A weakened Tropical Depression Francine advanced inland this Thursday after hitting Louisiana as a Category 2 storm, leaving hundreds of miles of lives and businesses without power, sending a storm surge through coastal areas and raising fears of flooding in New Orleans and elsewhere.
As emergency crews began clearing roads, utility workers began restoring power and neighbors helped salvage rocks. There were no reports of deaths or heirs at that time, Gov. Jeff Landry said.
“The human spirit is defined by its resilience, and resilience is what defines Louisiana,” Landry said at a news conference. “There are certainly times and situations that test us, but that’s also when we’re in this state at our best.”
At the height of the storm, around 450,000 people in Louisiana were without electricity, according to figures released by the Comisión de Servicios Públicos. Many of the courtyards were related to the firebox, not to structural damage.
At one point, about 500 people had run into emergency shelters, according to state officials.
“The amount of money that has been pumped into resilience has really made a difference, from the energy flows to the amount of people that have been saved,” said Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who attended the governor’s press conference.
The storm dumped up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia and up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in parts of Alabama and Florida, according to forecasters, who cited the potential for pending flooding in places as far away as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.
Francine ran aground on the Louisiana coast at 155 kilometers per hour in the Terrebonne district, a fragile coastal region that has not yet fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. After moving rapidly toward Nueva Orleans and dumping torrential rains on the city.
The Hurricane National Center downgraded Francine to a tropical storm and tropical depression with heavy support at 35 mph as it moved north into Mississippi.
Hopefully the system will continue to weaken and convert into a post-tropical cycle later in the day before slowing and moving over central and northern Mississippi into the early hours.
Francine, the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, gained strength due to extremely high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico,
In addition to torrential rains, there was a risk of tornadoes triggered by the Youth Blizzard in Florida and Alabama.
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