Tropical Depression Cindy crept northward across Louisiana toward Arkansas after churning ashore as a tropical storm early Thursday, weakening steadily but still spreading heavy rain and thunderstorms over hundreds of miles of territory from east Texas through a broad swath of the Southeast.
As a slow-moving tropical storm that formed Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico, Cindy was blamed for one death: authorities said a 10-year-old boy vacationing with relatives on the Alabama coast was struck by a log brought in by the stormy surf. Cindy also caused widespread highway and street flooding and several short-lived tornadoes, but no other deaths or serious injuries were reported as of midday Thursday.
Off Texas, the U.S. Coast Guard helped the four-member crew of a shrimp trawler limp back to shore at Freeport after the crew radioed a distress call that they were in danger of sinking early Wednesday. A helicopter crew lowered a spare pump to the trawler, allowing the crew to stay afloat while a cutter escorted the vessel to safety.
Heavy rain to continue
Authorities continued to warn that driving rains spinning off from the storm could still cause dangerous flash floods.
“That continues to be the threat,” said Ken Graham, of the National Weather Service Office near New Orleans. “Not only around the centre of Cindy. The impact of rain can be hundreds of miles away.”
Heavy rain was forecast to spread over the Tennessee and Ohio valleys on Thursday, then move Friday and Saturday into the central Appalachians. At 10 a.m. CDT Thursday, Cindy was about 265 kilometres northwest of Morgan City and moving to the north at 20 km/h.
Authorities watch people near the water at the Okaloosa Pier as heavy surf brought on by Tropical Storm Cindy pounds the pier supports in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. (Michael Snyder/Northwest Florida Daily News/Associated Press)
National Weather Service forecasters said the storm had dumped from 50 to 250 millimetres of rain on various spots along the Gulf Coast from southern Louisiana to the Florida panhandle as of Wednesday.
In southwest Louisiana, not far from where Cindy came ashore before dawn Thursday, motorists in trucks were driving through knee-high water in the streets of Cameron Parish. Though swamped roads and high tides interfered with transportation, Ashley Buller, an assistant in the parish emergency office, said there were no reports of major flooding.
“We haven’t heard of water getting into homes,” Buller said. “Mostly a few downed trees, power outages.”
Some other drivers, though, were pulling over and not attempting to navigate the flooded roads in the area. Some of the low-lying clouds were rotating, and gusty winds whipped across the landscape.
Elsewhere, the Mississippi coast received some of the heaviest rain.
In Gulfport, Miss., Kathleen Bertucci said heavy rainfall Wednesday sent water into her business, Top Shop, which sells and installs granite countertops.
Don Noel carries his daughter Alexis, 8, with his wife Lauren, right as they walk through a flooded roadway to check on their boat in the West End section of New Orleans on Wednesday. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)
“It’s pretty disgusting, but I don’t have flood insurance because they took me out of the flood zone,” said Bertucci, whose store is near a bayou. “We’re just trying to clean everything up and hope it doesn’t happen again.”
In nearby Biloxi, a waterspout moved ashore Wednesday morning. Harrison County Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy said there were no injuries but fences, trees and power lines were damaged.
Storms also downed trees in the Florida Panhandle. Fort Walton Beach spokeswoman Jo Soria said fallen trees hit houses and cars in what she called “pockets of wind damage” in two or three residential neighbourhoods.
The White House said President Donald Trump was briefed on the storm Wednesday by Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert.
State of emergency
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency, like his Alabama counterpart a day earlier. He was among authorities stressing that the storm’s danger wasn’t limited to the coast.
In Knoxville, Tenn., the power-generating Tennessee Valley Authority, said it was drawing down water levels on nine lakes it controls along the Tennessee River and its tributaries in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, anticipating heavy runoff from Cindy’s rains once the storm moves inland. The TVA manages 49 dams to regulate water, provide power and help control downstream flooding.
Intermediate Advisory 10A issued on Tropical Storm Cindy. Heaviest rainfall currently just W of the TX/LA border and the FL Panhandle. pic.twitter.com/WDjsvjH9RY
In Alabama, streets were flooded and beaches were closed on the barrier island of Dauphin Island. Some roads were covered with water in the seafood village of Bayou La Batre, but Becca Caldemeyer still managed to get to her bait shop open at the city dock. If only there were more customers, she said.
“It’s pretty quiet,” Caldemeyer said by phone from Rough Water Bait and Tackle. “Nobody can cast a shrimp out in this kind of wind.”
