Tropical Storm Lee – Several Gulf Communities Under Water
September 6, 2011
The levees are holding in New Orleans but communities elsewhere on the Gulf Coast received up to seven feet of water as a result of tropical storm Lee moving into the region. The National Hurricane Center has warned that very heavy rains will fall over much of the southeastern portion of the US during the next few days and that the rainfall will cause widespread flooding and flash flooding.
Flooding has occurred in several outlying New Orleans parishes. In the southern portion of Jefferson Parish, some homes were inundated with up to six or seven feet of water. The winds that came in with Lee have pushed water from the Gulf of Mexico inland and since the region is at or below sea level, the water has no where to go so it’s rushing into communities located along the coast.
The storm has dumped over a foot of rain in New Orleans when it came ashore yesterday. Lee is a very slow moving system which is complicating things as it is unloading extremely heavy rains. The system is threatening to create widespread flash flooding up in the Appalachians which may be very similar to what Hurricane Irene did in Vermont last week.
Lee is expected to grow weaker over the next few days but it can drop up to eight inches of rain as it moves across Alabama Tuesday and into Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. It will be a wet week in the southern states and forecasters are warning that the storm could spawn tornadoes Monday and Tuesday throughout the region. The system is leaving a big soggy mess behind as it crawls along at a snail’s pace through the south.
The upgraded levee systems in New Orleans appeared to have kept the city safe for the most part, but the victory is bittersweet for people living in nearby communities. In Jean Lafitte, the local bayou is five feet higher than normal which has resulted in many homes being flooded with several feet of water. Residents there have been building levees out of rocks and sandbagging but so far the storm system is winning.
Thankfully Lee has not been a weather monster but more of a Labor Day washout as it has closed most Gulf beaches for the holiday weekend. Cities and towns along the eastern seaboard which have been hit hard by Hurricane Irene are bracing for their turn as Lee moves north. Both Lee and Hurricane Katia could potentially impact the east coast sometime this week where thousands of home and business owners are still trying to mop up from the flood damage done by Hurricane Irene.
