New Orleans pumping system faces major test
Rainfall from fast- moving Hurricane Nate lashed southeast Louisiana on Saturday afternoon as the storm headed for an evening landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast and residents in vulnerable, low-lying areas fled.
“It’s coming,” Larry Bertron said as he and his wife, Kimberlee, prepared to leave their home in the Braithwaite community of vulnerable Plaquemines Parish.
Hurricane veterans, they lost one home in south Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and were preparing to leave the home they rebuilt after Hurricane Isaac in 2012.
“This will be it,” said Bertron, who complained that local officials haven’t done enough to improve area levees. “If it floods again, this will be it. I can’t live on promises.”
A 7 p.m. curfew was declared for New Orleans, whose fragile pumping and drainage system could face a major test once Nate strikes. System weaknesses — including the failure of some pumps and power- generating turbines — were exposed after an Aug. 5 deluge flooded homes and businesses in some sections of the city.
Hurricane conditions were expected along the northern Gulf Coast. A state of emergency was declared for Mississippi’s six southernmost counties. Residents there and in coastal Alabama were warned to take shelter or get out of the storm’s way.
“This is the worst hurricane that has impacted Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina,” Mississippi Emergency Management Director Lee Smithson said at a Saturday briefing. “Everyone needs to understand that, that this is a significantly dangerous situation.”
On Alabama’s Dauphin Island, water had already begun washing over the road Saturday on the island’s low-lying west end, said Mayor Jeff Collier. The storm was projected to bring storm surges from seven to 11 feet near the Alabama-Mississippi state line. Some of the biggest impacts could be at the top of funnel-shaped Mobile Bay.
The window for preparing “is quickly closing,” Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Brian Hastings said.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned residents of the Panhandle to prepare for Nate’s impact.
The governor said Saturday that residents in evacuation zones in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties should heed the warnings and seek safe shelter from the storm. He said shelters will be available to people who have nowhere else to go.
“Hurricane Nate is expected to bring life-threatening storm surges, strong winds and torna- dos that could reach across the Panhandle,” Scott said. The evacuations affect roughly 100,000 residents in the western Panhandle.
The Pensacola International Airport announced it would close at 6 p.m. Saturday and remain closed today.
However, the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport remained open Saturday.
“The airport does not close,” spokeswoman Michelle Wilcut said.
“We are urging customers to check with their specific airlines to see whether their flights have been canceled because there have been some of those.”
Nate was located midday Saturday about 105 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was still a Category 1 storm but was expected to reach Category 2 strength before making landfall. Nate killed at least 21 people after strafing Central America earlier in the week.