Francine Follows in Katrina’s and Ida’s Footsteps, Floods Southern Louisiana

Hurricane Francine came ashore in Louisiana and moved north overnight Wednesday into Thursday, dropping buckets of rain on parts of New Orleans and nearby that still have plenty of local memory of Katrina, Ida, and other storms.

Almost 350,000 customers were without power on Thursday morning, representing around 15 percent of the entire state. Authorities conducted water rescues of at least a few dozen people stranded by rising waters, in particular around the town of Thibodaux, to the southwest of New Orleans. No injuries seem to have been reported as of yet.

Some areas including in Alabama and the Florida panhandle may get up to 10 inches of rain through Thursday. The storm, which came ashore as a category 2 hurricane but quickly lost strength over land and became a tropical depression, signals a bit of a late awakening to Atlantic hurricane season, which after a climate change-juiced record-setting start in June and July went largely dormant through August. Both Katrina in 2005 and Ida 16 years later first hit Louisiana on August 29. The historic peak of the season is September 10, and the latest National Hurricane Center map shows three other systems out in the Atlantic that may soon threaten the Caribbean and the U.S.