Isaac Leaves A Sloppy Mess In Louisiana

BELLE CHASE, Louisiana – Isaac's drenching rains and cooling winds drifted north of the Gulf Coast and heat and humidity moved back in — along with frustration, exhaustion and uncertainty — as thousands of people displaced by floodwaters had no idea where they would end up next.

The beginning of the U.S. Labor Day holiday weekend began what was certain to be a slow recovery for Louisiana, though there were signs of life getting back to some sense of normalcy Friday. The Mississippi River opened to limited traffic, the French Quarter rekindled its lively spirit and restaurants reopened.

Isaac dumped as much as 16 inches of rain in some areas, and about 500 people had to be rescued by boat or high-water vehicles. More than 5,000 people were still staying in shelters.

The remainder of the storm was still a powerful system packing rain and the threat of flash flooding as it headed across Arkansas into Missouri and then up the Ohio River valley over the weekend, the National Weather Service said.

Farther south, the storm victims included a man and a woman discovered late Thursday in a home in the hard-hit town of Braithwaite, south of New Orleans; a man killed in a restaurant fire; two men killed in separate car accidents and a man who fell from a tree.

Isaac's death toll is now at least seven — five in Louisiana and two in Mississippi. It includes a 75-year-old Slidell, Louisiana man who drowned after his car fell from a flooded highway up-ramp into 9 feet of water Thursday evening. Mississippi authorities have confirmed that the death Thursday of a 62-year-old woman whose car was hit by a tree has also been attributed to Isaac.

In Louisiana alone, the storm cut power to 901,000 homes and businesses, or about 47 percent of the state, but that was down to 617,000.

Newly-nominated Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited flood-ravaged communities, and President Obama said he would arrive Monday, appearances this part of the country is all too familiar with after Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

Meanwhile, the leftovers from the storm pushed into the drought-stricken Midwest, knocking out power to thousands of people in Arkansas. At least six people were killed in the storm in Mississippi Louisiana.

In Lafitte, a fishing village south of New Orleans, Romney saw soaked homes, roads covered with brown water and debris-littered neighborhoods. The Republican-friendly community is outside of the federal levee system that spared New Orleans and it lay on an exposed stretch of land near the Gulf.

Crown Point, Lafitte and other nearby settlements that jut inland from the Gulf are accustomed to high water driven by hurricanes. But Isaac, a relatively weak storm by the standards of Betsy and Katrina, pushed in much more water than expected after it stalled after landfall.

To the east, officials pumped and released water from a reservoir, easing the pressure behind an Isaac-stressed dam in Mississippi on the Louisiana border. The threat for the earthen dam on Lake Tangipahoa prompted evacuations in small towns and rural areas.

"So far operations seem to be proceeding as expected, and they seem to be working," Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

More than 15,000 utility workers began restoring power to customers in Louisiana and Mississippi, but officials said it would be a couple of days before power was fully restored.

Crews intentionally breached a levee that was strained by Isaac's floodwaters in southeast Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, which is outside the federal levee system. Aerial images showed the water gushing out. Gov. Jindal said officials expected 70 percent of the water on the east bank to disappear because of the release and changing wind direction.

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Isaac Leaves Hundreds Of Homes Underwater; Dam Shows Stress

NEW ORLEANS — After three days of mayhem, a weakened Isaac edged northward out of Louisiana on Thursday, leaving a third of the state without power, more than 60,000 residents evacuated and worried officials preparing to release water from a storm-stressed dam near the Mississippi border. At least one death was reported.

Hundreds of homes remained underwater, and nearly 5,900 weary residents in Louisiana and more than 1,800 in Mississippi scrambled to makeshift shelters. At least 500 people who had gambled on riding out the storm were rescued by helicopter or boat, as Isaac was downgraded late Thursday to a tropical depression — a far cry from its 80-mph winds at landfall.

Although levees protecting New Orleans held, officials warned that the danger wasn't over. Mayor Mitch Landrieu lifted a dusk-to-dawn curfew but implored residents not to leave their homes on irresponsible sightseeing trips.

"We've got people going block by block to assess water levels, but this storm has merely entered a different phase," he said. "It's still dangerous. The game is not over until it's over."

President Obama has declared both Louisiana and Mississippi disaster areas, clearing the way for federal aid.

