Updated jun.
8, 2020 5:17 PM
Cristobal thrashed its way into records books before and after it made landfall at 5 p.m. CDT Sunday in southern Louisiana. The system struck with tropical storm strength by Grand Isle, Louisiana, and swamped much of the rest of the Gulf Coast.
With its formation on Wednesday of last week, it became the earliest C-named storm in recorded history. By reaching land on Sunday, it became the second-earliest named storm to impact Louisiana, as only Tropical Storm Arlene from 1959 made landfall earlier in the calendar year, on May 30.
But Louisianians didn’t have time to think about the historical context as they prepared all weekend and hunkered down on Sunday. With over 20,000 residents without power, as of Monday morning, communities throughout the southern portion of the state have cleanup to address.
A wave crashes as a man stands on a jetty near Orleans Harbor in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, Sunday, June 7, 2020, as Tropical Storm Cristobal approaches the Louisiana Coast. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Local roadways and highways were flooded hours before the storm arrived as an intense storm surge brought the highest water level in years. In Grand Isle, mandatory evacuations were ordered for the island on Saturday morning.
“This is the highest water the island has seen since Isaac,” Jefferson Parish Councilman Ricky Templet said, recalling the August 2012 Category 1 hurricane that made landfall in southeastern Louisiana to NOLA.com. “Grand Isle is 7 miles long. We only have 2 miles of the island that’s passable.”
Before Cristobal arrived, strong rip currents from the system claimed the lives of two children swimming at a beach in Grand Isle on Friday night and left two others hospitalized, according to WWL TV.
The destruction mounted on Sunday night after landfall, as the storm packing 50-mph winds moved inland over Louisiana. According to Harrison County Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy, a portion of the Biloxi Lighthouse pier in Mississippi was destroyed by the waves on Sunday, the Sun Herald reported.
As shown by video and pictures shared, the high winds pushed parts of the pier over a half mile down the beach.
River flooding across Mississippi and Louisiana is expected to remain a concern in the areas even after Cristobal and its impacts move on. Flood watches and warnings remained posted by the National Weather Service (NWS) on Monday. By Biloxi, the U.S. 90 ramp to Mississippi 619 Jerry St. Pé Highway in Jackson County remained flooded Monday morning.
Gusty winds continued pushing water from Lake Ponchartrain into nearby communities and causing flooding concerns on Monday, and thunderstorm concerns were expected to linger throughout the day.
In Mandeville, Louisiana, located along the northern shores of the lake, some residents elected to navigate flooded roads with kayaks rather than cars. Even at low tide, the community was inundated with storm surge.
As the storm tracked north, portions of southwestern Mississippi, such as the aptly named city of Waveland, were under numerous feet of water from strong storm surges.
AccuWeather National Reporter Jonathan Petramala was in the Waveland area speaking with stranded drivers facing the brunt of flooding impacts.
“I tried it earlier but then I just saw how close it was getting to my running boards and I definitely don’t have a snorkel on this thing,” local resident Brandi Adams said from her car. “I didn’t think it was going to bring this much water."
Harold McMillen, an Oklahoma resident vacationing in Waveland, was out of his elements and needed to resort to Google for safety.
“Well, we have tornadoes and plenty of them, but storm surge, water levels rising, not really something we deal with,” he told Petramala.
McMillen’s tornado experience would have been helpful in other areas of the Gulf, however. Tornado watches and warnings were issued by the NWS throughout most of Sunday due to fears of “mini supercells” emerging from the storm system.
Cristobal did,
however, spawn tornadoes in parts of Florida. In downtown Orlando, an
EF1 twister toppled trees, smashed cars and damaged buildings on
Saturday night.
“I thought, ‘It will miss us,’ but it sure didn’t,” George Cooper, whose building was hit and damaged by a falling oak tree, told The Orlando Sentinel.
The NWS confirmed the tornado in a Sunday analysis, noting that wind speeds topped 100 mph. In all, eight structures and up to 50 residents were displaced by the twister, according to the Orange County Fire Rescue. Another tornado was confirmed by the NWS in Columbia County on Sunday, toppling trees and posts along a major roadway.
Similarly, a waterspout was spotted off the coast of Alabama by Dauphin Island early Sunday morning. Around the same time, the NWS office in Mobile, Alabama, issued a tornado warning for a waterspout on Perdido Beach.
Elsewhere in Florida, more than an inch of rain was recorded in the areas of Hopewell and Suwannee Springs over the weekend, triggering widespread flooding. In Jacksonville, water levels up to 3 feet stranded cars and completely inundated roadways.
As the system continues its rare northwest track, damage reports are likely to continue mounting, particularly as river flooding persists across portions of the lower Mississippi basin, according to meteorologists. However, as Earl Etheridge, public safety director for Jackson County, told the Sun Herald, conditions could have been much worse if the storm strengthened to hurricane status.
“Overall, we went through this in pretty good shape," Etheridge said.
Additional reporting by Jonathan Petramala in Mississippi.
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