This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/07/hurricane-nate-louisiana-alabama-new-orleans

The article has changed 13 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 7 Version 8
Hurricane Nate makes landfall in Mississippi as a category 1 Hurricane Nate makes landfall in Mississippi as category 1 storm
(about 5 hours later)
Rainfall from Hurricane Nate lashed south-east Louisiana on Saturday afternoon, as the storm made landfall at the mouth of the Mississippi River and residents in vulnerable, low-lying areas fled. At least 21 people were killed during the storm’s passage across Central America this week. Hurricane Nate made landfall on Saturday night near the mouth of the Mississippi river as a category 1 storm with winds of 85mph (135km/h) on Saturday night, threatening parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with torrential rain and potential flooding.
“It’s coming,” Larry Bertron said as he and his wife Kimberlee prepared to leave their home in the Braithwaite community in vulnerable Plaquemines Parish. They lost one home in southern Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now they were preparing to leave the home they rebuilt after Hurricane Isaac in 2012. Nate, the fourth major storm to hit the US in less than two months, killed at least 30 people in Central America before entering the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and bearing down on southern states. It has also shut down most oil and gas production in the Gulf.
“This will be it,” said Bertron, who complained that local officials had not done enough to improve levees. “If it floods again, this will be it. I can’t live on promises.” Nate comes on the heels of three other major storms, Harvey, Irma and Maria, which devastated Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. But as a category 1, the weakest in the five-category ranking used by meteorologists, Nate appeared to lack the devastating punch of its predecessors.
A 7pm curfew was declared for New Orleans, where fragile pumping and drainage systems could face a major test once Nate strikes. Weaknesses – including the failure of some pumps and power-generating turbines – were exposed after a deluge on 5 August flooded homes and businesses in some sections of the city.
Hurricane conditions were expected along the northern Gulf Coast and 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. “Everyone needs to understand that, that this is a significantly dangerous situation.”
On Alabama’s Dauphin Island, water had begun washing over the road on the island’s low-lying west end, said mayor Jeff Collier. The storm was projected to bring storm surges from 7ft to 11ft 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 was “quickly closing”, Alabama emergency management agency director Brian Hastings said.
Florida governor Rick Scott warned residents of the Panhandle to prepare for Nate’s impact. The governor said residents in evacuation zones in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties should heed warnings and seek shelter from the storm. Shelters would be available to people who have nowhere else to go, he said.
“Hurricane Nate is expected to bring life-threatening storm surges, strong winds and tornados that could reach across the Panhandle,” Scott said.
The evacuations affected roughly 100,000 residents in the western Panhandle. The Pensacola International Airport announced it would close at 6pm on Saturday and remain closed on Sunday.
The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport remained open. “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 made landfall on Saturday evening as a category 1 storm with winds of 85 mph (137 kph).
Waterside sections of New Orleans, outside the city’s levee system, were under an evacuation order. About 2,000 people were affected. Not everyone was complying. Gabriel Black of New Orleans’ Venetian Isles community sent his wife, a friend and three dogs to a hotel in the city. He stayed behind because an 81-year-old neighbor refused to leave.
“I know it sounds insane, but he has bad legs and he doesn’t have anybody who can get to him,” Black said.
Others nearby were staying as well. Nancy and Cleve Bell said their house was built so high off the ground that it stayed dry in the floods after Hurricane Katrina. Nancy Bell said they had a generator and plenty of supplies and would be safe.
Forecasters said Nate could dump 3in to 6in of rain with isolated totals of up to 10in. The National Hurricane Center said a hurricane warning was in effect from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida border. A hurricane warning was also in effect for metropolitan New Orleans and nearby Lake Pontchartrain. Tropical storm warnings extended west of Grand Isle to Morgan City, Louisiana, and around Lake Maurepas and east of the Alabama-Florida border to the Okaloosa-Walton County line in the Florida Panhandle.
Hurricanes have posed challenges for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this summer. The AP reported after Hurricane Harvey that at least seven environmentally dangerous sites in and around Houston went underwater during that record-shattering storm.