Even as the rains and winds lessened, rural and suburban areas remained firmly in Isaac's watery grip. Rivers across Louisiana continued to rise and many were predicted to reach historic flood levels of 20 feet or more. In some places, entire communities were evacuated, including Kentwood, La., population 2,200.

In a region used to nature's wrath, survivors of storms with names like Gustav, Ike and Katrina kept one eye on the sky and the other on rising waters. Downed trees and power lines continued to block roadways, and cars and trucks plunged headlong into standing water.

In storm-thrashed Plaquemines Parish, officials began work on a levee breach to prevent the structure's failure. A long line of cars snaked down the Belle Chasse highway to the one open gas station.

After three days, many residents said Isaac, like lingering houseguests, had worn out its welcome.

"This is worse than Katrina," David Guys said as he waited in line to enter one of the few open shops in downtown New Orleans. "Katrina came through, did her damage and was gone."

Guys said all the food in his refrigerator had spoiled and he needed to get something to feed his five children. But he'd have to wait: The store's owner, wary of looters, was letting in only a handful of people at a time and had put a sign in the door reading, "We are inside and armed."

But the day's most tense drama occurred 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, where Lake Tangipahoa Dam, just across the Mississippi border, showed signs of weakening.

Officials ordered 60,000 residents within half a mile of either side of the swelling Tangipahoa River to evacuate, and crews with backhoes, bulldozers, pumps and other equipment rushed to the 2,300-foot-long earthen dam at Percy Quin State Park. As workers prepared for a "controlled breach," a Louisiana National Guard helicopter hovered overhead, providing a minute-by-minute update of the dam's condition.

"Even if they declare the operation a success, I would still stay evacuated because if there is a breach, we do not want people evacuating in the middle of the night," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in the afternoon. "Go ahead and get out now before the water comes — that's a lot better than having to be rescued."

More: A poor family man from Haiti dares Hurricane Isaac

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant sounded a similarly ominous tone. "It does just take a little breach to be a big problem for all of us because that water would get down south quick," he said before leaving to inspect the dam.

By 8 p.m., workers were about to begin the controlled release of water, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.

More than 610,000 people remained without power in Louisiana and nearly 89,000 in Mississippi. But Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport had regained electricity and planned to reopen Friday, just in time for a lavish gay event in the French Quarter this weekend.

One death had been reported. A 62-year-old tow truck driver was killed when a tree fell on his truck in Picayune, Miss., said Tony Bounds, spokesman for Pearl River County's emergency operations center.

As the brunt of Isaac's violence moved into Arkansas, New Orleans breathed a collective sigh of relief.

But in rural areas, storm waters defied the sandbags, flooding into homes and engulfing roadside mailboxes. At one flooded and abandoned home, two cows stood forlornly on a front porch surrounded by water, like castaways marooned at sea.

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A Haitian Family Man Dares Storm Isaac

Benjamin Osner 24, stands outside his tent

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Ousner Benjamin usually worries about supporting his common-law wife and five children.

But on the eve of Tropical Storm Isaac's passage across battered Haiti, Benjamin was just worried about keeping his family alive.

Benjamin heard on the radio that Isaac was coming to Haiti. His mind raced as the wind became stronger and the rain grew heavy. It was clear his family couldn't stay in the one-bedroom structure of plastic tarps and tree branches that has housed them since they lost their apartment in the 2010 earthquake. It would be too dangerous, and their home would likely blow away in the winds.

So the 24-year-old sent his family to a hospital up the street that served as a shelter as he raced about as a volunteer for an aid group, using a borrowed megaphone to alert people to the dangers of the storm, which officials later said killed at least 19 people in Haiti. Benjamin repeatedly checked on the family's precarious home, which leaned closer to the ground with each hour.

Rain seeped through the tarps and the ground turned to mud but the home survived. His neighbors in this settlement of 300 families weren't so lucky. The winds that reached 60 mph (95 kph) toppled their sheds and shacks like a house of cards, leaving behind a frame of tree branches in the thrashed camp, known as Tapis Vert.

"For me, the misery never ends," Benjamin's wife, 35-year-old Nerlande Salomon, said as she sat on a strip of carpet in the family's sole bedroom. The youngest child, six-month-old Niaka, was born in the tarp home.

