September 11, 2024 - Francine makes landfall in Louisiana

Our coverage of Tropical Storm Francine has moved here.

Tropical Storm Francine continues to weaken as it heads further inland Thursday, but it still presents a threat of heavy rain and flooding across the Southeast.

Early Thursday, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was moving about 20 miles northwest of New Orleans at 14 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Francine is expected to weaken into a tropical depression Thursday as it moves through Mississippi. 

Tropical storm warnings remain for over 8 million people across southern Louisiana, southern Alabama, southern Mississippi and the western Florida Panhandle. Tropical storm conditions are expected to remain for these areas through early Thursday. 

Flooding is still a significant threat, with flood watches issued for more than 10 million people across parts of Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and southern Tennessee.

Rainfall of 4 to 8 inches with isolated totals up to 12 inches are possible through Thursday night. 

Heavy winds could also cause travel delays and power outages. Over 10 million people are under wind advisories Thursday from western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas to the Florida Panhandle. That includes the cities of Memphis, Tennessee, Jackson, Mississippi and Birmingham, where gusts could reach up to 45 mph.

Storm surge also remains a concern for people in southern Louisiana, who could see surge levels up to 8 feet as high tide moves in.

The entrance to Lake Ponchartrain Causeway is closed due to Hurricane Francine in Metairie, Louisiana on September 11.

Francine quickly weakened to a tropical storm Wednesday evening just hours after making landfall in Louisiana as a destructive Category 2 hurricane, pelting the state with flooding rain and winds and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power.

Though it will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland, Francine is still capable of inflicting dangerous storm surge, flash flooding, damaging winds and tornadoes.

Here’s what you need to know:

St. James Parish officials are urging residents to stay off the streets as flooding from Francine continues, churning water through the streets and into homes.

Parish crews have been canvassing the parish and have received reports of downed trees and power lines, flooding and structural damage, the parish said in a Facebook post.

Between 4 and 6 inches of rain have fallen on the area, which was under a flood emergency at one point Wednesday.

All three of the parish’s pumps at its South Vacherie weir – a small dam-like structure – “are running and working effectively, and as rain is slowing down, they will slowly start catching up,” the parish said.

“We knew to expect an excessive amount of rain, so we have been running the pumps and pumped the basin down to around one foot,” Dufrense said.

Tropical Storm Francine has battered parts of Louisiana with heavy rainfall and powerful winds.

Here are some notable rainfall totals recorded from Francine — the bulk of which fell Wednesday: 

New Orleans International Airport receives an average of about 5.11 inches of rain in September, which means it received over a month’s worth of rainfall from Francine — and most of it fell on Wednesday alone. 

While the rainfall has largely moved on from New Orleans, the city is still seeing winds between 20 and 35 mph with gusts of 40-55 mph. Gusts will drop below 40 mph in the coming hours as Francine weakens and moves north of the city. 

As Francine pushes farther inland, it is leaving widespread power outages in its wake, with more than 370,000 homes and businesses in the dark at about 11:45 p.m. CT, according to PowerOutage.us.

In some hard-hit areas, as much as 80 to 90% of tracked energy customers are without power.

The parishes with the most outages at this hour include:

Boarded windows and sandbags cover the windows of a Bourbon Street bar in New Orleans on September 11.

The National Weather Service in New Orleans on Wednesday night advised thatthe heaviest rainfall across the greater New Orleans area has ended. The flash flooding threat across the city has become less severe, though parts of the city are still likely to be impacted by some level of flooding.

A flash flood emergency has been replaced with a less severe flash flood warning for southwestern Orleans Parish, northwestern Jefferson Parish, northern St. Charles Parish and southwestern St. John the Baptist Parish, the weather service said.

This flash flood warning, which is tagged as “considerable,” is set to expire at 1:45 a.m. CT. 

Flash flood emergencies are tagged as having “catastrophic flooding” – the highest tag assigned to a flash flood warning by the NWS. The weather service defines these emergencies as “a threat to life and catastrophic damage; levels rarely seen.”

