Hurricane Isaac headed up the Gulf Coast, unleashing damaging 80 mile-per-hour winds and causing widespread flooding in New Orleans and other coastal cities.
A swollen Mississippi River overtopped a levy in at least one coastal community near New Orleans.
The storm landed at 2:15 a.m. just west of Port Fourchon, about 60 miles south-southwest of New Orleans, says the National Hurricane Center.
Isaac, upgraded from tropical storm to Category 1 hurricane earlier Tuesday, first touched land in Plaquemines Parish, about 90 miles southeast of New Orleans Tuesday evening before heading back over the Gulf of Mexico.
Because it is moving so slowly, the storm system could dump up to 20 inches of rain in some areas and cause major flooding as a storm surge pushes water from the Gulf into coastal cities. The hurricane center says Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana could see peak surges of 12 feet.
By early morning, officials in the New Orleans suburb of Plaquemines Parish said a storm surge overtopped a levee on the thinly populated east bank of the Mississippi River, the Associated Press reported.
New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina nearly seven years ago to the day, was reporting 60-mph winds and drenching rains. Mayor Mitch Landrieu said about 1,000 National Guard troops are positioned in the city, working with police, firefighters and standing by for rescue operations. “
The National Weather Service issued a warning of “life-threatening flooding” possible outside hurricane protection levees and in areas around Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas. The warning said sections of west Jefferson, east St. Charles and lower Lafourche hurricane protection levees could be topped. Areas outside hurricane protection levees will be severely inundated, it said.
More than 423,000 Louisiana homes and businesses lost power by 6 a.m. Wednesday, the Entergy power company reported. The company has 3,750 workers outside the area on standby, spokesman Philip Allison said earlier Tuesday. Some crews responded to scattered outages until winds kicked up, making it unsafe for workers in bucket trucks, he said.
Across the region, schools and government offices have closed, hospitals and nursing homes have been evacuated and entire towns have been told to leave for higher ground. Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans closed outpatient services and rescheduled elective surgeries. The hospital doesn’t plan to move patients unless a storm is predicted to reach Category 3.
Information from USA Today, KSDK and the Associated Press contributed to this report.