Sally has hit hurricane strength and now appears likely to be a category two storm before making landfall Tuesday, likely along the Mississippi coast. Matt Doyle has the story.
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Several southeast Louisiana coastal parishes have issued evacuations as Hurricane Sally is expected to brush past the Bayou State as a Category Two storm tomorrow. Jeff Palermo has the story…
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Sally has developed into a Hurricane ahead of schedule after rapidly strengthening this morning.
National Weather Service forecaster Christopher Bannon says Sally got a bit of good luck that helped it pick up steam and grow to 85 mile per hour winds.
Bannon says Sally is now likely to be a category two hurricane before landfall, but the good news is it still seems unlikely to become a major hurricane.
Forecasts continue to push the anticipated landfall more eastward, now appearing more likely to land somewhere along the Mississippi coast, but Bannon says the strengthening means the eastern edges of the state’s most southeastern parishes will get some bad weather.
The cone of uncertainty still covers the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Alabama-Florida line.
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Westfield Fluid Controls will invest 5.1 million dollars to establish a manufacturing facility in Lafayette, creating 67 new jobs for the area.
Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson says the facility will produce precision hydraulic and fluid control components.
Westfield is relocating this facility from a site in California.
Pierson says the facility will be located at a 30,000 square foot site in the Northpark Technology Center, and result in numerous jobs linked to the facility.
Pierson says the average pay is just under 50,000 dollars a year, and benefits are included.
The company considered sites in Texas, Florida, and Ohio before settling on Lafayette.
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The damage to the timber industry from Hurricane Laura is an estimated one-point-one billion dollars. That’s according to Louisiana Forestry Association executive director Buck Vandersteen who says Laura impacted 770-thousand acres of forest in 22 parishes, with Vernon Parish suffering the most losses
Vandersteen says Laura will definitely have a long-term impact on the state’s forestry industry.
Vandersteen says there’s so much timber on the ground, it be hard to salvage more than 15-percent of it…
Cut 11 (12) “…reduce production.”
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The eye of Hurricane Sally is expected to move over the edges of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. St. Bernard Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director John Rahaim says they could see a seven to eleven-foot storm surge, which will flood property outside of the levee system…
Rahaim says they are not anticipating any flooding inside their levee system unless they get a heavy downpour where two to three inches fall in an hour…
Cut 13 (10) “inside the system”
Orleans Parish Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Collin Arnold says they are encouraged that the forecast calls for the center of the storm to stay east of New Orleans, but it’s not good that the storm is moving slowly…
The area is under a flash flood watch until Thursday morning. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell says all 99 of their drainage pumps are ready to respond and can handle up to one inch of rain per hour…