Barry has made landfall near Intracoastal City in Vermillion Parish and has been downgraded to a tropical storm as it works it’s way to Lafayette.
The storm is expected to dump 10-15 inches of water across portions of south Louisiana, and Governor Edwards says that’s creating a flood risk in the Baton Rouge area. He says the Amite river will crest lower than the Great Flood of August 2016, but…
“We do expect the Comite to crest to very close to if not slightly higher than the crest of August of 2016 that is obviously not good news here,” said Edwards.
And in St. Tammany, Parish President Pat Brister says they could see flooding similar to a March 2016 event that locked down portions of the parish. Brister has the timeline on when the Pearl, Tchefuncte, and Bogue Falaya river will crest.
“The crest will be Sunday or Monday, but roads will be under by the end of today or first of tomorrow,” said Brister.
The rain is starting to pick up in parts of south Louisiana, but it’s still been a fairly dry morning. The Governor addressed that concern saying most of the rain that is coming is still falling in the gulf, and State Climatologist Barry Keim says expect conditions to get a lot wetter further into the afternoon.
“Most of the heavy rains are located south of the storm and once the storm makes the landfall, I think these rains are going to pick up,” said Keim.
Winds are picking up in the Baton Rouge area as a 50 mile per hour gust was reported in Tiger Stadium earlier.
Power is starting to go out across the coast, and Entergy spokesperson Lee Sabatini warns that outages along the coast will take longer than usual to address…
“We have some roads that are completely impassable and in some areas the flood gates are still up making it difficult to get in the area to even assess what the damages are there,” said Sabatini.
Some intense video from earlier showing a levee being overtopped has had some context added, as officials say that it was not a Mississippi River levee, but a backwater levee. They say this was expected, and the structure has not been breached.
The U.S Coast Guard had to make some rescues on an island in Terrebonne Parish. Around 4:30 this morning crews retrieved 12 people who were facing rising waters.
28 shelters are open to provide residents refuge from the effects of Barry. Over 300 people spent Saturday night in the shelter. Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Marketa Garner Walters says you can keep track of different shelter locations by listening to your parish leaders, but the best way to get that info is dialing 2-1-1.
