Bands of rain from Tropical Storm Lee were pelting the Gulf Coast on
Saturday as the storm's center trudged slowly toward land, where
businesses were already beginning to suffer on what would normally be a
bustling holiday weekend. The storm could bring as many as 20 inches of
rain to some areas.
Tropical storm warning
flags were flying from Mississippi to Texas and flash flood warnings
extended along the Alabama coast into the Florida Panhandle. The storm's
slow forward movement means that its rain clouds should have more time
to disgorge themselves on any cities in their path.
The
storm was expected to make landfall on the central Louisiana coast late
Saturday and turn east toward New Orleans, where it would provide the
biggest test of rebuilt levees since Hurricane Gustav struck on Labor
Day 2008.
Still, residents didn't expect the
tropical storm to live up to the legacy of some of the killer hurricanes
that have hit the city.
"It's a lot of rain.
It's nothing, nothing to Katrina," said Malcolm James, 59, a federal
investigator in New Orleans who lost his home after levees broke during
Katrina in August 2005 and had to be airlifted by helicopter.
"This is mild," he said. "Things could be worse."
The
outer bands of Lee, the 12th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane
season, began dumping rain over southeastern Louisiana, southern
Mississippi and Alabama on Friday.
By the
evening, 2.5 inches of rain had fallen in some places on the Gulf Coast,
including Boothville, La., and Pascagoula, Miss. In New Orleans,
rainfall totals ranged from less than an inch to slightly over 2 inches,
depending on the neighborhood.
The coming
storm began washing out Labor Day weekend festivities, with cancelations
of parades and other events in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, Ala. In
Louisiana, programming was canceled at state parks and historic sites in
the southern part of the state.
Merchants
worried the storm would dampen the Southern Decadence festival, an
annual gay lifestyle fixture that rings cash registers on Labor Day
weekend. Ann Sonnier, shift manager of Jester's bar, said receipts were
disappointing so far.
"People are probably scared to death to come here after Katrina," she said.
Some tourists were caught off guard by Lee, but didn't let it dampen their spirits.
"I
didn't even know about it," said Kyla Holley of Madison, Wis., who
along with husband Rob was in town for the Labor Day weekend holiday.
"But it wouldn't have stopped us from coming."
Lee
comes less than a week after Hurricane Irene killed more than 40 people
from North Carolina to Maine and knocked out power to millions. It was
too soon to tell if Hurricane Katia, out in the Atlantic, could endanger
the U.S.
The storm's biggest impact, so far,
has been in the Gulf of Mexico oil fields. About half the Gulf's normal
daily oil production has been cut as rigs were evacuated, though oil
prices were down sharply Friday on sour economic news.
Federal
authorities said 169 of the 617 staffed production platforms have been
evacuated, along with 16 of the 62 drilling rigs. That's reduced daily
production by about 666,000 barrels of oil and 1.7 billion cubic feet of
gas.
The National Hurricane Center said the
center of Lee was about 170 miles west-southwest of the mouth of the
Mississippi River on Friday and moving north at just 5 mph.
Forecasters
say that Lee's maximum sustained winds had increased slightly by early
Saturday morning to 50 mph, and could get stronger.
Governors
in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as the mayor of New Orleans,
declared states of emergency. Officials in several coastal Louisiana and
Mississippi communities called for voluntary evacuations.
The
Army Corps of Engineers was closing floodgates along the Harvey Canal, a
commercial waterway in suburban New Orleans, but had not moved to
shut a massive flood structure on the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet
shipping channel.
The MRGO was a major
conduit for Katrina's storm surge, which overwhelmed levees and flooded
St. Bernard and the city's Lower 9th Ward.
City
officials said they expect some street flooding but no levee problems.
Lee's storm surge, projected around 4 to 5 feet, is far short of the
20-feet-plus driven by Katrina. Billions of federal dollars have been
spent on new levees and other flood protection.
The
water-logged Lee was tantalizingly close to Texas but hopes dimmed for
relief from the state's worst drought since the 1950s as the storm's
forecast track shifted east. Forecasters said it could bring drenching
rains to Mississippi and Alabama early next week.
On
the Mississippi coast, tourism officials said there was no spike in
cancellations for the holiday weekend at hotels and casinos.
On
Grand Isle, Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island, people kept an
eye on the storm that was already bringing rain there. It's not as
frightening as having a Category 2 or 3 hurricane bearing down, said
June Brignac, owner of the Wateredge Beach Resort.
"But
we're still concerned with all the rain that's coming in, causing
possible flooding of the highway going out. If we don't leave, we may be
trapped here until it's completely past," she said.
The
rain, however, had a silver lining. In New Orleans, it was helping to
tamp down a stubborn marsh fire that for several days has sent pungent
smoke wafting across the area.
Southern Louisiana needs rain — just not that much, that fast.
"Sometimes
you get what you ask for," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
"Unfortunately it looks like we're going to get more than we needed."
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