8/11/2019 Tropical Storm Karen Weakens as It Approaches Gulf Coast (CN HON THNH)

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Tropical Storm Karen weakens as it

approaches Gulf Coast

BRAITHWAITE, La. Pickups hauling boat trailers and flatbed trucks laden with crab trapsexited vulnerable, low-lying areas of southeast Louisiana on Friday as Tropical Storm Karen

headed toward the northern Gulf Coast, a late-arriving worry in what had been a slow hurricane

season in the U.S.

On Friday, Alabama joined Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida in declaring a state of emergency

as officials and residents prepared for Karen, expected to near the central Gulf Coast on Saturdayas a weak hurricane or tropical storm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Interior

Department recalled workers,furloughed because of the government shutdown,to deal with the

storm and help state and local agencies.

CBS News hurricane consultant David Bernard reports Karen had slowed down Friday and wasnot expected to cross the coastline until late Sunday or early Monday morning. A powerful cold

front causing a historic October blizzard in the Northern Plains will eventually then scoop up thestorm.

Karen would be the second named storm of a quiet hurricane season to make landfall in the U.S.- the first since Tropical Storm Andrea hit Florida in June. Along with strong winds, the storm

was forecast to produce rainfall of 3 to 6 inches through Sunday night. Isolated rain totals of up

to 10 inches were possible.

Late Friday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported that Karen was losing strength,

with maximum sustained winds that had dropped to 45 mph (72 kph). Karen was located about205 miles (330 kilometers) south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and was on the

move again, heading north-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).

Forecast tracks showed the storm possibly crossing the southeast Louisiana coast before veering

eastward toward south Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. But forecasters cautioned that the

track was uncertain.

"We are confident on a northeastward turn. Just not exactly sure where or when that turn will

occur," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Conditions were not ripe for the storm's strengthening. A hurricane watch was dropped Fridayafternoon. A tropical storm watch stretched from the mouth of the Pearl River to Destin, Fla. Atropical storm warning was in effect from Morgan City, La., to the mouth of the Pearl, which

extends from Mississippi to far-eastern Louisiana.

A westward tick in the earlier forecast tracks prompted officials in Plaquemines Parish, La., an

area inundated last year byslow-moving Hurricane Isaacin 2012, to order mandatory

evacuations, mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River. The parish, home to oil field

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8/11/2019 Tropical Storm Karen Weakens as It Approaches Gulf Coast (CN HON THNH)

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service businesses and fishing marinas, juts out into the Gulf of Mexico from the state's

southeastern tip.

"The jog to the west has got us concerned that wind will be piling water on the east bank levees,"

said Guy Laigast, head of emergency operations in the parish. Overtopping was not expected, but

the evacuations were ordered as a precaution, he said.

Forecasters were not expecting Karen to stall, as Isaac did last year.

Downtown Miami is engulfed in storm clouds as Tropical Storm Karen heads toward Florida's

Panhandle Oct. 3, 2013.

/ AP Photo/The Miami Herald - Shannon Kaestle

Evacuations also were ordered on Grand Isle, a barrier island community where the only routeout is a single flood-prone highway, and in coastal Lafourche Parish.

Traffic at the mouth of the Mississippi River was stopped Friday morning in advance of the

storm, and passengers aboard two Carnival Cruise ships bound for weekend arrivals in New

Orleans were told they may not arrive until Monday.

In New Orleans, Sheriff Marlin Gusman announced that he had moved more than 400 inmates

from temporary tent facilities to safer state lockups as a precaution. Mayor Mitch Landrieu said acity emergency operations center would begin around-the-clock operations Friday evening.

In the Plaquemines Parish town of Braithwaite, swamped last year by Isaac, Blake Miller andothers hauled paintings and valuables to the upper floor of the plantation home he owns.

"We came out to move the antique furniture upstairs, board up the shutters, get ready. We don'tknow for what, we hope not much, but we have to be ready," Miller said.

"I'm not expecting another Isaac, but we could get some water, so I'm moving what I can," said

Larry Bartron, a fisherman who stowed nets and fishing gear in his 26-foot fishing boat, which

he planned to move inside the levee system.

Along the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coasts, officials urged caution. Workers moved

lifeguard stands to higher ground in Alabama and Florida. But there were few signs of concern

among visitors to Florida's Pensacola Beach, where visitors frolicked in the surf beneath a pier

and local surfer Stephen Benz took advantage of big wave

"There is probably about 30 days a year that are really good and you really have to watch the

weather, have the availability and be able to jump at a moment's notice," Benz said.

Surfers took advantage of the waves at Dauphin Island, Ala., as well. And, across Mobile Bay,

pastor Chris Fowler said the surf at Orange Beach was unusually large but didn't appear to be

eroding the white sand.

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"Right now I'm looking at some really gargantuan waves, probably six or 7 feet high," Fowler

said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was being

updated about the storm, which put an undisclosed number of FEMA workers back to work.

"To support state and local partners, FEMA has recalled and deployed liaisons to emergency

operations centers in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi," Carney said. "Additionally,

today FEMA is deploying three incident management assistant teams recalled from furlough tothe potentially affected areas to assist with the coordination of planning and response

operations."

Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling, is

providing updates on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf that has been shut-in as a result of the storm.

The National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service were securing parks and refuges in thestorm's path, officials said. The Bureau of Indian Affairs contacted the three federally recognized

tribes in the storm's path to coordinate responses and assess needs. And the U.S. GeologicalSurvey was monitoring for flood levels.