New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Isaac concerns are for areas outside levee control systems, speed of water and possible electrical outages

While some Louisiana residents are planning on riding out hurricane Isaac, there are lots of folks outside of the levee system say they are going to go. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has acknowledged there is a higher level of anxiety in the city because Wednesday is the seven-year anniversary of hurricane Katrina.

Mayor Landrieu joins Soledad on "Starting Point" this morning, explaining that the speed of the water that Isaac may bring to his city.

"For the folks around the country, one of the things they may not be aware of is the difference on the ground between a one or two or three," Mayor Landrieu says. "Obviously, a three is more serious. The levee system that we have now is designed to protect us against a category three or bigger. So we have $10 billion of investments, 300 miles of new levees, a robust system of pumps designed for a category three or bigger. And we feel pretty comfortable given what we've all been through that we can withstand that kind of push from outside in. But we have a lot of areas that are outside of the levee control system, outside of New Orleans. So we have a lot of concerns down in Grand Isle and in some areas of New Orleans."

"The problem that storms like that pose is they dump a lot of water quick. And no matter how good your pumping system is, if you drop a lot of water and it continues over a long period of time and it's intense, that will create flooding. So we're worried about that. We're worried about electrical outages. So you remember from Gustav there was an electrical outage that moved throughout the middle of the country and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Those are our two major concerns right now. We are prepared for them, but that doesn't make them easy," Landrieu says.

Landrieu says one of the most important storm preps is common sense from his citizens. He also says communications have improved significantly since Katrina.

"It's 1,000 percent better.... all of this is still driven by citizens doing the right thing at the right time in the right place with common sense. The more that doesn't happen, and the more the emergency response has to go to places where they shouldn't have to, it drains resources. So this is an all-in game," he adds.