TEXAS CITY, Texas, (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Nicholas moved slowly through the Gulf Coast yesterday, drenching Texas and Louisiana with torrential rain, flooding streets and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power.
The damage from Nicholas comes just two weeks after Hurricane Ida killed more https://www.reuters.com/world/us/evacuees-urged-not-return-home-after-devastation-storm-ida-2021-09-01than 80 people across at least eight U.S. states and devastated communities in coastal Louisiana near New Orleans.
No deaths have been reported from Nicholas, which weakened to a tropical depression on Tuesday evening, since it made landfall as a hurricane along the Texas Gulf Coast early on Tuesday, packing 75 mile-per-hour (121 km-per-hour) winds.
Nicholas was expected to drop 1 to 3 inches (3 to 7 cm) of rain per hour across the region by the end of Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. Isolated areas of the Upper Texas Coast and southern Louisiana could see up to 5 inches.
Nicholas was moving out of the Houston area and east toward Louisiana with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph at about 7 p.m. Central Time (0000 GMT), the National Hurricane Center said in a bulletin.
The storm, moving at 6 mph, was expected to move into Louisiana, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle by Thursday.
“It’s vital that we have as many resources as possible to respond to the forecasted heavy rainfall, potential for flash flooding & river flooding across Central & South Louisiana. I urge everyone to be prepared,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said on Twitter.
By late afternoon more than 94,000 customers in Louisiana and 186,000 in Texas remained without power, according to a Reuters tally.