In Mississippi on Saturday EPA officials were releasing 40m gallons of partially treated wastewater in advance of Nate’s arrival, in an attempt to prevent a worse leak from the closed Mississippi Phosphates plant in Pascagoula, a site with a history of damaging spills.
Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards said he spoke to President Donald Trump on Saturday morning. “He assured me that LA would have all the assistance we need,” the governor said on Twitter.
The president, who was at his golf club in Virginia before attending a fundraiser in South Carolina on Saturday night, approved an emergency declaration for a large part of Louisiana and ordered federal assistance.The president, who was at his golf club in Virginia before attending a fundraiser in South Carolina on Saturday night, approved an emergency declaration for a large part of Louisiana and ordered federal assistance.
Trump has faced sustained criticism over his response to the aftermath of hurricanes Jose and Maria in Puerto Rico – sizeable storms which followed Harvey in Texas and Irma in Miami in a costly hurricane season.Trump has faced sustained criticism over his response to the aftermath of hurricanes Jose and Maria in Puerto Rico – sizeable storms which followed Harvey in Texas and Irma in Miami in a costly hurricane season.
He said on Twitter: “Our great team at Fema [Federal Emergency Management Administration] is prepared for Hurricane Nate. Everyone in LA, MS, AL and FL please listen to your local authorities and be safe.”He said on Twitter: “Our great team at Fema [Federal Emergency Management Administration] is prepared for Hurricane Nate. Everyone in LA, MS, AL and FL please listen to your local authorities and be safe.”
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded its warning for New Orleans to a tropical storm. But Nate was expected to regain some strength and make a second landfall along the coast of Mississippi to the east.
“The only thing you can do is prepare,” said Emmett Bryant from Gulfport, Mississippi. “Here there’s nothing really you can do when the storm comes unless you’re going to leave. And I don’t plan on leaving.”
The hurricane’s center was expected to pass over parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, eventually weakening to a tropical depression. Before then, storm surges of up to 11ft (3.4 meters) on the Mississippi-Alabama border were still possible, the NHC said.
In Hancock County, Mississippi, north-east of New Orleans, rain and wind were gaining intensity and many streets were washing over. The county evacuated people from low-lying areas and imposed a curfew.
Earlier in the day, states of emergency were declared in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as in more than two dozen Florida counties.
In a statement, the City of Biloxi, Mississippi, warned its 46,000 residents the highest storm surge would occur between 10pm and 3am and could reach 11-12ft.
In Alabama, governor Kay Ivey urged residents in areas facing heavy winds and storm surges to take precautions.
Some 5,000 people in southern Alabama were without power due to Nate, Alabama Power said.
Rainfall of up to 10in (25cm) was expected east of the Mississippi river from the central Gulf Coast into the Deep South, in the eastern Tennessee Valley, and southern Appalachians, the NHC said.
Rainfall in the Ohio Valley and into the central Appalachian mountains could reach a maximum of 7in (18cm).
New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu lifted a curfew in the city on Saturday evening that was originally scheduled to last until Sunday morning. He said in a statement on social media however, that there was still a serious threat of storm surge outside levee areas.
Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans evacuated 240 residents who were not protected by its levee system as the storm approached. “While it appears we’re being spared ... our hearts go out to Mississippi,” said Amos Cormier, president of Plaquemines Parish, a low-lying area south of New Orleans.
Major shipping ports across the central US Gulf Coast were closed to inbound and outbound traffic on Saturday, as Nate intensified and storm surges of up 11ft were expected at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The storm has curtailed 92% of daily oil production and 77% of daily natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico, more than three times the amount affected by Harvey.
Workers had been evacuated from 301 platforms and 13 rigs as of Saturday, said the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Before heading north into the Gulf, Nate brushed Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, home to beach resorts such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen, the NHC said.
The storm doused Central America with heavy rains on Thursday, killing at least 16 people in Nicaragua, 10 in Costa Rica, two in Honduras and two in El Salvador. Thousands were forced to evacuate their homes and Costa Rica’s government declared a state of emergency.