BIG, BAD BARRY STORMS INTO LOUISIANA
BARRY has rolled into the Louisiana coast, flooding highways, forcing people to scramble to rooftops and dumping heavy rain.
Officials had feared the storm could test the levees and pumps that were bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.
After briefly becoming a Category 1 hurricane, the system weakened to a tropical storm as it made landfall near Intracoastal City, about 257km west of New Orleans, with its winds falling to 112km, the National Hurricane Center said.
By early evening, New Orleans had been spared the worst effects, receiving only light showers and gusty winds.
But officials warned that Barry could still cause disastrous flooding across a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast and drop up to 50cm of rain across a part of Louisiana that includes New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
“This is just the beginning,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said. “It’s going to be a long several days for our state.”
The Coast Guard rescued a dozen people from flooded areas of Terrebonne Parish, south of New Orleans, some of them from rooftops, a spokeswoman said.
The people included a 77year-old man who called for help because he had about 1.2 metres of water in his home. None of the main levees on the Mississippi River failed or were breached, Edwards said.
Elsewhere, more than 120,000 customers in Louisiana and another nearly 6000 customers in Mississippi and Alabama were without power on Saturday.