the worst conditions moving into the city of New orleans. Basically that means that we're seeing some of the heaviest rain and some of the strongest winds associated with Hurricane Isaac right now pushing into that city with that--the reason for that is that we have the eye wall moving inland now. So that's where we're looking at. Otherwise across western parts of the storm we do have some dry air that's trying to make its way into the center of the storm that could help to weaken Isaac. You can see right there another blowup of more thunderstorms near the center of the storm. So we are expecting Isaac to remain a hurricane throughout the rest of this morning possibly weakening into a tropical storm as we head into later afternoon hours. But the big story really isn't the wind or whether Isaac is a hurricane or a tropical storm. The big story is how slow it's moving. It has slowed also down since the last advisory from eight miles per hour to now six miles per hour towards the west-northwest. So again because it's such a slow mover that is the big problem. We're going to continuously see a lot of wind and a lot of heavy rain locally up to 20 inches of rain will be possible across southeastern parts of Louisiana and also in Mississippi. This is going to be prolonged a event likely anywhere between 12 to 24 more hours of the heavy rainfall across southeastern parts of Louisiana and also southern parts of Mississippi. So take a look of the track by Wednesday 1 p m. still a category one hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour One of the reasons why it's going to take longer to weaken that most typical land falling storms is that we have swampland out across southeastern Louisiana. So we still have some moisture out there. Some very warm conditions that will keep the fuel in place for Isaac to stay rather strong. And the other big story or the reason why Isaac should be slow to weaken is it is such a large storm system those tropical storm force winds to extend upward from the center of the storm up to 175 miles hurricane force winds up to 60 miles out from the center of the storm. And when they are that big they do take longer to intensify but they also take longer to weaken. Otherwise as we head into the next 48 hours we're going to continue to see Isaac slowly weakening a little bit quicker of a weakening occurring as we head into Thursday and Friday. And then it is going to head into the Midwest where we actually really need the rain we're still in severe to extreme drought out across parts of Arkansas Missouri and even into Illinois. So again some welcome rain but first we have to deal with the heavy rain and the flood threat across Louisiana. ROTHMAN: Maria many thanks. As Maria is reporting the worst with Hurricane Isaac maybe still ahead. Well keep in track. Thank you. MCSHANE: Let's go some breaking news right now we talked about Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana there moments ago. And we've just received some news from that area that there are people trapped in Plaquemines Parish from an information officer--into Parish that the water overtopped the levee apparently in Plaquemines Parish. And the levee stretched for 18 miles. And it's a back levee with marsh behind it from what she describes it for us. And the levee itself eight and a half feet wide. The water cleared this. The parish at this point is under a mandatory evacuation. But again there are people trapped because there are people there --and we talk about this in every storm --but there are people there who chose not to leave the area. And those are the people who apparently are trapped. I'm not sure of the exact number of people at this point. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes. And Connell looking at some more reports right now it looks like at this point there were earlier reports that people were trapped in the attic of their home because of the rising waters. You're talking five to seven feet of water coming into this home. At this point the issue is getting to these people. And the authorities on the ground there you know rescue attempts by air by ground can't be made because of what we've been talking about which is the fact that this is such a slow-moving storm the fact that it's sitting on top. You've got 80 mile per hour winds sitting on top of this area of New orleans that rescue crews can't get to them. So at this point it's just a wait and see for this people that are trapped in their homes. And until the sun comes up really that you know authorities can't get in and really begin to assess not only the damage that we're going to get Connell but also to start to get this people try to get them out of there. And you know rescue crews have to you know watch out for their safety as well. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And keep in mind--we're update after Katrina which unbelievable the coincidence of the anniversary of Katrina here with now Hurricane Isaac barreling virtually the same track. MCSHANE: Yep today is literally the anniversary seven years ago. Updates as we get them on these people that are trapped. Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana more to come in just a moment. Meantime the hurricane forcing the closure of a nuclear power plant this morning in Louisiana as well. Entergy Corporation saying it shut down of its plants in Colona (ph) Louisiana about 20 miles west of New orleans as a precaution. The two others remain in operation at this point. Entergy saying the plant which is designed to sustain winds up to 200 miles an hour if it had to will be powered up after the storm passes. So that's where we are. The other part of it on FOX Business will keep an eye on is the impact on markets. And it will have certainly an impact on production oil production in the gulf the hurricane will. And that could mean higher prices at the pump. They have been going up any way and Sandra Smith has the latest from the Newsroom this morning. SANDRA SMITH FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning everyone. Well rising gas prices could go up even further that thanks to the storm that continues to make its way through the Gulf coast region and through the Southeast of United states. The hurricane we do know forced more than 93 percent of oil production to shut down in the region and it is also affecting natural gas. Over 67 percent of natural gas production has been shut down. Officials right now