Tropical Storm Barry continues to get stronger as it approaches Louisiana’s coastline…
cut 14 (10) “…75 miles an hour”
That’s Phil Grigsby with the National Weather Service in Slidell. The 7 AM advisory from the National Hurricane Center has Barry’s maximum sustained winds at 70-miles per hour and it’s made a slight turn to the northwest at five miles per hour. The center of Barry is 50 miles west-southwest of Morgan City and about 60-miles south of Lafayette.

The official forecast track of Barry has the storm as a tropical storm just north of Lafayette early Sunday morning. And the center of the storm will be a tropical depression in north Louisiana tomorrow afternoon.

Barry is still expected to produce total rain accumulations of 10 to 20 inches over south-central and southeast Louisiana. A lot of rain will not happen until after landfall.

Several shelters have opened to provide residents refuge from the effects of Barry. Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Marketa Garner Walters says your parish leaders will provide shelter locations, but the best way to get that info is dialing 2-1-1.
Cut 6 (12) “…will be”.

Is opening of the Morganza Spillway in Pointe Coupee Parish an option to help alleviate pressure on Mississippi River levees downstream? Governor Edwards says it’s not because, an operation of that magnitude takes about ten days to stage, and it would redirect river water to places that do not need any more water.
Cut 11 (09) “…were gonna go.”
The predicted crest of the Mississippi River in New Orleans has been lowered to 17 feet and the levee system can handle a 20 to 25-foot crest.