One killed, thousands lose power in storm
Gulf Coast governors declare states of emergency amid 70 mph winds, heavy rain
TGULFPORT, Miss. housands of people were without power as Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall late Tuesday just west of the Alabama-Mississippi border. The National Hurricane center said Gordon struck about 10 p.m. Central time, and the storm was forecast to quickly weaken as it moved inland across Mississippi, Louisiana and into Arkansas through Thursday. It did not reach hurricane status.
A young child was reported killed when a tree fell on a mobile home in West Pensacola, Fla., a spokeswoman for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said.
Governors in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana declared states of emergency to better mobilize state resources and National Guard troops for the storm. Mississippi shut down a dozen Gulf Coast casinos. Workers on at least 54 oil and gas production platforms were evacuated.
Gordon strengthened some in the final hours as it neared the central Gulf Coast, clocking top sustained winds of 70 mph.
More than 27,000 customers were without power Tuesday night as Gordon began pushing ashore. Those outages were mostly in coastal Alabama and included the western tip of the Florida Panhandle around Pensacola, with a few hundred in southeastern Mississippi.
The number of outages had been rising rapidly after dark Tuesday night as Gordon’s wind and rain began to take a toll on the Gulf Coast’s power grid.
Pensacola International Airport reported more than 4 inches of rain, the heaviest total so far along the Gulf Coast.
Skies quickly turned dark gray as storms overshadowed Mobile, Ala., 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 along the coast filled sandbags, took patio furniture inside and stocked up on batteries and bottled water ahead of Gordon.
John and Robin Berry, vacationing on Dauphin Island, Ala., went to the beach to see the roaring surf before the rain began. Accompanied by their dog Bentley, the couple had to evacuate the beachfront home they had rented for the week because of Gordon, but they didn’t go very far.
“There are no dunes and there’s no protection, so the realty company we rented from moved us across the street and down so that we would be safe,” said Robin Berry.
Visiting from Nashville, Tenn., the couple planned to stay on the island despite the storm. Katrina cut the narrow island in half more than a decade ago, but John Berry wasn’t very worried about Gordon.
“It’s awesome. It’s so beautiful,” he said of the pounding waves.
The staff at The Hotel Whiskey in Pass Christian, Miss. — only about a block from the Gulf of Mexico — were among those carrying out prestorm preparation rituals. The hotel restaurant planned to stay open Tuesday evening as usual, fortified by sandbags to keep out torrential rains, the manager said.
Gulfport was among communities providing sand and bags to residents, and Kenny Macdonald filled them for himself and older residents. MacDonald said that while such preparations become all too routine, one must remain wary.
“You don’t know what the intensity of the storm is going to be. You don’t want to take it lightly, of course,” MacDonald said.
A hurricane warning had been in effect for the entire Mississippi and Alabama coasts with the possibility Gordon would become a Category 1 hurricane.
Though it did not reach that level, the National Hurricane Center still predicted a “life-threatening” storm surge of 3 to 5 feet along parts of the central Gulf Coast.
Flooding also was a risk. Up to 10 inches of rain could fall in some parts of the Gulf states through late Thursday as the tropical weather moves inland toward Arkansas, forecasters said.
Mayors of barrier islands in the storm’s path warned that their communities might get cut off from the mainland.
“When you get the higher waves, water starts splashing across. Sometimes it starts pushing not only water across but debris, logs and things of that nature, which makes it very treacherous to get across,” said Jeff Collier, mayor of Dauphin Island.
Gordon was poised for only a glancing blow to New Orleans, where Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city has “the pumps and the power” needed to protect residents.