Hurricane Isaac was downgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday but continued to pour rain and produce strong winds in New Orleans.
The storm is “producing life-threatening hazards from storm surge and inland flooding as it moves slowly across southeastern Louisiana,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has maximum winds of 70 miles per hour with higher gusts and is expected to downgrade to a tropical depression by Thursday.
Isaac is predicted to reach Baton Rouge, the capital of the state located around 70 miles north of New Orleans, by early Thursday.
Officials told The Weather Channel that Isaac produced a major storm surge due to heavy rains, while the strong winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of local residents.
Storm surge overran a levee in Plaquemines Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, sending as much as 12 feet of water over the barrier.
“We have flooding, inundated four-to-nine feet in areas,” Guy Laigast, a Parish emergency management official, told The Weather Channel. “We’ve got homes that have been inundated.”
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