Depression Francine advances on land after causing power outages in Louisiana and Mississippi

A weakened Tropical Depression Francine moved inland Thursday after hitting Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, unleashing a storm surge on coastal towns and raising fears of flooding in New Orleans and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, emergency crews began clearing roads, utility workers began restoring power and residents helped pick up debris. There have been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, Gov. Jeff Landry said.

“The human spirit is defined by its resilience, and resilience is what defines Louisiana,” Landry said at a news conference. “There are certainly times and situations that test us, but that’s also when we’re at our best in this state.”

At the height of the storm, about 450,000 people in Louisiana were without power, according to figures released by the Public Service Commission. Many of the outages were related to falling debris, not structural damage.

At one point, about 500 people were in emergency shelters, according to state officials.

“The amount of money invested in resiliency has really made a difference, from power outages to the number of homes saved,” said Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who attended the governor’s news conference.

The storm dumped up to 6 inches of rain in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia and up to 10 inches in parts of Alabama and Florida, according to forecasters, who warned of a possible risk of flash flooding as far away as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Francine slammed into the Louisiana coast Wednesday night with 95-mph winds in Terrebonne Parish, a fragile coastal region that has yet to fully recover from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. It then moved quickly toward New Orleans, dumping torrential rain on the city.

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Francine from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 km/h) as it moved northeast over Mississippi.

The system is expected to continue weakening into a post-tropical cyclone later Thursday before slowing and moving over central and northern Mississippi through early Friday.

Francine, the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, gained strength thanks to extremely warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico,

In addition to torrential rains, there was a risk of tornadoes spawned by the storm on Thursday in Florida and Alabama.

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