The “considerable” tag is the second-highest assigned by the NWS and the agency defines these events as ones with “unusual severity - urgent action is needed.” 

Though Francine has weakened to a tropical storm, a tornado threat remains across parts of the Gulf Coast.

A new tornado watch has been issued for parts of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southwestern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and the coastal waters near these areas, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) said.

This watch is in effect until 6 a.m. CT.

“A few transient small supercells within the convective bands of Francine will pose a risk for a couple of tornadoes tonight into the early morning across the Watch area. This threat will gradually spread northward and inland tonight,” warns the SPC. 

Tropical systems that make landfall from the Gulf of Mexico tend to generate more tornadoes than those that hit along the Atlantic coast. This is primarily because the right-front quadrant, where tornado activity is most concentrated, typically remains fully onshore.

The SPC also advised that a slight risk of severe storms, or a level 2 of 5, stretches from southeastern Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle through the overnight hours.

The threat shifts east on Thursday, where the strongest threat of tornadoes stretches from the Florida Panhandle to central Alabama and the far southwestern portion of Georgia. 

Officials in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, are imploring residents to stay home and off of roads as torrential rain floods the area Wednesday.

“Severe street flooding” is creating dangerous conditions in the East Bank area, the Jefferson Sheriff’s Office said in a post on X.

“Please keep the streets clear so our deputies can help those in need, and stop yourself from becoming the victim of a flooded car. Stay home, and we’ll get through this together,” the sheriff’s office advised.

Parish president Cynthia Lee Sheng echoed the request for residents to shelter at home and shared images of roads swamped with water.

The Brown family speaks with law enforcement after their power went down in the Polk Street neighborhood in Houma, Louisiana, on September 11.

Francine has weakened to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 70 mph, the National Hurricane Center said in an 11 p.m. ET advisory.

The center of the storm is now 35 miles west-northwest of New Orleans and it is moving northeast at 16 mph.

All hurricane watches and warnings have been dropped, but tropical storm warnings continue along a southern swath of the Gulf stretching from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida state line.

The storm is still producing strong winds and flooding rain over parts of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi which will continue to spread northward overnight. 

A flash flood emergency continues until 11:45 p.m. CT for New Orleans. Flooding continues to impact the city, but the heavy rainfall has come to an end as nearly all of the rain is now on the northern side of the system.

Residents in Morgan City, Louisiana, are being asked to stay inside as the city sees “unusual amounts of flooding” from Francine’s heavy rainfall, according to the Morgan City Police Department.

“Please allow city crews to manage the pumping station and push flood waters out the city. Please do not drive on flooded streets, this will increase the chances of homes taking on water damage,” Morgan City police said on Facebook Wednesday night.   

Police previously announced a curfew in the city starting 11:00 a.m. ET Wednesday through 6 a.m. Thursday to help keep streets clear, they said in a news release. 

A Carnival cruise with passengers is delayed from docking in New Orleans due to Hurricane Francine.

The Carnival Valor cruise was set to return Thursday but is now delayed as the Port of New Orleans closed ahead of Francine’s arrival, the cruise line said in a post Tuesday. 

They tentatively expect the cruise to arrive Thursday afternoon, but it may be further delayed.  

“As the safety of our guests and crew is our priority, we will continue to monitor the storm, factor in guidance from the National Hurricane Center, U.S. Coast Guard and the local port authorities to provide timely updates as more information becomes available,” Carnival said.  

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Video credit: Coco Marina

A marina in Chauvin, Louisiana, was submerged in water in just a few hours as Hurricane Francine made landfall nearby Wednesday.

Video and images captured by cameras at CoCo Marina show the facility was not flooded around 1:30 p.m. CT Wednesday. But by 5 p.m., dark floodwaters and lashing winds had moved in, leaving water blanketing a parking lot and lapping at the stairs of an office building.