saying about one million barrels per day of oil production has stopped as companies have evacuated many of those offshore platforms as the storm continues to develop. Many of those oil companies in yesterday's trading session getting a nice bounce as many of the earlier forecasts were downgraded throughout the day. But overall somewhat mixed trading as far as the energy prices are concerned. Getting back to those gas prices analysts are predicting that we could see a ten-cent spike of gasoline prices as we see the effects of the storm play out depending on how drastic the supply cut actually is from the region and how long it actually lasts. But if it doesn't last analysts are also forecasting a quick retreat from that possible spike in gasoline prices. So that's the latest from here. Back to you guys. PETALLIDES: Thank you Sandra. So she's following oil for us. Of course we'll continue to follow Hurricane Isaac closely for you. But now we're going to just take a look here at politics. A night of highly anticipated speeches at the GOP National Convention Tuesday. FOX NEWS correspondent Jennifer Davis has more from Tampa. JENNIFER DAVIS FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Mitt Romney heads to Indianapolis today but will appear via satellite to talk with folks toward the convention about veterans issues. Last night though he was here in person as his wife testified about the man she married and the presidential candidate she thinks America should support. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R) NEW JERSEY: It's now time to stand up. Let's stand up. DAVIS: And there were plenty of standing ovations during Tuesday night's speeches in Tampa one of the most anticipated coming from Mitt Romney's wife Ann. Her job shedding light on her husband's triumph and business. ANN ROMNEY WIFE OF MITT ROMNEY: I can tell you Mitt Romney was handed not success. He built it. No one will work harder no one will care more. DAVIS: And arguing that after all is said and done he's just one of the guys. ANN ROMNEY: I'm still in love with that boy I met at a high school dance and he still makes me laugh. DAVIS: Mitt Romney joined his wife on stage stealing a kiss before the keynote speech. Then greetings from New jersey as Governor Chris Christie takes the stage. CHRISTIE: A New jersey republican proud of my party proud of my state and proud of my country. DAVIS: The governor putting full faith in Mitt Romney as a leader who can shape the future of America. CHRISTIE: It takes leadership that you don't get from reading a poll. You see Mr. President real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Tennessee 58. Romney. DAVIS: Delegates showed their support too earlier in the day with a roll call vote that formally solidified Romney as the GOP's presidential candidate. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan delivers his acceptance speech here at the convention this evening. Senator John Mccain and former Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice are scheduled also to speak. In Tampa Jennifer Davis FOX NEWS. MCSHANE: More on the convention coming up. One of the two breaking stories we're following this morning along with the hurricane. But the earnings alert that we're seeing coming in right now real quick for you is from Joy Global the mining equipment company passing along a report of adjusted profit of $1. 82. It missed the estimate by a bit there. The estimate was $1. 88. Revenue is 1. 4 billion--1. 42 billion. So just so you know Joy Global out with earnings. Now more on the European markets this morning. Lori told you about where how things were shaping up. But let's go live to London and City Index group chief market strategist Joshua Raymond joins us right now. And I know the big meeting is in Europe is kind of the talk and I guess people looking forward to Ben Bernanke later in the week here. Since all these things are getting overshadowed Joshua for us because we're so focused obviously on this hurricane political conventions and everything else. But tell us what you make of the markets this morning? JOSHUA RAYMOND CITY INDEX GROUP CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST: Hey it's been fairly (INAUDIBLE. You know I mean people obviously looking towards Merkel and Monti seeing what comes out of that. You know we are looking towards Bernanke and Jackson Hole and there is a big focus here in Europe particularly in London trading towards what happened in Jackson Hole whether Bernanke does hint toward the sort of steps and measures that they may be taking from the Fed in terms of more stimulus and quantitative easing. RAYMOND: And then obviously the other element is the fact that Mario Draghi the ECB president is not going to Jackson Hole. He's too busy. Well obviously--on what he's working on and needs to be meeting on the 6th of September. So it is all towards stimulus and trying to look for further elements that will have to paint a picture as to what stimulus we can be expecting both in the U s. and Europe. MCSHANE: Yes. One of the things I think we wonder about here is that this may sound like a joke but it's serious the fact that Europe had taken off in large part for the month of August. A lot of people were away. They said well these headlines weren't there there is nothing we had nothing to talk about nothing tangible. But now you guys are back and many of us are back from vacation we say boy. What's the next shoe to drop? Maybe it was just a pause button on the crisis. Is that a fair way looking at it or no? RAYMOND: Well you're right. I mean it's been a very quiet month for trading. Activity volumes are all pretty low. Traders are out on holiday. They are not back yet. Most people come back the first week of September. So even this week will still be relatively quiet in terms of trading. And you're right I mean while people are away from the markets we have seen this come up a little bit. But yes it makes sense when even more harder to read. RAYMOND: So I still think we'll look at Jackson Hole I'm going to look at the ECB on the 6th of September and that will probably patent a picture on how September will trade. MCSHANE: All right. Jackson Hole the big speech from Ben Bernanke on Friday. Joshua Raymond thanks very much. And now for a closer look at the Asian markets Katie Sargent joins us he is on the telephone from Singapore. How did things go today Katie? KATIE SARGENT FOX BUSINESS CONTRIBUTOR: Well it was a sort of a wishy-washy day this day Connell. We've got mixed results. We saw some gains in Japan with electronic firms boosting the Nikkei. But Shanghai slanting to really multiyear lows. The Nikkei up. 4 percent. Shares in Renesas Electronics that helped that index those were up 35 percent on reports that a private equity firm KKR plans to invest nearly $1. 