Gulf Coast Braces for Arrival of Cindy

NEW ORLEANS – A strengthened Tropical Storm Cindy moved its way toward the Gulf Coast on Tuesday with 70 mph winds and the potential for 10 inches of rain, forcing tourists and residents to head for higher ground and oil companies to evacuate rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, a second tropical storm, Dennis, developed in the Caribbean and forecasters warned it could hit Florida later in the week.

Cindy reached tropical storm strength early Tuesday and by early afternoon had sustained wind of around 70 mph, just shy of the hurricane threshold of 74 mph. Forecasters said Cindy could reach the coast around the Louisiana-Mississippi state line late Tuesday or early Wednesday, but it was not expected to become a hurricane.

Bands of rain from the storm began hiting the coast Tuesday. Some of it was heavy and there were scattered reports of street flooding in Jefferson Parish, a New Orleans suburb.

A tropical storm warning was posted from Morgan City, La., to the Florida Panhandle town of Destin.

July 5 is the earliest date on record for four named storms to have formed in the Atlantic, and worries about the already active season helped send oil prices climbing briefly past $60 a barrel Tuesday.

A survey of oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico found that 23 petroleum production platforms and six drilling rigs had been evacuated, interrupting more than 3 percent of the gulf’s normal oil and natural gas production.

On Louisiana’s tiny barrier island town of Grand Isle, officials ordered recreational vehicles to leave so that Louisiana Highway 1, the only route off the island, would not be clogged with slow-moving traffic should a full-scale evacuation be necessary.

“We have just a small timetable here to work,” said Grand Isle town clerk Ray Santiny. “It would be horrendous with all these campers on the highway to get our people out.”

Officials of Louisiana’s coastal Lafourche and Plaquemines parishes called for voluntary evacuations of people living outside of storm protection levees.

In Mississippi’s coastal Hancock County, jail inmates filled sandbags for distribution to flood-prone areas, said Dee Lumpkin of the county’s Emergency Operations Center. “The latest advisory indicates we can expect from 4 to 10 inches of rain,” Lumpkin said.

At 5 p.m. EDT, Cindy was centered 95 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and was moving north at about 14 mph, with a gradual turn expected toward the northeast. Tropical storm-force wind and rain extended up to 105 miles to the east of its center.

Dennis was centered about 325 miles south-southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moving west-northwest at about 20 mph. It was on track to reach Haiti on Wednesday and South Florida on Friday, said hurricane center meteorologist Trisha Wallace.

Dennis was moving toward the Gulf with winds of 40 mph, just above the 39 mph threshold for tropical storm status.

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On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov