Hurricane Issac has been downgraded to a tropical storm due to its slow moving pace. However, New Orleans still needs to be ready for periods of heavy rain and winds into Friday. So far New Orleans has been able to protect itself from widespread flooding but the city is still preparing for the worst. Click below to read more.
Isaac had cut power to a third of Louisiana’s households and was expected to lash the state with heavy rain and winds into Friday.
In Plaquemines Parish, the storm surge overtopped an 18-mile stretch of levee, sending up to 12 feet of water over the 8-foot-tall barrier early Wednesday. National Guardsmen and residents rescued dozens of people trapped in homes.
The area had been under a mandatory evacuation order, but only half of the 2,000 residents reportedly had left ahead of Isaac’s landfall Tuesday.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal warned that there was “much more coming…this is a storm that we’ll be dealing with not only through today and tomorrow,” Jindal said. “We’re going to continue to see the weather effects of the storm especially as it moves to the northern part of our state.”
The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for Orleans Parish, which includes New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, East Bank of Plaquemines Parish, Northwestern Plaquemines Parish, Western St. Bernard Parish and St. Charles Parish in Louisiana and Jackson County, Miss.
