South Digs Out From Zeta's Wrath       10/30 06:18

   

   NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Trees on top of buses and cars. Roofs ripped off homes. 
Boats pushed onto the highway by surging seawater. Hundreds of thousands of 
people left in the dark.

   The remnants of Hurricane Zeta were far from land over the Atlantic on 
Friday, but people across the South were still digging out from the powerful 
storm that killed six people.

   The wind effects of Zeta, which came ashore in Cocodrie, Louisiana, and 
barreled northeast, were felt all the way from the Gulf Coast to southern New 
Jersey. At the height of the outages, as many as 2.6 million people were 
without power across seven states from Louisiana to Virginia. Utility crews 
were out assessing the damage and fixing it.

   In Louisiana, one of the hardest hit areas was Grand Isle, a barrier island 
community south of New Orleans. Gov. John Bel Edwards called the damage there 
"catastrophic" and ordered the Louisiana National Guard to fly in soldiers to 
assist with search and rescue efforts.

   Dodie Vegas, who with her husband owns Bridge Side Marina on Grand Isle, 
said damage was minimal at their waterside complex of cabins, campgrounds and 
docking facilities, but the rest of the island wasn't so lucky.

   "As far as you can see, going down the island, the power lines are cracked 
in half," she said by phone Thursday after riding out the storm with family. 
She described torn-off roofs and scattered debris: "The middle of the island 
looks like a bomb was dropped."

   A man was electrocuted in New Orleans, and four people died in Alabama and 
Georgia when trees fell on homes, authorities said, including two people who 
were pinned to their bed. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a man drowned when he was 
trapped in rising seawater.

   Officials repeatedly stressed that the risks were not over --- pointing out 
that fatalities often come after a storm has passed, from things like breathing 
toxic generator fumes or being electrocuted by downed power lines.

   Zeta was the 27th named storm of a historically busy year, with more than a 
month left in the Atlantic hurricane season. It set a new record as the 11th 
named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. in a single season, well 
beyond the nine that hit in 1916. And the coronavirus pandemic has only made 
things more difficult for evacuees.

   "Our heart breaks because this has been a tough, tough year," said Gov. 
Edwards, whose state has taken the brunt of the hurricanes.

   Every storm is different, and with Zeta the biggest threat was its winds. 
The hurricane intensified quickly and was just shy of a major, Category 3 storm 
when it hit the Louisiana coast.

   The howling gale toppled trees and knocked limbs off stately oaks in New 
Orleans, and in Mississippi the storm surge whipped up by the winds tossed a 
shrimping boat into a front yard.

   Mayor Sheldon Day of Thomasville, Alabama, said hundreds of trees fell in 
roads and on homes, while some gas station canopies blew over.

   "At one point, every major thoroughfare was blocked by trees," Day said.

   Many people were still assessing the damage.

   Keith Forrest of Bridge City, Louisiana, was launching a boat with his 
nephew in Lafitte, Louisiana, on Thursday to try to get to his fishing camp.

   "I got a phone call because the roof blew off one camp," Forrest said.

   With just a few days until the Nov. 3 election, there were concerns about 
whether the storm would impact voters' ability to get to the polls.

   Far fewer early voters showed up after the storm in Pascagoula, Mississippi, 
a court clerk said, and power failures in two Georgia counties disrupted 
voting. In Louisiana, getting power back to polling centers was a priority as 
was letting voters know quickly if there were any changes to locations come 
Tuesday.

   In Georgia, a group of civil rights organizations asked the governor to 
extend early voting hours Friday.

   In the remote area of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, commercial fisherman 
Acy Cooper said his boats survived the storm. But without electricity, he 
feared operations could be shut down as long as two weeks.

   "Without no lights, none of the docks can work," he said. "Everything's 
automated now --- the scales and the conveyors."

   The heightened storm activity has focused attention on climate change, which 
scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.

   And as bad as the 2020 hurricane season has been, it isn't over. Forecasters 
said disturbed air off the northern coast of South America could become a 
tropical depression and head toward Nicaragua by early next week --- a forecast 
not lost on Louisiana's governor.

   "Let's not pray it on anybody else," Edwards said. "Let's just pray it away 
from us."