By JACK BROOK, DAVE COLLINS and DAVID FISCHER Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur battered parts of the southeastern United States with drenching rains and strong wind on Thursday, tearing through buildings, flooding homes and launching water rescues along the Gulf Coast.
Severe weather also pummeled parts of the Midwest, where a separate line of strong storms knocked down structures and left tens of thousands of residents without power.
Arthur was the first tropical storm of the season in the Atlantic basin, and although it quickly downgraded within a day of forming, the lingering system created dangerous conditions in Louisiana and Mississippi. In one rural Louisiana parish, more than 2 feet of rain fell in 48 hours and most of that soaking came Thursday, said Donald Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles.
It flooded at least 200 homes in Avoyelles Parish, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of the state capital, Louisiana state Rep. Daryl Deshotel said.
“Even by this region’s standards, that’s catastrophic rain,” Jones said.
The National Guard and state wildlife officials were working with rescue crews, officials said. No deaths have been reported.
One tornado had been confirmed in Avoyelles Parish, along with three others near New Orleans, Jones said.
Coni Dubois said several inches of water flooded her home overnight in Houma, southwest of New Orleans, but others in the community had worse damage. She’s lived through many hurricanes and other storms, but never witnessed thunder and lightning like this.
“It was unbelievable, it literally sounded like hell broke open,” Dubois said. “I thought for sure we had a tornado on top of us. The lightning and the thunder was so consistent, the whole house was lit up like daylight for about 20 minutes.”
Arthur weakened into a low-pressure area along the upper Texas coast Wednesday night. Rain fell at rates of up to 3 inches (8 centimeters) per hour in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi on Thursday, prompting flash flooding, tornado warnings and widespread power outages. The region had already been soaked by heavy rain earlier in the week.
Amid relentless rainfall in central Louisiana, Cody Coco said he rescued stranded workers — waist deep in water —- at a cypress sawmill operation he runs near his home in Avoyelles Parish. He said the water has continued to rise all throughout the day.
Coco, 40, said he also used a boat to rescue the four pigs he kept in a pen. Video he shared on his Facebook page shows the hogs swimming out of their enclosure in a torrent of murky water. Coco says they are now safe on higher ground.
“If I’d left them in the pen, they’d have drowned,” Coco said. “They were happy to see me.”
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno posted a video on Facebook describing relatively minor damage and cleanup efforts. Ahead of the storm, police prepared boats and set up barricades in flood-prone areas. They also opened sandbag distribution sites across Louisiana.
Just across the Mississippi River in Avondale, a tornado wrecked four homes, Jefferson Parish spokeswoman Rachel Strassel said. Two people were hospitalized with minor injuries and later released.
The Midwest, meanwhile, was also dealing with damage after a strong line of storms.
More than 130,000 homes and businesses were without power Thursday afternoon in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, according to poweroutage.us.
A tornado was reported Wednesday evening near Effingham, Illinois, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Springfield. Several people suffered minor injuries, officials said.
Firefighters responded to damaged homes, collapsed structures, car crashes, downed power lines, gas leaks and blocked roads, Effingham Fire Chief Brant Yochum said.
Marla Washburn and her husband, Todd, hunkered down in their basement as a suspected tornado tore through their neighborhood about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north in Blue Mound. They could hear debris smacking into their house and a school across the street lost its roof, which came crashing onto their home.
“The whole house shook,” Washburn said in a phone interview, adding that the neighborhood looks like Armageddon.
“You don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but we’re OK,” she said. “You look at it and you go, ‘I don’t even know where to start to clean up.’”