BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -Heavy rain and storm surge flooded low-lying streets along the Gulf Coast yesterday as a rapidly weakening Tropical Storm Cindy pushed inland after leaving more than 300,000 homes and businesses without electricity.
Cindy's top sustained wind had slowed to 35 mph by late morning, downgrading it to a tropical depression, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storm damaged roofs in parts of Louisiana and ripped up piers along the Alabama shore. Along Mississippi's coast, 3 to 4 inches of rain and a storm surge of 4 to 6 feet above normal tide combined to flood low-lying coastal roads. One Alabama traffic death was linked to the weather.
Many people were already thinking of the next tropical weather system.
Tropical Storm Dennis was powering up in the Caribbean and expected to plow through the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. It had sustained wind of 70 mph by early afternoon and could strengthen into a hurricane by the end of the day, the National Hurricane Center said.
Dennis is the one we're watching
said Chamber of Commerce president J. R. Jones in Flomaton, Ala., recalling Hurricane Ivan's destruction in Alabama and Florida last September. I hate to wish it on someone else but we don't need another one.
It was too early for meteorologists at the hurricane center to say exactly how Dennis would affect the U.S. mainland, but they urged Gulf Coast residents to be prepared.
Pretty much everyone from the (Florida) Keys all the way to Texas should be monitoring Dennis' progress, said meteorologist Chris Hennon.
Fisherman John Hasten, 62, of Ocean Springs, Miss., said he planned to move his boat inland to protect it against Dennis, after spending Tuesday night on the craft at a harbor in Biloxi as Cindy stormed past.
It got raunchy. The water was busting over the seawall Hasten said. You had a screaming wind. The boat bounced and jerked on the lines. The rigging clanged and banged.
Cindy came ashore in southeast Louisiana late Tuesday, crossing the barrier island resort town of Grand Isle, where Mayor David Camardelle reported some roof damage. New Orleans and surrounding areas got 4 inches of rain and 70 mph wind, and scattered street flooding, and some streets were choked by debris and fallen power lines.
Louisiana's Entergy and CLECO utilities said about 260,000 customers lost power. Alabama Power Co. reported up to 35,000 homes and businesses blacked out, while Mississippi Power Co. said an estimated 7,000 lost power during the storm. About 7,600 Gulf Power customers had no electricity in the western Florida Panhandle.
Flights were resuming yesterday at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport and Amtrak planned to restart passenger service to and from New Orleans.
At 11 a.m. EDT, the last report posted, Cindy was centered about 50 miles north-northwest of Mobile, Ala., and was heading northeast at about 14 mph.
Dennis was centered about 350 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and was heading toward the west-northwest at around 14 mph, the hurricane center said.
Hurricane warnings were posted for Jamaica and southwestern Haiti, with a hurricane watch extending to the Cayman Islands and Cuba, and tropical storm warnings were raised for the southern coast of the Dominican Republic.
A survey of oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico found that 23 petroleum production platforms and six drilling rigs had been evacuated Tuesday interrupting more than 3 percent of the gulf's normal oil and natural gas production.
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