Morgan City: Barry strengthened into a category 1 hurricane on Saturday as it neared the Louisiana coast, US meteorologists said — prompting millions of residents of the southern US state to hunker down for expected major flooding.
At 10:00 am (1500 GMT), the storm was packing sustained winds of 75 miles (120 kilometres) per hour — just above the minimum to qualify as a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said in its latest storm advisory.
The eye of the storm was located about 50 miles from Morgan City, to the west of the state’s biggest city New Orleans, and moving at a slow pace of six miles an hour — meaning that landfall could still be hours away.
But the outside edge of the storm was already punishing the US Gulf Coast with heavy rains. Authorities ramped up evacuations, airlines cancelled flights and flood gates were slammed shut.
In Morgan City, the streets were deserted. The Atchafalaya River had flooded its banks, and trees were already blown over in residential areas.
“It’s painstakingly slow,” government meteorologist Ben Schott told CNN, noting that residents should not be lulled into complacency about facing the storm. “If you don’t have to go anywhere, stay home. Monitor what’s going on. Do not put yourself at risk.”
With Barry dumping rain across several southern states, federal emergency declarations were issued to help free up resources to address the storm.
Governor John Bel Edwards said New Orleans was well prepared to withstand the storm, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, but urged vigilance by residents across the state, tens of thousands of whom had lost power.
“No one should take this storm lightly,” Edwards said on Twitter.
NHC Director Ken Graham warned of the potential for inland flooding: “It’s not just a coastal event.”
For many, the large storm swirling in the Gulf of Mexico and the potential for large-scale flooding in coastal and river areas has brought with it unpleasant memories of 2005’s deadly Hurricane Katrina.
Thousands have packed up and left their homes as floodwaters hit low-lying areas like Plaquemines Parish, where road closures left some communities isolated.
Some nevertheless hunkered down to ride out the storm, despite mandatory evacuation orders.
“We’ve stayed for some pretty strong storms and we shouldn’t have,” admitted Keith Delahoussaye, a 60-year-old mechanic, at his trailer home in Port Sulphur. He was keeping a close eye on the nearby Mississippi River. “If we see the water rising here, we’ll leave,” he said.
In New Orleans, residents and business owners were laying down sandbags and boarding up windows while city officials set up shelters for residents. Louisiana is facing an extraordinarily dangerous confluence of conditions, experts say.
The level of the Mississippi River, already swollen from historic rains and flooding upstream, was at nearly 17 feet in New Orleans — just below flood stage. River levels are expected to peak at just over 17 feet, according to Saturday’s forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). — AFP
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