Tropical Storm Isaac heading towards Gulf Coast
Posted August 27, 2012 5:54 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Tropical Storm Isaac is heading toward the northern Gulf Coast, including New Orleans, after hitting Florida on Sunday.
The storm is expected to strike New Orleans as a Category 1 hurricane late Tuesday afternoon, nearly seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The 2005 hurricane killed 1,800 people in the United States. It hit New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005.
Initially, Isaac was scheduled to hit as a Category 2, but it was downgraded due to less strong winds.
The Foreign Affairs department is warning Canadians not to travel to the area, including the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico east of Morgan City, Louisiana, to Indian Pass, Florida. This includes metropolitan New Orleans, Lake Ponchartrain and Lake Maurepas. International Trade Canada is advising against non-essential travel to the area.
Air Canada warned again that flights to Florida and Louisiana may be delayed or cancelled due to the storm. Click here for the latest updates.
The governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have all declared a state of emergency and residents of at least one New Orleans parish were asked to leave ahead of the storm.
Tropical Storm Isaac pounded parts of southern Florida on Sunday, but the storm is now expected to move west from its original path, leaving much of Florida untouched.
As a precaution, the Republican National Convention cancelled the program’s first day due to the storm. The storm is now expected to bypass Tampa, the site of the convention.
Isaac has killed at least six people in Haiti and blasted Cuba with winds. The storm also damaged a massive tent city in Port-au-Prince, where more than 350,000 people are still living following Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.
With files from CNN
