BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Power companies worked to restore electricity to thousands of Louisiana customers Thursday morning after a line of severe thunderstorms raked the state overnight.
As of 7 a.m. Thursday, Entergy Corp. reported about 30,000 customers without service, including more than 8,000 in the Baton Rouge area and more than 18,000 in Tangipahoa Parish after the overnight storms moved through
The Demco cooperative reported as of 7 a.m. more than 4,000 customers with outages, most of them in Livingston Parish, with others in East Baton Rouge, West Feliciana East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes; Cleco reported more than 2,500 customer outages around the state.
The storms dumped heavy rains in a short period time around parts of the state. Alexandria and Lafayette had more than two inches for the 24-hour period that ended at 7 a.m.; almost two inches fell in the Bayou Sorrel area in Iberville Parish and well over an inch in the Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and New Orleans areas.
Tornado watches and storm warnings were issued throughout the night. There were scattered reports of downed trees, roof damage and road flooding.
High winds and hail were reported in and around Moss Bluff, DeRidder and other areas of southwestern Louisiana.
The National Weather Service said the bad weather was expected to lighten up for a time Thursday but more severe weather was possible Thursday night, Friday and early Saturday, with flash flood watches continuing through Saturday morning. Also, coastal flood watches were issued for Friday in southeastern Louisiana. The National Weather Service said strong southerly winds could push tides as much as 3 feet higher than normal.—-Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]
Severe weather rolls through Louisiana – 11 a.m.
March 25, 2009