‘Danny’ Sweeps Louisiana Coast With Rain and Wind : People Flee but Minimal Storm’s Damage Is Light

Hurricane Danny, described as merely an exercise in coastal storm preparedness, today swept across the swampy Louisiana coast with 85-m.p.h. winds, torrential rain and tornadoes.

There were no reports of injuries or deaths.

The storm, which began in the Caribbean near Cuba on Sunday, was at its strongest when it hit shore. The National Weather Service said torrential rain will probably cause the highest dollar losses through the rest of today as the storm moves inland and dissipates.

“This is basically an exercise for us to resharpen our emergency preparedness so we can be ready when the bad one hits,” said Lionel Oubre, Iberia Parish Civil Defense communications director.

Minimal Hurricane

“Danny is not so disastrous because it’s turned out to be a minimal hurricane.”

The storm’s winds and three tornadoes caused light damage as far east as New Orleans, 140 miles from the landfall, and there were widespread lowland flooding and downed trees and utility poles. Torrential rain was expected to create extensive damage to rice, sugar cane and other crops throughout the southwest Louisiana lowlands.

Coastal residents from the northern Texas coast around the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Mississippi River boarded up their homes and fled inland. As the storm focused on southwest Louisiana, however, the hurricane watch was dropped for adjoining states.

98% Evacuated

Civil Defense officials said 98% of the residents of Cameron Parish (5,000 people), the point of landfall, had evacuated north, leaving only civil defense workers and sheriff’s deputies. An estimated 20,000 people were moved to land from offshore oil and gas rigs.

“We’re not heroes down here,” said Scott Henry, a civil defense volunteer in Cameron. “We do have evacuation plans for civil defense workers too, but this storm is not bad enough.”

The Port of Lake Charles, normally dotted with recreational craft and sailboats, today was filled with shrimping trawlers and offshore oil barges seeking protected waters.

The Coast Guard in New Orleans said a 41-foot sailboat, The Fine Wine, with seven people aboard, was first believed foundering in the hurricane, but the craft was later found tied to an offshore rig 20 miles from Grand Isle.

Helicopter Dispatched

“We have a helicopter en route, and we’re hoping to lift them off,” a Coast Guard spokesman said. “They haven’t evaluated the situation yet, but they are prepared to evacuate the people.”

Bob Sheets, forecaster at the hurricane center in Miami, said Danny moved quickly across the Gulf of Mexico. The rapid movement prevented the storm from strengthening into a major one.

Danny’s eye first touched land near Intracoastal City on the central coast. The storm then continued to slide north northwest, and its eye crossed land at 11 a.m. at Pecan Island.

Throughout the storm’s approach, squalls that extended 150 miles to the east of the eye mauled towns, cities and rural areas throughout central Louisiana. Gusts of 60 m.p.h. in New Orleans knocked out power to 18,000 homes and businesses in metropolitan New Orleans before dawn.