Wind knocks down some trees, lines

Wind damage caused some tree limbs to fall resulting in power outages Tuesday in the Tri-City area, but no major damage was reported as a result of the storms, area officials said.
The winds downed tree limbs and power lines in St. Mary Parish with the worst weather impacts occurring on the west end of the parish, said Duval Arthur, St. Mary Parish Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security Director.
Power was restored quickly after the outages occurred, Arthur said. The parish didn’t see any permanent damage from the storms, he said.
Cleco reported 640 outages in the parish from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday mostly in the Patterson and Baldwin areas, Cleco Spokeswoman Robbyn Cooper said. Most outages were caused by strong winds, she said.
A tree fell at Railroad Avenue and Grizzaffi Street in Morgan City behind Oceaneering, which knocked out power in Wyandotte Subdivision, Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said.
Winds also caused a transformer to go out on Oak Street and some outages in Lakeside Subdivision, Grizzaffi said. A section of power went down on Youngs Road and Justa Street as well, he said. Power was restored to the affected areas in about an hour, Grizzaffi said.
In Patterson, a tree split and caused a transformer to go out on Como Street near the Patterson Housing Authority, Mayor Rodney Grogan said. Cleco restored power to that section in about an hour, Grogan said.
Berwick didn’t have any reports of wind damage during Tuesday’s storms, Mayor Louis Ratcliff said. Berwick got just less than three inches of rain overnight into this morning, and had minor street flooding, he said.
According to the National Weather Service’s website, the Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport near Patterson had wind gusts reaching 41 mph at 11:55 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. Tuesday with sustained winds topping out at 30 mph at 12:15 p.m.
Parish officials decided to close the Franklin Canal floodgate at 5 p.m. Tuesday due to the south wind and rain officials anticipated, Arthur said.
National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Humphrey said 2.36 inches of rain was reported in Morgan City from Tuesday night into this morning. Franklin had “exactly 2 inches” of rain, he said. Radar estimates show south central Louisiana had anywhere from 2 to 3½ inches rain during the event, Humphrey said.
The highest wind gust meteorologists saw in the south central region was 49 mph, with sustained winds of 30 mph to 35 mph happening throughout the afternoon, he said. The weather service didn’t receive many reports of wind damage, though, Humphrey said.
The Associated Press reported that the National Weather Service said before the storms hit that tornadoes with damaging wind gusts up to 70 mph were possible in Louisiana.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for most of Louisiana late Tuesday, and said a cold front moving into the state from the west was expected to bring strong storms through today, the Associated Press reported.
Conditions in the area are expected to be mostly clear tonight with a low of 51 degrees near Patterson, according to the National Weather Service website. The weather should remain mostly clear for the next few days, and forecasters expect the temperature to dip to 43 degrees by Sunday night, the website said.