Gulf Areas Relieved as Storm Fails to Gain Momentum : Hurricane Slams Louisiana Coast but Losses Are Low

Hurricane Danny ripped into the marshy Louisiana coast Thursday, sending thousands north in search of shelter and knocking out power for thousands more.

The storm, which early Thursday morning packed winds exceeding 90 m.p.h., spawned at least two tornadoes and unleashed a deluge of driving rain all along the southwest Louisiana coast.

Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards immediately declared a state of emergency in 13 of the state’s southern parishes. But by day’s end, after the hurricane had spent most of its destructive energy, officials said no one along its path had been reported killed, and there had been only four reported injuries.

The low toll had to do with the fact that the storm, which moved quickly across the Gulf of Mexico, did not have time to gather greater destructive force as it formed. But it also had to do with the long memories of the people here who survived Hurricane Audrey in 1957, which followed the same path as this storm and claimed more than 500 lives.

This time, there was little bravado, as thousands of workers on offshore oil rigs were pulled out by helicopter on Wednesday. Thousands more moved to shelters here in Lake Charles and other more protected places, from their lowland homes along the Gulf, after state officials called for an immediate evacuation.

“You never know where the storm is going to go and you can’t wait until the last minute,” said Douglas Self, who was evacuated from an oil rig near Morgan City. Self, who lives in Lake Charles, arrived here at 3 a.m. Thursday and spent the next five hours boarding up the windows on both his and his parents’ homes.

The Associated Press, however, reported that one group did not leave the coastal area quickly enough. An estimated 65 persons were stranded near Weeks Island on a bridge over the Intracoastal Canal, apparently the only place high enough to be above the water after a levee was topped. Some of those on the bridge decided to ride out the storm there and refused to leave even after rescue vehicles arrived.

At a high school in Lake Charles, 328 people who had no other place to go sat on benches and cots in the gymnasium, waiting for word about their coastal homes. One was Melvin Mhire, a tugboat captain from the tiny community of Grand Chanier. He had stayed the last time, when Audrey hit, but now he knew better.

“We left just as soon as we got the word to evacuate,” he said. “I’ve been caught in Hurricane Audrey and I didn’t want to get caught again. With Audrey, we didn’t know what minute we’d be washed away, what minute the house would start breaking up or where we’d wind up.”

This time, Mhire and his family packed up their sheets, mattresses and a television set and drove 40 miles inland. So did Alfred Daigle, who has lived in the nearby Cameron area for 52 years. He, too, rode out Audrey, but this time he piled into a pickup truck with five other persons and two dogs. “When you’re scared, you can get in a small place,” he said.

“They’ve been real nice to us,” he said. “I can’t ask for better than what they give us.”

The entire Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast heaved a collective sigh of relief Thursday, because Hurricane Danny, the season’s third, could have moved in any of a number of directions and could have gathered more momentum before it reached land.

On Wednesday, as the storm had gained strength in the Gulf, coastal residents from Port Aransas, Tex., to the mouth of the Mississippi River had taken precautionary measures.

Run on Supplies

In Houston and Galveston, where the memory of a billion dollars of destruction from Hurricane Alicia was only 2 years old, stores reported a run on canned food, drinking water and tape for windows. Residents of Galveston, an island heavily damaged by Alicia, boarded up their homes and residents of the lowland areas headed for high ground.

But by Thursday morning, it was apparent that the hurricane was headed for Louisiana. The storm, with its 45-mile-wide eye, first hit land at a tiny community called Pecan Island. It slowly moved inland and by early evening had been downgraded to a tropical storm.

At the Lake Charles police station, Cpl. Gordon Fontenot looked out at the driving rain and the flooded street and was glad that was all Danny had come to.

“A lot of people said we overreacted to this storm,” he said. “But it’s better to overreact than to under react.”