Noting the two unnamed storms that slammed Louisiana last year with heavy flooding, Gov. John Bel Edwards today urged Louisianans to take Tropical Storm Cindy seriously.
“This storm is going to affect the entire state,” Edwards said during a noon press conference. “Don’t take it lightly.”
Heavy rain and flooding continues to be a primary threat from the storm, the USA Today Network of Louisiana reports. Louisianans should be prepared for 45- to 50-mile-per-hour winds, the governor adds.
No evacuations had been ordered as of 3 p.m. The storm, however, is being blamed for the death of a 5-year-old boy in Alabama. Offshore, Cindy has caused some disruption to oil and gas activities. Personnel had been evacuated from 40 production platforms as of noon today, operators told the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. The bureau said it will monitor the situation until the storm is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico and oil and gas activities. Reuters says outages at some refineries could drive up gasoline prices.
Roughly 10 months ago, a slow-moving unnamed system caused widespread flooding in Baton Rouge and in other parts of southeast Louisiana, where many residents and businesses continue to recover from the devastation.
Edwards, like his Alabama counterpart a day earlier, declared a state of emergency ahead of Cindy’s landfall. He was among authorities stressing that the storm’s danger wasn’t limited to the coast, The Associated Press reports.
Though the storm has weakened slightly, Cindy is expected to make landfall this evening at Sabine Pass at or near Cameron Parish.
Forecasters now expect rain totals of 6 to 9 inches, with up to 12 inches possible in some spots in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. East Texas rain totals were expected to be from 3 to 6 inches.
“All arms of the state’s emergency preparedness and response apparatus are taking Tropical Storm Cindy seriously, and we are calling on all Louisianans throughout the state to do so as well,” Edwards said.
The state said the Federal Emergency Management Agency also was moving 125,000 meals and 200,000 liters of water into Louisiana. And workers on Grand Isle, Louisiana’s barrier island community south of New Orleans, worked to reinforce a rock levee protecting the island’s vulnerable west side.
Locally, the city-parish has made sandbags available for residents who need them. Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s office rolled out a new mapping system aimed at making it easier for Baton Rouge residents to find sandbag locations around the parish.
More information like the locations of emergency shelters can be added to the map if the need arises. The city-parish has already delivered more than 20,000 sandbags to 12 locations across the parish.
The Associated Press has the latest on Tropical Storm Cindy.
