Tornadoes slam southeast Louisiana, injuring dozens

NEW ORLEANS — Brittany Ross remembers she was savoring the smell of her aunt’s simmering white beans when the storm that injured about 40 people in southeastern Louisiana hit.

“The place started shaking, kind of twisting,” she said Tuesday as she stood amid the wreckage at a small trailer park in eastern New Orleans.

The tornado, she said, lifted the trailer off the ground and slammed it down.

Ross, 26, her aunt and two others crawled out of the wreckage amid flying debris — uninjured, but suddenly homeless.

The tornadoes that struck Ross’ home and other parts of southeastern Louisiana destroyed homes and businesses, flipped cars and trucks, and left thousands without power, but no deaths were reported, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.

The governor took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meeting with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same 9th Ward that was so heavily flooded in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and promised that the state will provide the affected residents with the resources they need as quickly as possible.

He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.

The storm ripped apart homes, toppled a gas station canopy, snapped tall power poles and flipped a food truck upside-down. It left shards of metal hanging from trees, and trapped a truck driver as power lines wrapped around his cab.

The wall of severe weather also delivered heavy rain and hail to Mississippi and Alabama.

Artie Chaney said her granddaughter had just pulled up to the house from school.

“(Hail) rocks were falling on the car, and I was looking out the side door and saw the clouds moving fast. I heard this sound. We looked up in the air and we could see debris in the distance and before we knew it, it was just barreling down on us,” Chaney recalled.

“We ran in the house; the lights went out. We ran down the hallway to the middle bedroom and then we just heard glass shattering. We thought we weren’t gonna make it. It seemed like it lasted a long time. It was a horrible experience. We were just so grateful to God that nobody was hurt.”

Chaney said, her voice breaking as she looked at the damage, “We went through all of Katrina, with no damage. I didn’t think I’d be starting over again.”

The Baton Rouge area also got hit. Ascension Parish Sheriff’s spokeswoman Allison Hudson said three people suffered minor injuries and several homes and buildings were damaged in the historic part of Donaldsonville, about 20 miles southwest of the capital.

In Killian, just east of Baton Rouge, the mayor said several houses were destroyed and several others damaged, but an elderly couple suffered the only injuries he knew of: one, a broken leg; the other, a broken arm.

“How you manage to get blown completely across the street with cinderblocks flying and no worse than a couple broken limbs — apparently the good Lord was looking after them,” Mayor Craig McGehee said.

An official at NASA’s Michoud facility in New Orleans said it suffered some structural damage but the deep-space equipment being built there does not appear to have been harmed.

Steve Doering said the hardware and tooling used in the Orion and Space Launch System projects were not damaged, but Michoud will have to make a “significant effort” to cover everything up so any subsequent bad weather doesn’t affect it while the building’s roof and walls are repaired.

Two Mississippi counties reported wind damage, but no injuries, from suspected tornadoes. Other areas of Mississippi saw heavy rain and hail from the storm system that spawned multiple tornadoes in Louisiana. –Kevin McGill

* * *

Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Janet McConnaughey, Chevel Johnson, Rebecca Santana and Gerald Herbert in New Orleans contributed to this report.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

In Hurricane Patricia’s wake, torrential rains move into Louisiana

HOUSTON - Torrential rainstorms battered Louisiana on Sunday, leaving thousands without power, after pounding southeastern Texas as the remnants of Hurricane Patricia converged with a second storm.

The heaviest band of rain moved over the Gulf of Mexico, triggering coastal flood warnings and flash flood watches in southwest Louisiana and soaking New Orleans, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

About 22,000 people were left without power in the greater New Orleans area. Some streets were flooded, while a high tide surge brought some coastal flooding as well.

Rainfall has totaled as much as 7 inches (18 cm) since late Saturday night, and forecasters predicted another 5 inches (13 cm) could fall. The NWS said waterspouts over lakes and tornados over land were both possible into the early morning hours.

"Most of the heavier rain to the west of New Orleans will taper off in the evening ... and for far eastern Louisiana it will probably end closer to midnight," said NWS forecaster Gavin Phillips.

The NWS issued a tornado watch for southeastern Louisiana and coastal Mississippi into early Monday, and warned that severe thunderstorms could develop in the region.

A tornado touched down near the community of Larose, about 45 minutes south of New Orleans, though no serious damage was reported.

Tides along the southern coast of Louisiana were expected to be a few feet above normal at high tide due to sustained winds, likely flooding roads in lower-lying areas, Phillips said.

More than 9 inches (23 cm) of rain swelled rivers and flooded roads around Houston, but no injuries or deaths were reported as flash flood warnings ended.

Petroleum refineries along the US Gulf Coast, which make up more than 40 percent of U.S. capacity, also appeared to be largely undamaged.

In the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin oil fields of south and west Texas, no major production cuts were reported. While the rains were heavy in Houston, they came after a month-long dry spell so flooding was relatively limited.

Texas withstands pummeling

The storms over the past two days drenched a large swath from south of Dallas to the southeast coast, triggering flash flooding in Navarro County, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Dallas, on Saturday.

A Union Pacific freight train carrying cement derailed in Navarro County after a creek overflowed, washing out the tracks. Locomotives and rail cars were pushed on their sides, and a two-person crew was forced to swim to safety.

Repair teams cleared the derailed cars by Sunday morning, but they were not expected to be righted for several hours and the rail line was not due to reopen until Monday at the earliest, Union Pacific spokesman Jeff DeGraff said.

Navarro County was one of the hardest-hit areas. The tiny town of Powell got 20 inches (50 cm) of rain over 30 hours, said meteorologist Brett Rathbun of Accuweather.

Navarro County Sheriff Elmer Tanner reported dozens of rescues from vehicles, homes and businesses since Friday.

In San Antonio, a woman reported her boyfriend was swept into a drainage ditch as he walked his dog early Saturday.

The force of the water washed him out of the underground ditch and he passed out, the San Antonio Fire Department said on Twitter. He later came to and called authorities.

The rain was strengthened by the remnants of Patricia, which was downgraded to a tropical depression after crashing into Mexico's west coast on Friday as a powerful hurricane. —Reuters

Keys 'excited' by Super Bowl performance

Singer Alicia Keys said she's "incredibly excited" about performing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in New Orleans next month.

"I'm very excited to perform at the Super Bowl," she told The Hollywood Reporter Friday at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. "It's really gonna set the game off. I feel really excited about doing that, and it's my first time really doing that -- the national anthem that really starts the whole game off so I'm incredibly excited."

 

The performance will be part of what Keys said is "gonna be a good 2013," which includes the release of the indie film "The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete," on which she serves as executive producer and composer.

The film premiered Thursday at Sundance and stars Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Hudson and Jordin Sparks.

source: upi.com

After Colorado massacre, Obama pledges to address gun violence

NEW ORLEANS -- US President Barack Obama pledged on Wednesday to work with Democrats, Republicans and community leaders to "arrive at a consensus" on how to reduce gun violence across the United States.

 
Closing out a multi-day trip that began in Aurora, Colorado, where he met with families and victims of the movie theater massacre there, Obama told a mostly African American audience that such tragedies are replayed on a smaller scale in cities throughout the country on a daily basis.


"Every day and a half the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater," Obama said in remarks at the National Urban League Conference in New Orleans.

"I'm going to continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organizations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."

Discussing or even touching on the issue of gun control in the United States during an election year is risky, and Obama has been careful to avoid making sweeping proposals that could offend gun owners and rally his Republican opponents.

The president made a point of emphasizing his support for the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which covers the right to bear arms.

"We recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage," Obama said.

"But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."

article source:  interaksyon.com