Barry crawls ashore in Louisiana, weakens to tropical storm
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Barry rolled into the Louisiana coast Saturday, flooding highways, forcing people to scramble to rooftops and dumping heavy rain that 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 quickly weakened to the tropical storm as it made landfall near Intracoastal City, Louisiana, about 160 miles west of New Orleans, with its winds falling to 70 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. But o cials warned that it could still cause disastrous flooding across a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast.
“This is just the beginning,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “It’s going to be a long several days for our state.”
The Coast Guard rescued more than a dozen people from the remote Isle de Jean Charles, south of New Orleans, where water rose so high that some residents clung to rooftops.
None of the main levees on the Mississippi River failed or were breached, Edwards said. But video showed water overtopping a levee in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans, where fingers of land extend deep into the Gulf of Mexico.
Nearly all businesses in Morgan City, about 85 miles west of New Orleans, were shuttered with the exception of Meche’s Donuts Shop. Owner Todd Ho pauir did a brisk business despite the pounding winds and pulsating rain.
While making doughnuts, Ho pauir said he heard an explosion and a ripping sound and later went outside and saw that part of the roof at an adjacent apartment complex had come o .
In some places, residents continued to build defenses. At the edge of the town of Jean Lafitte just outside New Orleans, volunteers helped several town employees sandbag a 600-foot stretch of the two-lane state highway through town. The street was already lined with one-ton sandbags, and 30-pound bags were being used to strengthen them.
“I’m here for my family, trying to save their stu ,” volunteer Vinnie Tortorich said. “My cousin’s house is already under.”
In Lafayette, Willie Allen and his 11-year-old grandson, Gavin Coleman, shoveled sand into 20 green bags, joining a group of more than 20 other people doing the same thing during a break in the rain. Wearing a mudstreaked T-shirt and shorts, Allen loaded the bags onto the back of his pickup.
“Everybody is preparing,” he said. “Our biggest concern is the flood.”
Many businesses were also shut down or closed early in Baton Rouge, and winds were strong enough to rock large pickup trucks. White caps were visible on the Mississippi.
Oil and gas operators evacuated hundreds of platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly 70% of Gulf oil production and 56% of gas production were turned o Saturday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which compiles the numbers from industry reports.
The mood was sanguine in New Orleans, where locals and tourists wandered through mostly empty streets under a light rain or stayed indoors.