Francine weakens moving inland as the storm leaves behind flooding and widespread power outages

Francine weakened Thursday after striking Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, sent storm surge rushing into coastal communities and raised flood fears in New Orleans and beyond as drenching rains spread over the northern Gulf Coast.

New Orleans awoke to widespread power outages and debris-covered streets. Just before sunrise, street lights on some blocks were working but large swaths of the city were without power. The roar of home generators was evident outside some houses.

Some 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimetres) of rain were possible in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, with up to 10 inches (25 centimetres) possible in some spots in parts of Alabama and Florida, forecasters said, warning of the potential threat of scattered flash flooding as farflung as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Francine slammed the Louisiana coast Wednesday evening with 100 mph (155 km/h) winds in coastal Terrebonne Parish, battering a fragile coastal region that hasn’t fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. It then moved at a fast clip toward New Orleans, pounding the city with torrential rains.

In New Orleans, rushing water nearly enveloped a pickup truck in an underpass, trapping the driver inside. A man who lives nearby grabbed a hammer, waded into the waist-high water, smashed the window and pulled the driver out. It was all captured on live TV by a WDSU-TV news crew Wednesday night.

After guiding the man to shore, Miles Crawford said: “I just had to go in there are do it.”

“I’m a nurse, so got to save lives, right?” Crawford, an emergency room nurse at University Medical Center, said seconds after the rescue. In an interview later outside his home, Crawford had a large bandage on his hand, cut in the rescue.

“I’m used to high-stress, high-level things on a daily basis,” he said. “We deal with things like that all the time, so it was nothing out of the ordinary.”

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. TV news broadcasts from coastal communities showed waves from nearby lakes, rivers and Gulf waters thrashing sea walls. Water poured into city streets amid blinding downpours. Oak and cypress trees leaned in the high winds, and some utility poles swayed back and forth.

Water was receding early Thursday in Jefferson Parish, where streets flooded, but canals were still high, parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said in a social media post. They pumped through the night, but there were sewer system problems and they couldn’t keep up with the storm, she said.

There had not been any major injuries or deaths, Sheng said.

“Let’s keep that going,” she said, asking residents to give the parish time to clear the streets, noting that the hazards after a storm can sometimes be more dangerous than the storm itself.

As the sun rose Thursday in Morgan City, about 30 miles (50 kilometres) from where the storm’s center made landfall, Jeffrey Beadle, 67, emerged from the hotel room where he had sheltered for the night as the streets flooded and blasts of wind battered town.

Beadle left his home in low-lying Bayou Louis, about 10 miles (16 kilometres) outside town, on Wednesday afternoon as the rain picked up and left almost all his possessions there. He had lived there for 30 years without suffering any major damage but he was worried this time would be different because his home had been right in the hurricane’s path. He had loaded his car and was preparing to return to check on his home.

“There’s nobody over on that end I can call,” he said. “I don’t know what I am going to, bruh. Hope everything’s good.”

The storm was downgraded Thursday from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 km/h) as it churned north-northeast over Mississippi near 12 mph (19 km/h) , the National Hurricane Center said. Francine was expected to continue weakening, becoming a post-tropical cyclone later in the day, and to slow down as it turns to the north over the next day, moving over central and northern Mississippi through early Friday.

Power outages in Louisiana topped 390,000 early Thursday in Louisiana, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us, with an additional 46,000 outages reported in Mississippi.

Lafourche Parish sheriff’s deputies helped evacuate 26 people, including many small children, trapped by rising water in housing units in Thibodaux on Wednesday evening and transported most of them to an emergency shelter, Sheriff Craig Webre said in a news release. Deputies rescued residents from rising waters in other areas in Thibodaux and in the Kraemer community.

The sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Francine drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, strengthening to a Category 2 storm before landfall. It weakened late Wednesday to a tropical storm.

In addition to torrential rains, there was a lingering threat of spin-off tornadoes from the storm Thursday in Florida and Alabama.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the National Guard would fan out to parishes impacted by Francine. They have food, water, nearly 400 high-water vehicles, about 100 boats and 50 helicopters to respond to the storm, including for possible search-and-rescue operations.

Since the mid-19th century, some 57 hurricanes have tracked over or made landfall in Louisiana, according to The Weather Channel. Among them are some of the strongest, costliest and deadliest storms in U.S. history.

Cline reported from Baton Rouge, La. Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this story.