Hurricane warnings are issued for Gulf Coast

NEW ORLEANS» The U.S. Gulf Coast braced Friday for a fast-moving blast of wind, heavy rain and rising water as deadly Tropical Storm Nate threatened to reach hurricane strength before a weekend landfall.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami issued hurricane and storm surge warnings for southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. A hurricane warning was issued a few hours later for metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain.

Forecasters said in a Friday evening NHC advisory that the storm was growing in strength, with maximum sustained winds increasing to 60 mph and higher gusts.

“Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 36 hours, and Nate is expected to become a hurricane by the time it reaches the northern Gulf of Mexico,” the advisory said.

States of emergency were declared in all three states as Nate — which has killed at least 21 people in Central America — became the latest in a succession of destructive storms this hurricane season.

Nate is forecast to dump 3 to 6 inches of rain on the region — with isolated totals of up to 12 inches. That much rain led authorities to warn of flash flooding and mudslides. By midafternoon Friday, Nate was moving at a speed of 21 mph . It was expected to move near or over the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula late Friday and make landfall in the U.S. late Saturday or Sunday.

Evacuation orders were issued for some coastal communities, including the Louisiana towns of Jean Lafitte and Grand Isle.

Shelly Jambon, owner of Sureway Supermarket in Grand Isle, said she plans on riding out the storm at her store even though it’s across the street from the beach. She bought it two years before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 and has weathered far more threatening storms than Nate.

“It’s a mild one for us,” she said. “Seventy to 80 mph winds? We get that in a winter storm.”