This parcel of land on the northern tip of the Port-au-Prince metro area became Benjamin's home several days after the earthquake, which initially displaced as many as 1.5 million people. More than 300,000 people still live in the tent-and-tarp settlements, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Benjamin and his family initially had slept in the street for a few nights, but eventually found a brief reprieve: a soccer field. Once they were booted off of the field, they wound up on this rent-free plot of land, next to a private electric company and under the path of international airlines winging off to exotic places.

Shortly after the quake, an aid group distributed the tarps they used to erect their rickety homes. These days, the camp's only visitors are attorneys working for a local bank that's trying to seize the land. Camp leaders have asked the bank for leniency, but Benjamin said the bank raised the issue of being paid rent by people who have lived on the land for more than two years.

Benjamin would like to leave Tapis Vert, but being evicted by the landowner isn't what he has in mind.

"Here, you have the land owner on your back," said Benjamin, a school teacher who earns $38 a month. "You got the sun, the rain, dust and hunger. All of these things are against us. Some people here want to go into the street and get run over by a car."

Though he volunteers for a foreign aid organization, Benjamin has grown skeptical of the non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. With thousands of such groups, Haiti is derisively known as the "Republic of NGOs."

"There are a lot of organizations here that would rather us stay in the tents forever, because it's better for them," Benjamin said. "More misery means more for the organization."

It's easy for Benjamin to feel trapped. He borrows money each month to purchase groceries and medicine for his children. So when he receives his check he pays off the debt. Still, Benjamin holds out hope, figuring that even Haitian misery must have its limitations.

"The only way for the misery to subside is to do things for yourself," Benjamin said. "If you keep waiting for forces to help, you won't get anywhere."

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Isaac Menaces U.S. Gulf Coast 7 Years After Katrina

(Reuters) - Tropical Storm Isaac closed in on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, triggering evacuation orders in some areas and disrupting offshore oil production as it threatened to make landfall between Florida and Louisiana as a full-blown hurricane.

The wide, slow-moving storm swiped south Florida on Sunday and strengthened over the warm Gulf waters. It was expected to reach land late on Tuesday or early Wednesday, the anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina seven years ago.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned the storm could buffet towns and cities in at least three U.S. states near the shoreline and flood the northern Gulf coast with a storm surge of up to 12 feet in some areas.

"The weather will start going downhill overnight tonight on the northern Gulf Coast," Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb told reporters. "Wherever it is people are going to be during the storm, they need to get there tonight."

Isaac was forecast to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, with top winds of 95 mph, before making landfall and moving over the Gulf Coast.

The storm could take direct aim at New Orleans, which is still struggling to fully recover from Katrina, which swept across the city on August 29, 2005, killing more than 1,800 people and causing billions of dollars of damage along the coast.

"That brings a high level of anxiety to the people of New Orleans," said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. "I want to tell everybody now that I believe that we will be OK."

At 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), Isaac was centered 190 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River with top sustained winds of 70 miles per hour -- a speed that places the storm very near hurricane status -- and swirling northwest at 10 mph.

The storm was more than 400 miles wide. Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the worst effects may well be in Mississippi and Alabama.

"This is not a New Orleans storm. This is a Gulf Coast storm," Fugate said.

The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama declared states of emergency, and mandatory evacuation orders went into effect for residents of several low-lying districts, including about 8,000 to 10,000 residents of Mobile, Alabama, as well as nearby Dauphin Island.

President Barack Obama approved Louisiana's request for a federal disaster declaration, Governor Bobby Jindal said. Obama's approval, given in a phone call that included the governors of Mississippi and Alabama, makes federal funds available for disaster recovery activities like clearing debris.

Energy producers in the Gulf of Mexico shut down some of their operations ahead of what could be the biggest test for U.S. energy installations since 2008, when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike disrupted offshore oil output for months and damaged onshore natural gas processing plants, pipelines and some refineries.

The ports of Mobile and New Orleans were closed and barge traffic was suspended along southern portions of the Mississippi River.

In New Orleans, which is below sea level, long lines formed at some gas stations. Skies over the city were gray and a stiff breeze signaled the approaching storm. Along Canal Street in the city's historic French Quarter, crews were boarding up storefront windows.

Charles Neeley, a 69-year-old contractor overseeing a group of workers covering the windows of a drugstore, said he was undeterred by the storm.

"We usually ride out ones and twos and get the hell out for threes and fours," he said, referring to the categories of hurricane strength.

