Nicholas crawls into Louisiana from Texas
The tropical depression dumps heavy rain on a rain-soaked region trying to recover from Hurricane Ida’s damage.
Tropical Depression Nicholas hovered over Louisiana on Wednesday, dumping heavy rain on a region struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida and swamping coastal Mississippi, Alabama and northwest Florida.
The National Weather Service said dangerous flash floods were possible from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle. In Louisiana, the rainfall complicated an already difficult recovery at homes ripped open by Ida on Aug. 29. Thousands remain without power in Texas and Louisiana.
“I’m not sure at this point what it looks like,” said Edith Anthony, whose home in LaPlace, a New Orleans suburb between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, lost part of its roof while getting about 2 to 3 feet of floodwater two weeks ago.
They still don’t have electricity, and couldn’t arrange for a tarp to cover the roof before Nicholas blew in. Now she and her husband are staying in a Mobile, Alabama, hotel, preparing to return this weekend to what’s left of their home.
The storm was forecast to dump as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle through Friday, with 10 inches (25 centimeters) possible in isolated areas.
“Life-threatening flash flooding impacts, especially in urban areas, remain a possibility in these areas,” forecasters said. The weather service reported that as much as 5 inches (13 centimeters) had fallen in Alabama’s Baldwin County and in northwest Florida as of Wednesday afternoon. News outlets reported flooded roads in Baldwin County and around Pensacola, Florida.
Nicholas dumped as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain on parts of Texas — and the weather service was checking reports of nearly 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain in Galveston — after making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, the 14th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Houston reported more than 6 inches (15 centimeters). Parts of Louisiana received more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain from the storm.
In Louisiana, the flash flood danger was expected to end Thursday, but the rain is forecast to linger for days.
“We’re going to be in a wet weather pattern well into next week,” said meteorologist Christopher Brannan at the National Weather Service. He said Nicholas, now a tropical depression, would likely stall over southwest Louisiana while it dissipates into a remnant low pressure system.
More than 112,000 electricity customers were still without power Wednesday morning in Texas, including 75,000 in the Houston area.
At its peak, more than half a million homes and businesses were without power in Texas.
In Louisiana on Wednesday, 72,000 were still without power more than two weeks after Ida.
Jerry Nappi, a spokesperson for Entergy Louisiana, said the utility company, which serves much of the state, did not expect Nicholas to lengthen restoration times.
Joe Ticheli, manager and CEO of South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association, said the rain from Nicholas hadn’t affected their operations. The cooperative serves about 21,000 customers across five parishes including parts of the hard-hit Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.