Residents brace as tandem storms head for Gulf Coast
NEW ORLEANS — The Gulf Coast prepared Sunday for a potentially devastating hit from twin hurricanes as two strong storms swirled toward the U.S from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Officials feared a historymaking onslaught of lifethreatening winds and flooding along the coast, stretching from Texas to Alabama.
A storm dubbed Marco grew into a hurricane Sunday as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico on a track taking it to Louisiana. Some models show it making landfall by Monday evening, but others show it stalling off the coast. Another potential hurricane, Tropical Storm Laura, lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti and was targeting the same region of the U.S. coast.
“What we know is there’s going to be storm surge from Marco, we know that that water is not going to recede hardly at all before Laura hits, and so we’ve not seen this before and that’s why people need to be paying particular attention,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a Sunday briefing.
Laura killed at least 11 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and hundreds of thousands were without power as both countries on the island of Hispaniola suffered heavy flooding.
With the potential the storms could overlap, parts of Louisiana, especially in southcentral portions of the state, could see up to 2 feet of rainfall, said Benjamin Schott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“There has never been anything we’ve seen like this before, where you can have possibly two hurricanes hitting within miles of each over a 48hour period,” Schott said.
Along the main drag on the barrier island of Grand Isle, south of New Orleans, Starfish Restaurant manager Nicole Fantiny could see an exodus of people driving off the island. “They are all packing up and leaving,” she said.
While Hurricane Marco will likely hit Louisiana first, hurricane experts are more worried about the second potentially stronger smack from Laura.
Marco is expected to dance above and below hurricane status over the next day and a half after hitting the 75 mphwind mark Sunday afternoon.
University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said, “I would be very worried if I were there” in New Orleans. It’s not so much either storm as much as the long period of storm surge first from Marco and then from Laura and whether the levee system can withstand the stress, he said.
The key for Laura’s future is how it survives Cuba. The storm is forecast to rake across the island and the more it remains over land, the more it can weaken. But if the direction shifts, it could come out strong enough to power up over the Gulf.