Jan Wesner Childs
More than a dozen Louisiana cities or parishes have issued evacuation orders or recommendations ahead of Hurricane Delta, while one town has already been under such an order for several weeks.
Cameron, Louisiana, is still under a mandatory evacuation from Hurricane Laura, which came ashore nearby and decimated the Cameron and other parts of Southwest Louisiana on Aug. 27.
"We’ve actually never been lifted from the mandatory evacuation, so it’s kind of like there’s not supposed to be anybody down here," Cameron Fire Chief Tim Dupont told weather.com Wednesday afternoon.
(Hurricane Delta Tracker: Spaghetti Plots, Projected Path, Satellite and More)
Dupont couldn't talk long – he and his department were in the process of once again moving their trucks out of town ahead of a hurricane. The firefighters are among the only people who've come back to Cameron, and they've been living in trailers.
"Very, very few people have returned," Dupont said.
His own home lost its roof and had four feet of water inside.
Electricity to the town isn't expected to be restored until January – assuming Delta doesn't set that schedule back even more.
The entire parish was still under an evacuation order until about 10 days ago, when the mandate was lifted for three communities but left in place for others, including Cameron.
Volunteers hand out food and supplies to residents in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. Parts of the parish are still under mandatory evacuations from Hurricane Laura.Grand Isle, about 100 miles south of New Orleans, has been under an evacuation order or advisory at least three other times this year. Police chief Scooter Resweber told weather.com Wednesday afternoon he worried that people would become complacent as the storm's center track shifted slightly to the west, further from the town.
His message to residents: "Heed the warning and evacuate on Thursday like we expect you to, and if things go good come on back to a safe Grand Isle."
The Grand Isle order goes into effect at 6 a.m. CT Thursday. The mayor also said a curfew would be in place starting at 8 p.m. Thursday night until further notice.
More than 1,000 National Guardsmen, 7,500 utility workers and dozens of high water rescue vehicles, boats and aircraft are standing by if needed, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference Wednesday.
As of Wednesday evening, Hurricane Delta was forecast to make landfall later this week somewhere between a slice of southeastern Texas over to western Louisiana. That put Cameron Parish and other places slammed by Laura, including Lake Charles, directly in Delta's crosshairs.
(MORE: Where Hurricane Delta Evacuations Have Been Issued in Louisiana, Alabama)
Much of the northern Gulf Coast has been threatened multiple times by tropical cyclones this spring, summer and fall. Southern Louisiana has been in the forecast cone of a tropical system six times this year, while at the same time being gripped by the coronavirus pandemic.
Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng, whose area includes Grand Isle, said people shouldn't the fatigue and pressure of the past six months keep them from staying vigilant.
"2020 has just been so difficult," Sheng told weather.com Wednesday evening. "It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, it doesn't lessen the threat coming our way now."
She was standing in front of a levee in Grand Isle that is being shored up ahead of the storm.
Several other areas have also issued some sort of evacuation or advisory. Residents in parts of Plaquemines Parish and areas of New Orleans outside the levees were advised to leave, and officials in Port Fourchon, which is south of New Orleans and serves the oil and gas industry, said tenants should evacuate nonessential employees.
The NFL's New Orleans Saints briefly considered evacuating the team to Indianapolis and moving their Monday night game against the Los Angeles Chargers there as well, NOLA.com reported. But they decided to stay in New Orleans and will play the Chargers in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome as originally planned, according to The Athletic reporter Jeff Duncan.
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge swapped locations for what was supposed to be a home game against Missouri Saturday afternoon. Instead, LSU will travel to Columbia, Missouri.
Several parishes announced school closures, including Acadia, Calcasieu, Iberia, Lafayette, Jefferson Davis and Vermilion.
Residents and officials in coastal Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle were also making preparations for the storm. Many of those areas are still recovering from Hurricane Sally, which pummeled communities from Dauphin Island, Alabama, to Panama City, Florida, three weeks ago.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered tourists and visitors to leave barrier island communities, including Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.
"Being impacted by a storm within 20 days of landfall that Sally made, it could be catastrophic to our area," Mark Ingram, a spokesman for Alabama power company Baldwin EMC, told WALA-TV.
Sally came ashore near Gulf Shores in Baldwin County. While power has mostly been restored, infrastructure that hasn't yet been repaired is especially vulnerable to another storm.
"We’ve got poles that are still leaning," Ingram said. "We’ve got low-hanging power lines."
Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have all issued emergency declarations for Hurricane Delta. Edwards said he spoke with President Donald Trump, who agreed to approve the state's request for a federal emergency declaration ahead of the storm, the Associated Press reported.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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