3 billion in the company. Also we saw Sharp corporation up seven percent after it said it would offer severance packages to hundreds of workers as it restructures. Those were some of the leaders in Japan. South korea was up about six-tenths-of-a-percent. Samsung Electronics was a strong performer there of nearly three percent recouping some of the losses that it suffered after its legal loss to Apple. The Hang seng in Hong kong giving up some of the modest gains that it had earlier in the session. It finished down at tenths-of-a-percent. And Shanghai was down one percent today it posted its lowest close in over three and a half years weeks corporate profits report are polling that index lower. But overall sort of lackluster day. Not really much of a strong pull and strong direction in either way--Connell. MCSHANE: All right. Good to talk to you. Katie thank you for that. Seventeen past the hour. Nicole will take a look at how our markets are shaping up. PETALLIDES: All right. Thanks Connell. We've been watching the futures obviously haven't been doing too much even slightly to the down side. We're keeping a close eye on both Draghi and Angela Merkel this morning. So any headlines out of Europe could make a big difference. So we're also watching some stocks to watch here. So we are keeping an eye on Ford right here at home Ford obviously an automaker but expanding and going global with their Lincoln brand over in China. So it's interesting because they pushed the Aston martin Jaguar land rover Volvo. However they haven't pushed the Lincoln brand. So they are doing just that in China working to get that out in second half of 2014. At the same time a new plant that they are working on $760 million for a new plant that they are there. And then we're watching Pandora very closely of course the music company and when you look at Pandora you could see here that it is over the year it's been a loser right? Fifty two weeks down about 26 percent. Option traders have been pricing in big swings either way. So there's put and calls being bet right now for Pandora's quarterly reports. So they're expecting over a 20 percent swing one way or another. So Pandora is expected to report a loss of three cents a share. And then we'll take a look at some other names that we're keeping a very close eye on. And those are names that will be reporting quarterly numbers including Zales Jewelers that will be one to watch as well as Heinz and Payless Shoe store Parent which is collective brand. A few thoughts here for the same Zales comes on the heels of Movado and Tiffany which both some good outlook. Tiffany had a tough quarter. But they did top at the fourth quarter being better. Movado did very well. Great outlook there. So we've already seen Zales on the upside as well. And Heinz we've already got the glimpse from at the CEO yesterday just talking about emerging markets and growth there for the catsup company. So Heinz looking like one to watch certainly and sounding like they have some good news ahead for us. So those will be some hot stocks to watch. That's the latest. Now over to Cheryl Casone. CASONE: Yes. We've got some more business headlines Nicole. Obviously some great stocks to watch from you and we're looking at lot of economic data that's going to becoming out today including this should be interesting the second reading on growth for the second quarter. You know to GDP I know you're excited about it. Economists are expecting that that reading is going to climb a little bit any way 1. 7 percent from the first --and it came in at 1. 5 percent. That will still be lower than the growth of two percent that we saw in the first quarter for the country. That number is going to out today that's going to be 8: 30 a m. Eastern Time. And then at 10 a m. Eastern time we're going to get pending home sales for the month of July. Those sales expected to climb one percent for the month after falling more than one percent for the month of June. And then the fun continues 2 p m. the Federal reserve going to unveil you can't wait for it the latest report on economic conditions. It is the beige book everybody it may also give us some insight as to whether policy-makers at the Central bank are thinking of implementing stimulus measures. And Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly has resigned from pressure from investors and shareholders. The company's board said it will begin searching for a permanent replacement but executive vice president and General Counsel John Cannon is going to serve at this point as the interim chief of the company. And some major Wellpoint investors expressed concern about Braly's leadership and her company strategy after disappointing second quarter results. And then Apple is going to have to wait at this point until December to find out whether its request for a sales ban against eight Samsung devices is going to be granted. A U s. judge has set a December 6 court date to consider a permanent injunction which could delay the potential impact of a legal victory. Apple was awarded just over $1 billion last week after a California jury found that Samsung had copied critical features of the iphone and the ipad. Apple now seeking to have pulled eight devices from U s. store shelves including the very popular very very popular galaxy smart phones. A lot of people actually like those smart phones but this was such Connell such a big you know victory for Apple. CASONE: Now let's going to go back to the court system which is always fun for companies. MCSHANE: Dragging on a little bit more. All right. Much more to come here as this Special report continues on FOX Business Network. We're covering two very very big stories. We'll have more on the republican convention in a few minutes. But the breaking story of the morning is Hurricane Isaac as it pounds the city of New orleans. Jeff Flock is on the scene there. And from FOX NEWS Phil Keating straight ahead with a live report along the coast in Alabama. Keep it here. Special report right back on FOX Business s

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