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Tropical Storm Gains Strength Moving Toward Coast Tropical Storm Isaac Builds as It Churns Toward Coast
(about 3 hours later)
NEW ORLEANS — Tropical Storm Isaac churned toward the central Gulf Coast on Monday as the authorities issued hurricane warnings in cities along the shoreline and advised tens of thousands of residents to evacuate low-lying areas. NEW ORLEANS — Huge and slow, Tropical Storm Isaac lumbered up through the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday, growing stronger by the hour and putting coastal residents on notice of an extremely wet and potentially destructive next few days.
According to the latest forecasts by the National Hurricane Center, Isaac is expected to make landfall as a Category 2 hurricane on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, probably somewhere in southeastern Louisiana, though the big and slow-moving storm’s path and intensity have proved hard to pin down. In any case, emergency officials urged residents in its path not to focus too much on the projected intensity or forecasts about where it may come ashore, predicting that the surge it generates could damage a broad swath of the coast and that its heavy rainfall could cause flooding far inland. The tracking forecasts reached a consensus by Monday night that the storm, which was a little over 200 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and on the verge of becoming a hurricane, would land overnight Tuesday somewhere around southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane.
By Monday afternoon, Isaac was about 320 miles south of Mobile, Ala.. The storm is moving northwest at about 12 miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of 70 m.p.h., putting it right at the threshold of hurricane status. It is expected to slow in pace during the next 24 hours while increasing its wind speeds. But Isaac has been fickle and confounded predictions all along, and its intensification is just beginning.
“If anyone is thinking about evacuating, today is the day to do it,” Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said at a news conference in Baton Rouge on Monday. The most serious danger may not be from the 100-mile-per-hour winds, but by the enormous amount of water that the storm will be bringing with it and pushing in front of it. Officials encouraged those in low-lying areas to leave, warning of 12-foot storm surges along a broad swath of the coast and days of nonstop rainfall, in some places possibly adding up to 20 inches of water.
As the storm has made its way northward across the Caribbean, it has killed 21 people — 19 in Haiti alone, The Associated Press reported. “A slow-moving, large system poses a lot of problems,” Rick Knapp, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a conference call with reporters, describing the risks as “life-threatening, potentially.”
On a call with reporters Monday morning, Rick Knabb, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said his major concerns about Isaac were related to inland flooding. Any discussion among Louisiana residents about whether to stay or go was running out of time. Tropical-storm-force winds were expected to arrive overnight, rendering a last-minute escape more dangerous than sticking around. Gov. Bobby Jindal urged people in low-lying areas and places outside of levee protection to leave for safer ground, but in any case to make up their minds quickly.
Dr. Knapp said the storm surge could range between 6 to 12 feet along the coastline in Alabama, Missisippi and southeastern Louisiana, a level he described as “life-threatening, potentially.” “Today is the day, for those that want to leave, today is the day they should move,” Mr. Jindal said at a news briefing, surrounded by the presidents of several coastal parishes.
The threat does not end with landfall, however, and as with Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene last year, the risks of inland flooding remain high. A mandatory evacuation of New Orleans is triggered by a Category 3 hurricane, a status Isaac is unlikely to reach. But the time frame for a safe and effective citywide evacuation expired on Monday anyway.
Additionally, Isaac could dump more than 12 inches of rain on some spots, severely testing drainage systems and causing dangerous localized flooding, officials said. So those who remain here, as most have, will be marking the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday not with ribbon cuttings and modest ceremonies as planned, but by hunkering down under heavy rains and winds.
Beginning sometime Monday evening, hurricane forecasters said, Isaac’s winds and rain will lash an extensive area of southeast Mississippi, southwest Alabama and the western portion of the Florida Panhandle. All storms have their own personalities, and Isaac promises a very different experience from Katrina. While it could possibly hit New Orleans directly — unlike Katrina, which landed in Mississippi but sent surge waters against the city’s faulty levees and flood walls — Isaac will have to contend with a $14.5 billion flood protection system that has been all but completed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The National Weather Service warned that for areas under a hurricane warning, “now is the time to rush to completion preparations for the protection of life and property.” This system, along with its profile and a rapport between parish, state and federal authorities that is far stronger than the dysfunctional relationship that characterized the response effort to Hurricane Katrina, bolstered the confident statements made by city officials on New Orleans’s ability to bear up.
Many of the areas along the Gulf Coast, including New Orleans, which was ravaged seven years ago to the week by Hurricane Katrina, have received either tropical storm or hurricane warnings, and the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have declared states of emergency in anticipation of the storm. “We know now, based on the latest information, which is always subject to change, that we are going to have a hurricane that is going to hit New Orleans,” Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu said at a news briefing on Monday. But, he added, “there’s nothing this storm will bring us that we are not capable of handling.”
In Louisiana, officials ordered additional mandatory evacuations early Monday. The residents of Lafitte, Barataria and Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish were ordered to leave on Monday morning, as were all 50,000 residents of St. Charles Parish, and much of the population of Plaquemines Parish. Twenty-three parishes in Louisiana have declared local states of emergency, as has the city of New Orleans. After a tremor of anxiety on Saturday night and Sunday, when it became clear that Isaac had turned its gaze to Louisiana, the sort of autopilot pragmatism that comes from living in hurricane country kicked in. By Sunday night, New Orleans residents had stripped bare the shelves of some grocery stores and sucked some gas stations dry.
