BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – As Tropical Storm Francine barreled toward the Louisiana coast Tuesday, residents were making final preparations: filling sandbags, buying gasoline and stocking up on supplies to weather the storm, which is predicted to turn into a hurricane before it makes landfall.
Residents, especially in southern Louisiana, have a 24-hour window to “batten down the hatches,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said Tuesday afternoon. Meteorologists said Francine is predicted to make landfall Wednesday afternoon or evening as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 95 to 100 mph (155 to 175 km/h) and powerful storm surge.
Roxanne Riley, 42, who has lived in New Orleans her entire life, stocked up on water, snacks and other groceries from a Walmart and said she planned to remain at a member of the family's house on high ground to avoid flooding, but was prepared to evacuate if things got worse.
“It's always very frustrating when a storm comes,” Riley said. “I'm just going to make sure my car is ready to go in case I have to leave tomorrow. I'll keep checking and see what it looks like.”
According to the National Hurricane Center, a hurricane warning was in effect along the Louisiana coast from Cameron eastward to Grand Isle, about 50 miles south of New Orleans. A storm surge warning prolonged from the Mississippi-Alabama border to the Alabama-Florida border. Such a warning means there may be a risk of life-threatening flooding.
In the event that the storm makes landfall, Landry advises residents to remain put and never exit onto the streets, thereby hindering emergency responders or staff repairing power lines.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, Francine was still a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 km/h), in keeping with the hurricane center. The system was positioned about 360 miles (580 kilometers) southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana, and moving northeast at 10 mph (17 km/h).
The storm is moving over extremely warm Gulf waters, that are strengthening it. The water temperature is about 88 degrees Fahrenheit where Francine is positioned, said Brian McNoldy, senior research associate on the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science.
“The average ocean heat content over the entire Gulf is the highest ever recorded for this time,” McNoldy wrote on his blog.
However, the system encountered barely drier air because it moved north, which could have reduced the storm's intensity, forecasters said. But the storm remains to be expected to achieve hurricane strength.
In downtown New Orleans, cars and trucks lined up for several blocks to gather sandbags from the car parking zone of the local YMCA, whose executive director Erika Mann said Tuesday that 1,000 bags of sand had already been distributed by volunteers.
“I'm glad these people from the community came out,” Mann said. “What we're doing in New Orleans is a wonderful achievement. We're resilient and we come together to help when we need each other.”
One of the residents collecting sandbags was Wayne Grant, 33, who moved to New Orleans last 12 months and was nervous about his first possible hurricane in town. The low-lying rental apartment he shares along with his partner had already flooded in a storm the 12 months before and he didn't need to take any probabilities this time.
“It was like a slap in the face. Since then, we've been trying to keep up with the weather,” Grant said. “We've invested a lot in the place, even though we don't own it.”
A little bit greater than three years after Hurricane Ida destroyed his home in Dulac Township, Terrebonne Parish, on the Louisiana coast — and a couple of month after he finished rebuilding — Coy Verdin was preparing for one more hurricane.
“We had to gut the whole house,” he recalled in a telephone interview, rattling off an inventory of jobs from memory, including a brand new roof and latest windows.
Verdin, 55, has seriously considered moving further inland, away from his home on nearby Bayou Grand Caillou, where he makes his living, but plans to remain there after reconstruction, he said.
“As long as I can. But it's getting tough,” he said. He was preparing to go north to go to Francine and his daughter in Thibodaux, a couple of 50-minute drive away. “I don't want to go too far away so I can come back and check on my house.”
Landry said the Louisiana National Guard is being deployed to communities that might be affected by Francine and is supplied with food, water, nearly 400 high-water vehicles, about 100 boats and 50 helicopters to answer the storm and conduct possible search and rescue operations.
Francine is the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. It carries the specter of life-threatening storm surge in addition to damaging, life-threatening hurricane-force winds, said Brad Reinhart, a senior hurricane specialist on the hurricane center.
There can also be a probability of 4 to eight inches of rain, with as much as 12 inches possible in much of Louisiana and Mississippi by Friday morning, Reinhart said. These heavy rains could also cause significant flash flooding and concrete flooding.
Meteorologists said Francine's storm surge along the Louisiana coast could reach heights of as much as 10 feet (3 meters) between Cameron and Port Fourchon and in Vermilion Bay.
“There is a risk of very dangerous, life-threatening flooding,” said Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, adding that “dangerous, destructive winds could also reach quite far inland.”
He said landfall would likely occur somewhere between Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border – and Morgan City, Louisiana, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) to the east.
Associated Press writers Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Kevin McGill and Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed to this story.
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