New Orleans holding up under Lee

NEW ORLEANS?? Tropical Storm Lee crawled onto southern Louisiana's coast on Sunday as New Orleans' flood defenses appeared to pass one of their biggest tests since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.

The National Hurricane Center said Lee's center was about 110 miles west-northwest of New Orleans, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph at around 2 p.m. EDT, and tropical storm-force winds extending 275 miles. The storm picked up speed and was moving at 8 mph.

Winds were expected to weaken gradually in the next couple of days and up to 20 inches of rain was expected to fall on southeast Louisiana, the Miami-based center said.

The storm has temporarily shut over 60 percent of offshore oil production.

Video: La. resident: Storm is 'just cleaning everything off' (on this page)

In New Orleans the storm recalled Hurricane Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of the city, killed 1,500 people and caused more than $80 billion in damage to the tourist destination. Lee has dropped nearly 11 inches of rain on New Orleans since it developed late last week.

Half the city lies below sea level and is protected by a system of levees and flood gates.

Some street flooding was reported, but the city's massive pumping system kept ahead of the volume and diverted the waters into Lake Pontchartrain.

"There's not a whole lot of flooding anywhere, so things are OK," said Jerry Sneed, deputy mayor of public safety. "We're ready for the next round."

Low-lying parishes around New Orleans did not fare as well, as Lee's winds drove a tidal surge over levees and onto roads.

"For a while we got some false hope that we might be out of the woods, but we realized overnight we would get more rain," Lafourche Parish spokesman Brennan Matherne said. "We're getting call after call about street flooding."

New Orleans' festive spirit endured the rain. A parade for the Southern Decadence festival, a gay and lesbian event expected to draw 100,000 people, was to continue as planned, city police said.

There were isolated reports of flooding in roads and homes. No injuries or fatalities were reported in Louisiana.

Wet conditions associated with the storm appear to be a factor in an early-morning car wreck in Mobile, Alabama, that killed one man and left several injured.

New Orleans is under a flash flood watch through Monday night, the National Weather Service said. Potential damage from wind gusts also will be a concern, it said.

At midday Sunday, there were scattered tornado warnings for spin-off twisters from Lee.

Lynn Burse, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, says the possible twister hit Lamar County, Miss., Sunday morning. No injuries or major damage was reported. Burse said drier air pivoting behind the system could increase the risk for tornadoes.

A possible tornado struck southern Mobile County in Alabama, snapping oak limbs, knocking out power and damaging at least one home. No injuries were reported, but the blast awoke Frank Ledbetter and ripped up the sign for his art gallery.

"It just got louder and louder and louder. I woke my wife up and said, 'It's a tornado.' We just dove into the closet in the bedroom," he said. "It was crazy."

Joe Zirlott was working the overnight shift at a Citgo Speedy Mart in the Bayley's Corner community when trash cans started flying, a sign blew away, the front door popped open and the lights went out.

"Everything got real hairy for about 10 minutes, then it eased up a little," he said.

Lee's tidal surge could spur more coastal flooding in Louisiana, as well as in Mississippi and Alabama, before drenching a large swath of the Southeast and Appalachian regions in the coming days.

Storm winds have already pushing Gulf waters inland, slamming barriers in low-lying areas such as Lafourche Parish and prompting mandatory evacuations in the coastal communities of Lafitte, Crown Point and Barataria.

Wet and windy conditions hovered over Alabama's Dauphin Island, a barrier island in the Gulf, but conditions weren't too threatening, Mayor Jeff Collier said. High surf caused some roads to flood, but all were still passable Saturday afternoon.

Precautions were taken to secure anything that could be swept away by wind or waves, and Labor Day concerts and other festivities were canceled.

"The weekend is literally a wash," Collier said. "It's really a shame that it happened on a holiday weekend."

Coffers were suffering at many coastal businesses that depend on a strong end-of-summer weekend. Alabama beaches that would normally be packed were largely empty, and rough seas closed the Port of Mobile. Mississippi's coastal casinos, however, were open and reporting brisk business.

In Mississippi, local governments were taking precautions as forecasters predicted tides could be 2 feet to 4 feet above normal.

About 11,500 houses were without electrical power due to the storm late on Saturday, down from about 38,000 earlier, according to utility Entergy Corp.

Video: La. residents evacuate as Tropical Storm Lee approaches (on this page)

More than 60 percent of U.S. offshore oil production, all based in the Gulf of Mexico, and over 44 percent of offshore gas production were shut as of Saturday, according to the U.S. government. Most of that output should quickly return once the storm passes.

Major offshore producers like Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc shut down platforms and evacuated staff late last week.

In Lafourche Parish south of New Orleans, rain had been falling steadily since early Sunday. As tides pushed toward a peak, pressure on emergency officials continued.

Rising water has closed several bridges over inland waterways and was lapping over highways in the area of Larose and Lockport in Lafourche, as tidal surges threatened several coastal areas and inland waterways on Sunday.

Lafourche is one of three parishes south of New Orleans that were under flash flood warnings Sunday. Several counties of coastal Mississippi also were under flash flood warning.

"For a while we got some false hope that we might be out of the woods, but we realized overnight we would get more rain," Matherne said.

A Saturday evening pause in the squalls allowed drainage pumps to catch up with the water in many areas.

In Grand Isle on the Louisiana coast, Mayor David Carmadelle reported that the sky actually cleared for a time in the evening.

"We could see stars for a while before the feeder bands resumed," he said.

By Sunday morning, meteorologists reported rainfall totals from the storm ranging from six inches in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward to more than 14 inches in Marrero just across the Mississippi River from the city.

In coastal areas and along many inland waterways, the storm has become a case study in tidal surge, with stiff winds pushing Gulf of Mexico tides three to five feet above normal on Sunday.

"Southeast winds are still pushing tides up the bayous and making some roads impassable," said Earl Eues, emergency management director for Terrebonne Parish southwest of New Orleans.

Jefferson Parish President John Young said bulldozers and dump trucks were at work to bolster barriers in communities that lie outside the levee system in the lower part of the parish next to New Orleans.

A mandatory evacuation was still in effect for Lafitte, Crown Point and Barataria.

"It's not a rain situation," he said. "It's the tidal surge," he said.

Young said Sunday morning he intends to continue pressuring state and federal authorities to fund some form of permanent flood protection in these areas.

"Lafitte and Grand Isle have been through so much, with four major hurricanes -- the BP oil disaster hit them right between the eyes -- and you wonder how many times people down there are going to have to deal with this," he said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44390658/ns/weather/

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