In Gulfport, Mississippi, as in many other coastal towns, people crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water and canned food.

"Traffic is crazy," said Debbie Fish, who lives in Biloxi, Mississippi. "It seems like everybody is out running around."

"HOPE FOR THE BEST"

A bumper-to-bumper stream of vehicles left New Orleans on Interstate 10 that heads west toward Baton Rouge, as motorists made their way to higher ground.

At Mandina's Restaurant, a popular New Orleans eatery flooded by eight feet of water during Katrina, fourth-generation owner Cindy Mandina said she was nervous.

"We're going to hold tight and hope for the best," Mandina said, as she prepared to close up before the storm. "Pre-Katrina, you'd never close, you'd stay open, maybe lose power and then reopen as soon as possible."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, equipped with dozens of bulldozers, piled tons of sand to reinforce the New Orleans levee system as Isaac lurked in the Gulf.

Emergency workers hope the levees, a series of massive walls which surround low-lying areas of the city, will hold up against the storm surge and avert life-threatening flooding.

Colonel Edward Fleming, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing flood protection, said improvements to the levee system had made New Orleans far less vulnerable to flooding than it was seven years ago.

But in low-lying Plaquemines Parish, which could be the first to be lashed by Isaac's winds and storm surge, workers scrambled to stack sandbags and reinforce levees.

Much of the parish lies outside the greater New Orleans levee system, and construction projects to bolster protection are not yet complete.

"We're really worried about the storm surge. We really need a few more years before we see an event like this," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Despite the threat to the U.S. offshore oil patch, which produces about 23 percent of the country's oil output and 7 percent of its natural gas, prices for international benchmark Brent crude traded down $1.24 to $112.35 a barrel in late Monday activity.

Meteorologists at Weather Insight, an arm of Thomson Reuters, estimated that the storm temporarily shut down 88 percent of U.S. offshore oil production capacity and 80 percent of the offshore natural gas output.

Once ashore, the storm could wreak havoc on low-lying fuel refineries along the Gulf Coast that account for about 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

That could send gasoline prices spiking just before the U.S. Labor Day holiday on September 3, analysts said.

Isaac killed at least 22 people and caused significant flooding and damage in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before skirting the southern tip of Florida on Sunday.

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Quake Of 7.4 Magnitude Hits Off El Salvador Coast-USGS

Aug 27 (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit in the Pacific Ocean about 78 miles (125 km) off the coast of El Salvador late Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

No destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is expected, and there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

The center said, however, that although it did not know if a tsunani had been generated, a warning was in effect for Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico.

The earthquake struck 74 miles (120 km) south of Usulutan, El Salvador, at a depth of 33 miles, the Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of damage to coastal areas or to shipping.

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Tropical Storm Isaac Engulfs Florida And Moves Into Gulf

 KEY WEST, Fla. - Tropical Storm Isaac barely stirred Florida Keys residents from their fabled nonchalance Sunday, while the Gulf Coast braced for the possibility that the sprawling storm will strengthen into a dangerous hurricane by the time it makes landfall there.

At 11:00 p.m. ET, the center of the storm was located about 75 miles west-southwest of Key West and 510 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving west-northwest at about 15 mph. The storm had maximum sustained winds of around 65 mph. Isaac is expected to strengthen as it moves out over the open, warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was on course to strike land on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm that crippled New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and became a symbol of government ineptitude. Isaac passed the Keys late Sunday before turning northwest, where forecasters have predicted it could strike as a Category 2 hurricane somewhere between New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday.

The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for a large swath of the northern Gulf Coast from east of Morgan City, La. - which includes the New Orleans area - to Destin, Fla. A Category 2 hurricane has sustained winds of between 96 and 110 mph.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called a state of emergency and officials in St. Charles Parish near New Orleans told its 53,000 residents to leave ahead of the storm. Jindal also said he may skip a speaking engagement later this week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa unless the threat to his state subsides. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has also canceled his trip to the convention because of Isaac.

The projected path of Tropical Storm Isaac as of 11 p.m. Sunday evening

 (Credit: WFOR Miami)

Elected leaders' vigilance toward tropical storms has heightened in the seven years since Katrina struck. Criticism was leveled at officials reaching all the way to the White House over what was seen as the federal government's slow and bungled response to the storm that killed 1,800.