The floodwaters were high enough to almost completely submerge a picnic table, video taken around 4:30 p.m. shows.

Floodwater fills a neighborhood in Houma, Louisiana, on September 11.

A flash flood emergency has been issued for New Orleans until 11:45 p.m. CDT, according to the National Weather Service.

Hurricane Francine has produced 5 to 7 inches of rain across the area and another 2 to 3 inches are expected in the next hour or two.

The emergency includes northwestern Jefferson Parish, southwestern Orleans Parish, northern St. Charles Parish and southwestern St. John the Baptist Parish in southeastern Louisiana. This watch also includes the Interstate-10 corridor.

AT&T and T-Mobile customers “across a wide area” were having issues reaching 911 services for a period of time, but it now appears to be resolved, the City of New Orleans said on social media Wednesday night.  

The area includes Orleans Parish, where the City of New Orleans is located.  

It is not immediately clear how large of an area was impacted or if it is still ongoing in other areas. CNN reached out to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for more information.  

The city encouraged those who need emergency services and can’t reach 911 to call the 10-digit emergency number 504-671-3600.   

Several parishes along Louisiana’s coastline are reporting downed trees and power lines, as well as flooding, as Hurricane Francine lashes the area with high winds.  

Terrebonne Parish, where Francine made landfall, is experiencing power outages and toppled trees, Chief Communications Officer Robbie Lee said.  

Street flooding and downed trees were reported across Lafourche Parish, where there were over 25,000 power outages, a public information officer said.  

St. James Parish, slightly inland from the coast, had downed power lines, several transformers that blew, and a carport that flew off towards the roadway, the sheriff’s office said in a post on X.

Just over 246,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana are without power Wednesday night as Francine tears through the state – more than double the number of outages reported around 7 p.m. CT, according to PowerOutage.us.

Coastal communities near where Francine made landfall are the most severely impacted.

Here are the parishes with the most outages:  

Lekenya McKay sweeps floodwater out of her home in Houma, Louisiana, on September 11.

Jefferson Parish officials are urging households to limit their water usage as the parish’s large and aging sewer system has become overwhelmed by storm runoff.

“Please limit non-essential activities like washing dishes & doing laundry in an effort to minimize overloading the Parish sewerage system,” the parish said on social media.

Many residents are reporting that their toilets aren’t flushing, parish president Cynthia Lee Sheng said in a news briefing Wednesday night.

These “inflow and infiltration” issues occur when “stormwater or groundwater, which would normally go through the drainage system, actually ends up in the sewer system and overwhelms the sewer system,” Sheng explained.

If residents’ sewage systems become too full, the water may begin to back up into their homes, Sheng said.

To help relieve some of the pressure on sewage facilities, Jefferson Parish Public Works crews are using pumps and tanker trunks to drain some of the water, said Mark Drewes, director of the Public Works office.

New Orleans residents have also been asked to conserve water as several sewer pump stations in the city have been impacted by power outages and other problems, the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans said.

Morgan City firefighters respond to a home fire during Hurricane Francine in Morgan City, Louisiana, on September 11.

A flash flood warning was issued for New Orleans and the surrounding areas as radar showed thunderstorms with heavy rain in the area, hours after Hurricane Francine barreled ashore in Louisiana. 

Approximately 1-2 inches of rain has fallen already, and an additional 2-4 inches are possible, the National Weather Service said.

The headline and post have been updated with details on the NWS New Orleans warning.

CNN Meteorologist Derek van Dam and his crew were about to go live with Erin Burnett Out Front when Lake Palourde spilled over its berm as torrential rain poured down, flooding the live location.

The crew made the quick decision to pack up their equipment and got on the road to find a safer spot.

Instead of doing his hit with Burnett on camera, Derek went live from the truck on his phone.

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Water levels at this location have climbed to more than 6 feet – technically a record, though records at Lake Palourde above Morgan City only go back 12 years. The previous record high was 5.6 feet.

Derek shared some more video from the truck:

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