More rain is expected Wednesday night.
Choppy waters lapped over the dockside picnic area at Brisbi’s Restaurant and sloshed around the boats tied up in the Orleans Marina, set on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans‘ West End neighborhood. With the rains from Tropical Storm Cindy starting to pour again around 11: 30 a.m., Willard Robertson set out in his motor boat from Brisbi’s and steered toward his house across the marina, just in time to hear on television that New Orleans was under a tornado warning.
Unfazed, Robertson cracked open a beer.
„C’mon, man, “ he told a NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reporter. „You must be an amateur.“
New Orleanians like Robertson awoke Wednesday morning (June 21) after steady overnight showers and found themselves placed under a tropical storm warning. Officially forming Tuesday afternoon, Cindy has been forecast to dump between 6 to 9 inches of rain across the Gulf Coast and as much as 15 inches in isolated spots. The storm’s track is veering northwest toward the Texas-Louisiana border, carrying wide rain bands on its eastern side that are expected to continue drenching Gulf Coast communities from southeast Louisiana to Florida.
Many storm-hardened New Orleanians have brushed off the tropical storm as a minor affair – a nuisance, even, that unnecessarily prompted the closure of summer school activities in several parishes including Orleans and Jefferson. The tropical storm warning for the metro New Orleans area that began late Tuesday night was relatively short-lived, ending Wednesday around 10 a.m.
But with Cindy still blowing maximum sustained winds around 50 mph in the Gulf, forecasters were warning that heavy rains are heading again for the New Orleans area. In a message posted to Twitter, the National Weather Service said around 3 p.m. that a “ heavy rain threat (is) developing again (Wednesday) evening and tonight“ across Southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi coast.
#GOES16 captured this eye-popping visible imagery of TS #Cindy churning in the Gulf of Mexico on 6/21. More loops @ https: //t.co/8l5NGT4hD5 pic.twitter.com/B3IdtIX82s
State and local officials are also not taking Cindy lightly. Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Wednesday urged residents to remain vigilant.
„We are not in the clear yet, “ Landrieu said during a news conference Wednesday.
With Cindy expected to make landfall late Wednesday, flooding has been the main concern for emergency management officials up and down the coast. Crews in Jean Lafitte and Grand Isle, as well as Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, worked feverishly Tuesday to shore up vulnerable spots with sand bags.
In New Orleans, flooding has taken a toll on numerous roads, particularly those outside the levee system. In New Orleans East, several people heading to work Wednesday morning said they discovered floodwaters stretching for over two miles on Highway 90 in Venetian Isles, pushed up from storm surge in Lake Borgne.
On the other side of the city, yacht broker Rolla Tichenor stood outside the Orleans Marina at the bend where Lake Marina Drive becomes West Roadway Street. He flagged down drivers headed for a portion of West Roadway that Cindy had drowned in several feet of water. Unlike some intrepid motorists on Highway 90, no one elected to test the flooding on West Roadway.
But beyond the flooding there, Tichenor reasoned that Cindy hadn’t yet done much damage.
„It’s part of being on the water, “ he said. „This is outside the levee. You can’t help but experience it.“
Roads flooded around the Orleans Marina after a wave of Tropical Storm Cindy rains roll through Tuesday and Wednesday #nola #lawx pic.twitter.com/MzPhzJcJ81
For his part, Robertson weathered the storm with measured zeal, sipping beer in his home as the rains passed and the tornado warning was ultimately canceled. Even so, Robertson said the flooding on West Roadway is a problem for his tight-knit neighborhood of boat house owners.
West Roadway is the lone land route that leads to homes on the marina and along Breakwater Drive. With West Roadway blocked by water, the only way Roberston said he could get from his home to anywhere else in the city was by taking his boat across the marina.
„The road is impassable, “ Robertson said, referring to West Roadway. „The biggest truck you can find cannot get through there right now. So the only way in and out when this happens is by boat.“
Robertson attributed the flooding to the confluence of water surging into Lake Pontchartrain from Cindy and rainwater pumped out of New Orleans and Metairie through the 17th Street Canal. The flooding happened where the canal runs up against West Roadway, Robertson pointed out. Part of the problem, he said, is a new pump station being built across from West Roadway that stands at the end of the canal and hinders its outflow.
The 17th Street Canal pump station and an accompanying surge gate are meant to stave off the kind of swelling that breached the canal during Hurricane Katrina and caused catastrophic flooding in Lakeview. But for Robertson and his neighbors, it’s become a more frequent occurrence in recent years to see the sole land route into their community blocked by flooding during large storm events. He wondered Tuesday what would happen if someone needed an ambulance and was stuck on the flooded side of West Roadway.
Still, Robertson took the road’s previous and current flooding with a dose of humor.
„The last time it happened my children were trapped out here for three days, “ Robertson said Wednesday. „I used to go by jet ski to Subway and throw them sandwiches. That’s the only way I could feed them.
