NEW ORLEANS – Hurricane Isaac began shedding some of its brute strength Wednesday, but the vast, slow-moving storm has enough muscle to batter the Gulf Coast region and beyond with drenching storms, blinding winds and torrential, widespread flooding for several more days.
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By David J. Phillip, AP
Carlo Maltese and his dog ride in a boat after being rescued from his flooded home Wednesday in Braithwaite, La.
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Seven years to the day Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans and caused hundreds of deaths, Isaac — downgraded to a tropical storm on Wednesday — is proving far less destructive, but still capable of roiling mayhem. At least one storm-related death was reported in Louisiana. Nearly 700,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi were without power late Wednesday. Airline, rail and automotive traffic was expected to remain snarled across several states through week's end.
Despite Isaac's waning force, the storm is still expected to dump up to another 15 inches of rainfall over parts of the Gulf Coast region and will plow into the nation's heartland, drenching states as far north as Ohio.
"The category of the storm doesn't capture all of the hazards," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center. "Take this one very seriously. It's going to take a while for this to spin down. We're still way early before this is all over."
Parts of New Orleans have already been pounded with up to 17 inches of rain. Strong winds and storms continue to wreak havoc, scattering debris from homes and businesses and leaving streets nearly barren as Isaac proceeded at a maddeningly slow pace.
"Unfortunately, this is a storm that just won't seem to leave us," said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew. "This is not the time to let your guard down. We're still in this thing, so it's more important than ever for residents to stay vigilant and remain calm."
Lingering effects
Flights to and from New Orleans were canceled for a second straight day Wednesday. Airports in other Gulf cities as far east as Pensacola, Fla., were closed. Southwest Airlines said all of its New Orleans flights were suspended at least through 5 p.m. Thursday. The vast number of cancellations — and the storm's trajectory — could cause travel delays across the nation heading into Labor Day weekend.
"We'll be dealing with this storm through early Friday morning," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said.
Most of Lakeshore Drive along New Orleans' Lake Pontchartrain is closed to traffic, but the storm surge remained below the levees. The Army Corps of Engineers' $14.45 billion overhaul of the area's hurricane protection system was holding back surges and flood waters, said Bob Turner, regional director of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East.
Throughout the New Orleans area, neighborhoods swallowed by Katrina's catastrophic floods were drenched by Isaac but spared major flooding. The Lake Borgne surge barrier, a $1-billion structure erected after Katrina, stopped a 15-foot storm surge headed to the Lower 9th Ward— perhaps the hardest hit area in 2005 — and other parts of the city.
Without that 26-foot-high barrier, storm water would have topped levees and flooded neighborhoods ravaged by floods during Katrina, he said. "You would have had water flowing in the Lower 9th Ward again," Turner said. "The barrier did its job."
Lower 9th Ward resident Gloria Guy spent 9½ hours on the roof of her flooded home during Katrina before she was rescued. On Wednesday, Guy said she had mostly slept through Isaac in a home built after Katrina by actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation.
"Much better than Katrina," said Guy, 72. "Besides not having any lights, everything's fine."
Water tops a levee
Rescue crews were tending to stranded residents in Plaquemines and St. John the Baptist parishes, both on the outskirts of New Orleans. Braithwaite, a small enclave of Plaquemines just on the outside a giant floodgate, received the brunt of Isaac's wrath when a failed levee sent floodwaters into homes. Rescue crews retrieved several dozen residents from rooftops.
The storm pushed water over an 18-mile levee and put so much pressure on it that state officials were considering puncturing the flood wall to relieve the strain, Jindal said Wednesday.
Louisiana National Guard troops, sheriff's deputies and rescue teams from the state's Wildlife and Fisheries department with high-water vehicles and 10 boats converged in a staging area near the gate keeping the floodwaters back. But gusty winds continued to hamper rescue efforts.
Just on the other side of the gate from Braithwaite and inside the hurricane protection system, David Manes, 33, rode out the storm at home with his three young sons. Isaac's winds snapped trees in half and peeled back some of his roof's overhang. Isaac's muscle caught Manes off guard.
