Hurricane Isaac knocks down power poles, scatters debris
Hours after Hurricane Isaac made landfall in southeast Louisiana Tuesday evening, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said power poles were lying across the highway near his house, and trees and debris were everywhere.
Isaac came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane at 6:45 p.m., pummeling the Gulf Coast with 80 mph winds.
“The wind is blowing so hard you can’t see 20 feet in front of your face,” Nungesser told the Weather Channel late Tuesday. Earlier in the evening, he said, he took a drive to assess the situation but turned back when he couldn’t see the hood of his car.
At 11 p.m. Central time, Isaac’s eye was about 65 miles south of New Orleans, the National Hurricane Center said, moving about eight miles an hour. The 350-mile-wide storm was expected to hover for a couple of days, lashing at least three states -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- with wind and rain. The center described “a dangerous storm surge along the northern Gulf Coast.”
More than 200,000 homes and businesses were without power, the Associated Press reported.
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