Gordon makes landfall in US
GULFPORT, Miss. --Thousands 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. and the storm is forecast to quickly weaken as it moves inland across Mississippi, Louisiana and into Arkansas through Thursday. It did not reach hurricane status.
Gordon strengthened some in the final hours as it neared the central Gulf Coast, clocking top sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph). The National Hurricane Center said Gordon’s tight core was about 30 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Biloxi, Mississippi, or about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Mobile, Alabama, where heavy rains and winds picked up shortly before nightfall.
More than 27,000 customers are without power Tuesday night as Tropical Storm Gordon began pushing ashore. Those outages are mostly in coastal Alabama and include the western tip of the Florida Panhandle around Pensacola, with a few hundred in southeastern Mississippi. The number of outages has been rising rapidly after dark Tuesday night as Tropical Storm Gordon’s wind and rain began to take a toll on the Gulf Coast’s power grid.
Pensacola International Airport has reported more than 4 inches of rain, the heaviest total reported so far along the Gulf Coast.
Skies quickly turned dark gray as storms overshadowed Mobile, 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, possibly becoming the second hurricane to hit the region in less than a year.
Families along the coast filled sandbags, took patio furniture inside and stocked up on batteries and bottled water ahead of Gordon.