Hurricane Delta Leaves More Than 600,000 US Homes and Businesses Without Electricity
As hurricane Delta moved further inland, more than 600,000 power outages were reported across Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi on early Saturday afternoon, the power officials said.
On Friday evening, the now a tropical depression, hurricane Delta made its landfall near Creole, Louisiana, with almost eleven million people in its path. According to CBS News, hurricane Delta slammed the same region that hurricane Laura devastated six weeks ago. The threat of heavy rain was continuing as of late Saturday morning, as per the forecasters.
Before heading into the Tennessee Valley tonight and on Sunday, Delta is now expected to move across western and northern Mississippi.
Poweroutages.us, a website that records and aggregates live power outage data from utilities all across the US, released a statement saying that over 103,598 outages were reported in Texas, 586,600 in Louisiana, and 67,873 in Mississippi, CBS News reported.
With 64,000 Entergy customers and 36,000 DEMCO customers, Baton Rouge, Louisiana's state capital, had the most outages. According to MSN, DEMCO and Entergy are the two largest energy providers in the state.
On Friday night, the category two hurricane lost intensity when it had its landfall. However, not quickly enough to make a crucial difference in Delta's immediate effects. The hurricane caused fresh destruction in communities still recovering from the category 4 hurricane Laura that killed over 40 people.
In the latest update, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that some tornadoes could hit in eastern Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, and the Western and Central Georgia.
Also, Delta is expected to dump another two to five inches of rain in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
CBS News quoted the NHC as saying, "These rainfall amounts will lead to flash, an urban, small stream, and minor river flooding." Hurricane Delta is the 10th storm to make landfall in the US in a single hurricane season throughout the record.
Delta continued the hurricane season's record-breaking theme as it became the earliest storm to be named Delta. The Greek alphabet is tapped for naming storms after the predetermined 21 names are used.
By Saturday evening, no death due to hurricane Delta was reported. However, the hurricane's wake could be dangerous. Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that hundreds of battered homes took on water.
People were exhausted and stressed for two weeks; the residents had to sleep on their back porch to escape the heat due to power outage.
NY Post reported that before Delta had its landfall, Louisiana's streets were already lined with mountains of debris as the effect of the prior storm, Laura. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said that hurricane Laura dumped more than 10 inches on Baton Rouge and more than 15 inches of rain on Lake Charles over two days.
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