Though the uncertainty in the hurricane’s track “continues to be greater than usual,” according to the National Hurricane Center, earlier models that had it heading toward the Florida Panhandle have shifted westward, placing Isaac’s landfall somewhere on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. The decision to stay for most people was perhaps in part due to reports on Monday morning that Isaac had yet to — in the disparaging phrase of several meteorologists — “get its act together,” and was projected to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane or possibly even a strong tropical storm. But that forecast turned worse by the afternoon, and in any case officials urged residents all along the Gulf Coast not to focus on the projected intensity, or even the location of landfall. A huge, wet and sluggish storm like Isaac could wreak havoc far and wide, regardless of its strength, they said, just as Tropical Storm Lee last year did with flooding as far north as Pennsylvania and New York.
A hurricane watch that had been in effect for parts of the Florida Panhandle east of Destin has been dropped, while a watch has been imposed for considerably more of Louisiana, from the industrial town of Morgan City at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River, westward along much of the coast. The storm has already forced the evacuation of workers from 346 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, which are responsible for 17 percent of domestic oil production and 6 percent of natural gas production, though it has so far had little effect on the price of commodities. It has also led to at least one confirmed tornado, in Vero Beach, Fla., and has put officials far beyond the shore on alert for more.
Governor Jindal also announced Monday that he would not attend Republican National Convention events in Tampa, Fla., while the storm threatened his state, let alone speak as scheduled at 8 p.m. Wednesday. “We’re still recovering, so we are geared up as much as any staff members can be,” said Yasamie August, information manager for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, in a state that was devastated by tornadoes last year.
“Party conventions are interesting, but there’s no time for politics here in Louisiana,” Mr. Jindal said in a Twitter message. Mandatory evacuations have been announced in low-lying areas in Alabama and Mississippi, and shelters have opened all along the coast. The evacuations were also announced in several communities outside the levees in south Louisiana, as well as for the entire parish of St. Charles, west of New Orleans.
Few were taking any chances, and gas stations and drugstores in New Orleans were crowded and residents took to Twitter to highlight the stations that had run out of gas altogether as well as tips on which stations seemed to have been overlooked. Renee Simpson, a spokeswoman for the parish, said the evacuation was called for because much of the parish is unprotected by levees from the surging gulf. She pointed out that a mandatory evacuation did not mean people would be arrested or roads closed, but amounted to a warning that, with electrical failures and extensive flooding likely, people who chose to say would essentially be on their own.
City Hall and the city’s schools were closed beginning Monday, but airports remained open. This did not seem to bother many St. Charles residents, who seemed mildly amused that people would leave for anything under a Category 3.
Shelters were being opened across Louisiana and prisons in low-lying areas were being evacuated. The Shell and BP oil companies have curtailed drilling and have withdrawn their workers in the gulf. “Category 1 or 2, I’m staying; strong 3, 4 or 5, yeah, I’m out,” said Dale Daunie, a teacher in Luling. “We’re just going to grin and bear it for a little bit. You know, barbecue and make the best out of it.”
“We are prepared for what this storm is going to bring us at this point in time,” Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, said Monday. “I want to reiterate: It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right.” Anjanette Joseph, a nurse in Destrehan, concurred with that analysis, judging the risks not worth the inconveniences of a hasty exit. “All the hotels were booked up for pets, and we have a dog and a mouse, so we decided to stay,” she said.
Over the weekend and into early Monday, Isaac caused minor disruptions in South Florida and along Florida’s west coast, but there was little major damage. This attitude concerned Louisiana officials, who warned that multiple days of rain on top of dangerous storm surges would severely test local drainage systems and that days without power in a Louisiana summer is not something anyone would want. But the gulf mentality dies hard.
Winds reached more than 60 m.p.h. overnight in parts of the Florida Keys and through South Florida, and rain continued to fall Monday afternoon, causing minor flooding. “I’m not afraid of the storm,” said Denise Maul, a retired nurse who has an apartment in New Orleans with her husband. Her car was loaded, and she was planning to leave on Monday afternoon, she said. But they are only going to Mobile, where they have a house. It was a matter of comfort, not security. “My dad used to always say, ‘Rainy weather ain’t good for nothing but ducks and lovers,’ ” she said.
As the weather remained unstable, some airline flights were still being canceled Monday, but far fewer than on Sunday. More than 60,000 customers have lost power in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said in Tampa on Monday morning.

Reporting was contributed by Kim Severson from Atlanta; John Schwartz from New York; Clifford Krauss from Houston; Lizette Alvarez from Tampa, Fla.; and Dave Thier from St. Charles Parish, La.

Naples and Fort Myers Beach, on the west coast, also saw heavy rain and wind, but little of it disrupted daily life. In most places, trash pickup, bus services and other services have resumed.
In Tampa, delegates and officials at the Republican National Convention, where events were canceled for Monday, expressed relief that Isaac had largely bypassed the city. People attended breakfasts and political roundtables in various hotels as they waited out the storm.
Governor Scott said Pensacola and surrounding areas could be hit with 30 hours of storms and as much as 16 inches of rain. “That’s a problem,” he said.
Escambia County, where Pensacola is located, has ordered evacuations of barrier island beach communities and as well as inland neighborhoods, including parts of downtown and some beach hotels.
Local officials were watching closely for possible surges – no matter how remote — that could affect the convention center, which abuts the bay. An estimated 65,000 people are expected in Tampa for the convention.
“

Reporting was contributed by Lizette Alvarez in Tampa, Fla., Nancy Klingener from Key West, Fla.; Lara Petusky Coger from Islamorada, Fla.; and Channing Joseph from New York.