Cindy Downgraded, Dennis Watched

Heavy rain and a storm surge flooded low-lying streets along the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a weakening Tropical Storm Cindy pushed inland, leaving more than a quarter-million homes and businesses from Louisiana to Alabama without electricity.

Cindy's top sustained winds had weakened from 50 mph to 35 mph by midmorning and it was downgraded to a tropical depression. It was expected to continue its decline while pushing through Alabama, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Cindy's sustained winds earlier of 70 mph brought squalling rains and heavy downpours, reports Dave Cohen of CBS radio affiliate WWL-AM. Thousands of people were left with no electricity. Throughout metropolitan New Orleans, trees and power lines were down and debris was scattered.

But it was water that caused problems in Mississippi's coastal Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties.

"We have recorded 3 to 4 inches of rain and we have a storm surge of 4 to 6 feet above normal tide. We have a number roads that flooded with rain water that presents a travel hazard," said John Edwards, a spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center.

Officials said the high water affected only areas that normally are prone to flooding.

By midmorning Wednesday, officials in Mississippi's coastal counties said water was draining from flooded streets and low-laying areas.

Fishermen returned to boats along the coast Wednesday but were already keeping watch on the next weather system, Tropical Storm Dennis.

Dennis, a larger and more powerful storm, could hit Florida as early as Friday, reports CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan, and forecasters say it could well head back into the Gulf of Mexico and make a beeline for Louisiana and Mississippi early next week.
"We expected a busy year without the active start, so this just highlights, I think, the concern that all of us have that are in the hurricane business that hurricanes are going to return to the U.S. some year and maybe this will be the year," said meteorologist Neil Frank of CBS affiliate KHOU. Frank is a former head of the National Hurricane Center.

Fisherman John Hasten, 62, of Ocean Springs, Miss., spent Tuesday night aboard his shrimp boat, "April Dawn," at a harbor in Biloxi.

"It got raunchy. The water was busting over the seawall," Hasten said. "You had a screaming wind. The boat bounced and jerked on the lines. The rigging clanged and banged."

He said that with Dennis expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico, he and other fishermen would move their vessels inland, possibly Thursday or Friday.

John Livings, a shrimp and oyster fisherman in Pass Christian, Miss., said he also was eyeing Dennis, which was powering up in the Caribbean and expected to move into the gulf this weekend. It had sustained wind of 65 mph and could strengthen into a hurricane by late Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

"A rough week or two added on a rough shrimp season," Livings said as he secured his boats.

Cindy came ashore in southeast Louisiana late Tuesday, crossing the barrier island resort town of Grand Isle, where officials reported some roof damage.

New Orleans and surrounding areas got 4 inches of rain and 70 mph wind, and there were scattered reports of street flooding.

Chanel Lagarde, a spokesman for the electric utility corporation Entergy, said about 250,000 Louisiana customers were without power, most along the coast. Alabama Power Co. reported up to 15,000 homes and businesses were blacked out in Mobile County.

The only road in and out of Louisiana's coastal Port Fouchon and Grand Isle was closed because six shrimp boats broke free during the storm and two of them got wedged under a bridge, where one sank.
Numerous flights into and out of New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport were canceled, and Amtrak suspended passenger rail service to and from New Orleans until Wednesday afternoon.

Heavy rain caused some isolated flooding in the Florida Panhandle, devastated last year by Hurricane Ivan, but there were no significant problems reported.

At 10 a.m. EDT, Cindy was centered in west Alabama about 50 miles northwest of Mobile and was heading northeastward.

An estimated 7,000 people were without power along the Mississippi coast during the peak of the storm, said Kurt Brautigam of Mississippi Power Company.

He said utility crews were out most of the night and that only about 3,000 Mississippi coast customers remained without power at midmorning Wednesday.

Dennis was centered about 440 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and was heading toward the west-northwest at around 16 mph. The storm was expected to be near Jamaica early Thursday.

Hurricane warnings were posted for Jamaica and southwestern Haiti, with a hurricane watch extending to the Cayman Islands and eastern Cuba.

July 5 is the earliest date on record for four named storms, and worries about the already active season helped send oil prices briefly above $60 a barrel Tuesday.

A survey of oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico found that 23 petroleum production platforms and six drilling rigs had been evacuated Tuesday interrupting more than 3 percent of the gulf's normal oil and natural gas production.