Hurricane Issac has been downgraded to a tropical storm, after dumping huge amounts of rain on the US Gulf Coast as its moves inland with the threat of more heavy rain. Its multi-billion-dollar barriers have stood firm, but sea water has breached a levee in a town south of the city.
The former Category One hurricane was likely to become a tropical depression on Thursday, and could still bring heavy rain and floods as it moved across the center of the country over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center said.
By early Thursday, Isaac’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 45 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday night, meaning its top sustained winds would drop below 39 mph.
Meanwhile in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, 3,000 people remained in an area close to an 8-foot tall levee that waters were threatening, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office said. The ponderous storm, moving at about 6 mph (10km/h), could take most of the day to travel as far as Baton Rouge, a town 70 miles (110km) to the north-west of New Orleans.
The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said the $14.5 billion system built for New Orleans by the Army Corps of Engineers – an array of walls, floodgates, levees and pumps – had performed “exactly as it should”. Forecasters expected Isaac to move farther inland over the next several days, dumping rain on drought-stricken states across the nation’s midsection before finally breaking up over the weekend.
Isaac’s centre slowed over the Gulf, whipping winds of 130km per hour (kph) across parts of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. A flash flood emergency was issued for Slidell, Louisiana, until 9 a.m.
The former Category One hurricane was likely to become a tropical depression on Thursday, and could still bring heavy rain and floods as it moved across the center of the country over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center said.
By early Thursday, Isaac’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 45 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday night, meaning its top sustained winds would drop below 39 mph.
Meanwhile in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, 3,000 people remained in an area close to an 8-foot tall levee that waters were threatening, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office said. The ponderous storm, moving at about 6 mph (10km/h), could take most of the day to travel as far as Baton Rouge, a town 70 miles (110km) to the north-west of New Orleans.
The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said the $14.5 billion system built for New Orleans by the Army Corps of Engineers – an array of walls, floodgates, levees and pumps – had performed “exactly as it should”. Forecasters expected Isaac to move farther inland over the next several days, dumping rain on drought-stricken states across the nation’s midsection before finally breaking up over the weekend.
Isaac’s centre slowed over the Gulf, whipping winds of 130km per hour (kph) across parts of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. A flash flood emergency was issued for Slidell, Louisiana, until 9 a.m.
