Tropical storm cuts power on Gulf Coast

GULFPORT, Mississippi — Thousands of people were without power as Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall late Tuesday just west of the Alabama-Mississippi border.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Gordon struck about 10 p.m. local time. The storm was forecast to quickly weaken as it moves inland across Mississippi, Louisiana and into Arkansas through Thursday. It did not reach hurricane status.

Gordon strengthened in the final hours as it neared the central Gulf Coast, clocking top sustained winds of 110 km/h. The National Hurricane Center said Gordon’s tight core was about 30 kilometres southeast of Biloxi, Mississippi and 55 kilometres south of Mobile, Alabama, where heavy rains and winds picked up shortly before nightfall.

More than 27,000 customers were left without power. The outages were mostly in coastal Alabama and included the western tip of the Florida Panhandle, around Pensacola, with a few hundred in southeastern Mississippi.

Pensacola International Airport reported more than 10 centimetres of rain, the heaviest total reported so far along the Gulf Coast.

The sky quickly turned dark grey as storms overshadowed Mobile, a port city. Metal chairs were lashed together atop tables outside a restaurant in what’s normally a busy entertainment district, and a street musician played to an empty sidewalk just before the rain began.

Conditions were expected to deteriorate westward to New Orleans as the stormed closed in on the coast. Families had filled sandbags, took patio furniture inside and stocked up on batteries and bottled water.

Dozens of shrimp boats were tied up to docks in Bayou La Batre, a seafood town that processes oysters, shrimp and crabs from across the Gulf of Mexico.