An emergency declaration was also issued in Mississippi by Gov. Phil Bryant amid concerns of storm surge threatening low-lying areas. Oil companies began evacuating workers from offshore oil rigs and cutting production in advance of Isaac.

The storm was on a course to pass west of Tampa, but it had already disrupted the Republicans' schedule there because of the likelihood of heavy rain and strong winds that extended more than 200 miles from its center.

Even before reaching hurricane strength, Isaac caused considerable inconvenience, with more than 550 flights canceled at Miami International Airport and about 150 from Fort Lauderdale's airport. There were scattered power outages from Key West to Fort Lauderdale affecting more than 16,000 customers, and flooding occurred in low-lying areas.

Gov. Rick Scott said at a news conference Sunday evening that only minor damage was reported from Isaac.

Wind gusts of 60 mph were reported as far north as Pompano Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale. But while officials urged residents in southeast Florida to stay home, that recommendation was ignored by surfers and joggers on Miami Beach and shoppers at area malls.

In Key West, Emalyn Mercer rode her bike while decked out with a snorkel and mask, inflatable arm bands and a paddle, just for a laugh. She rode with Kelly Friend, who wore a wet suit, dive cap and lobster gloves.

"We're just going for a drink," Mercer said.

"With the ones that are brave enough like us," Friend added.

Along famed Duval Street, many stores, bars and restaurants closed, the cigar rollers and palm readers packed up, and just a handful of drinking holes remained open.

But people posed for pictures at the Southernmost Point, while at a marina Dave Harris and Robyn Roth took her dachshund for a walk and checked out boats rocking along the waterfront.

"Just a summer day in Key West," Harris said.

That kind of ho-hum attitude extended farther up the coast. Edwin Reeder swung by a gas station in Miami Shores - not for fuel, but drinks and snacks.

"This isn't a storm," he said. "It's a rain storm."

With a laugh, Reeder said he has not stocked up aside from buying dog and cat food.

The forecast wasn't funny, however. Isaac was expected to draw significant strength from the warm, open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, but there remained much uncertainty about its path.

The Gulf Coast hasn't been hit by a hurricane since 2008, when Dolly, Ike and Gustav all struck the region. Florida, meanwhile, has been hurricane-free since it was struck four times each in 2004 and 2005.

Hurricane center forecasters are uncertain of the storm's path because two of their best computer models now track the storm on opposite sides of a broad cone. One model has Isaac going well west and the other well east. For the moment, the predicted track goes up the middle.

Florida Panhandle residents stocked up on water and gasoline, and at least one Pensacola store ran out of flashlight models and C and D batteries. Scott Reynolds, who lives near the water in Gulf Breeze, filled his car trunk with several cases of water, dozens of power bars and ramen noodles.

"Cigarettes - I'm stocking up on those too," he said.

Forecasters stressed that the storm's exact location remained extremely uncertain - a fact not lost on Tony Varnado as he cut sheets of plywood to board up his family's beach home on Pensacola Beach. With the storm's projected path creeping farther to the west, the Mandeville, La., resident joked he might be boarding up the wrong house.

"I'm going to head back that way as soon as we are done here to make sure we are prepared if hits there," he said.

Before reaching Florida, Isaac was blamed for seven deaths in Haiti and two more in the Dominican Republic, and downed trees and power lines in Cuba. It bore down on the Keys two days after the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, which caused more than $25 billion in damage just north of the island chain.

In Tampa, convention officials said they would convene briefly on Monday, then recess until Tuesday afternoon, when the storm was expected to have passed. Scott canceled his plans to attend convention events on Sunday and Monday.

At Miami International Airport, more than 550 flights Sunday were canceled. Inside the American Airlines terminal, people craned for a look out of one of the doors as a particularly strong band of Isaac began lashing the airport with strong rain and high wind.

Michele Remillard said she was trying to get a seat on a flight to New Orleans, well aware the city could be affected by Isaac later this week. In coastal Plaquemines Parish, La., crews rushed to protect the levees that keep floodwaters from reaching that New Orleans suburb.

"It's a little scary," said Remillard, who was in town for a wedding. "But I need to get home, you know? And if the storm comes my way again, who knows, I might have to come back here."

Tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 205 miles from the center, meaning storm conditions are possible even in places not in Isaac's direct path.

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