"It wasn't supposed to be this bad," he said. "If I had known it would've been this bad, I would've stayed with my mother in Mississippi."
Northern Plaquemines Parish is ringed by a hurricane protection system of fortified levees and flood walls. But stretches on the east bank of the Mississippi River and further south lie outside the protection system, making it still vulnerable to storm surge and flooding, Parish Councilman Kirk Lepine said.
"It came in at the worse scenario we can imagine," Lepine said. "There's nowhere for that water to go than here."
'It's just been rain'
New Orleans' historic French Quarter appeared to have dodged the worst of Isaac. Downed tree limbs, minor flooding at intersections and a brief electrical outage overnight were the main problems confronting the residents stayed.
"Honestly, man, it's just been rain," said Huggington "Huggy" Behr, manager of Flanagan's Pub, which remained open through the night. "To us, we've seen the worst, so it's business as usual."
New Orleans businesses fretted that the lingering storm would hamper this weekend's three-day Southern Decadence gay celebration, which organizers say draws up to 100,000 visitors. Round-the-clock activities are scheduled, mostly around the dozen French Quarter bars and adjoining neighborhood.
Sharon Senner, owner of Chateau Hotel in the Quarter, said all 49 rooms were fully booked for the weekend, but half the guests canceled or inquired about canceling.
Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said weather conditions continue to worsen in the northern Louisiana, delaying storm damage assessments, power restoration and relief efforts.
The Red Cross— already housing 5,000 evacuees in 80 statewide shelters — is preparing a prolonged recovery. "We're going to be there for weeks," Red Cross vice president Charles Shimanski said. "We need to know what we're recovering from before we know what recovery looks like."
Near Baton Rouge, westbound traffic on Interstate 10 was diverted because of an overturned truck east of Whiskey Bay. "There's no reason an 18-wheeler should be traveling through this weather with 70 mph gusts," Trooper Russell Graham said.
More than half a million Louisiana homes and businesses lost power and most will stay that way for at least several days, Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde said.
The company, which serves most of Louisiana, initially planned to dispatch 4,000 workers to repair fallen power lines once the storm passed. Now, with outages so widespread and spreading northward, Entergy said it will need 10,000 workers.
"The one thing that's really hampering us is that the winds are still here," Lagarde said.
Entergy expects it will take "several days" before the company can restore power to most of its customers.
Danger in Mississippi
Mississippi hasn't fully assessed Isaac's damage.
Gov. Phil Bryant said the state has been fortunate so far, with no reports of injuries or deaths through Wednesday afternoon. But he worried that people were acting too casual as the weakened storm moved further west. With Isaac's winds keeping the storm surge close to 10 feet throughout the coast, up to 3 inches of rain falling per hour and tornadoes spotted throughout the state, he urged people to stay inside.
"The surge continues. Unfortunately so does the rain and the wind," he said from an emergency operations center in Gulfport. "People appear to be almost ignoring the tornado warnings. This is a very dangerous situation."
Seventy roads were closed near the coast and rescue crews on boats and National Guard trucks had rescued 58 people. Most of those rescues were in Hancock County, which borders Louisiana, where flooding was widespread.
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) Director Robert Latham said some houses that are flooded there were built on stilts after Hurricane Katrina.
"That shows you the significant height of the water," Latham said. "The storm surge may recede, but we've got a lot of rainfall still coming down that's going to keep those water levels pretty high."
"We really don't have a clue on damages yet," said MEMA spokesman Jeff Rent. "The storm is moving so slowly that it's going to be a while before we get out there to assess it. I can tell you've we've had a lot of roads in our coast counties that have closed due to debris and flooding."
Forecasters expected Isaac to move inland over the next several days, dumping rain on drought-stricken states across the nation's midsection before finally breaking up over the weekend.
Jervis and Welch reported from New Orleans. Contributing: Jerry Shriver from New Orleans, Alison Bath from Shreveport, La., Alan Gomez from Biloxi, Miss., Larry Copeland from Gulf Shores, Ala., Donna Leinwand Leger from Washington, D.C., Doyle Rice and Carolyn Pesce from McLean, Va.; the Associated Press.
