Sorted by date Results 1 - 18 of 18
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Cedric Daniels and Joshua Bradstreet Contreras didn't think they really needed the coronavirus vaccine. After all, the uncle and nephew are both young — 37 and 22, respectively — and Contreras was "as healthy as a horse," Daniels said. But just days after Daniels went to visit Contreras in New Orleans — a long-awaited reunion that came after not seeing each other for months because of the pandemic — the nephew was rushed away in an ambulance. He couldn't breathe, even when sitting completely still. He is now in a hosp...
PORT FOURCHON, La. (AP) — Coast Guard boats and aircraft have covered an area larger than the state of Rhode Island to search for 12 people still missing Wednesday off the Louisiana coast after their offshore oilfield vessel capsized in hurricane-force winds. One worker's body was recovered Wednesday and six people were rescued Tuesday after the Seacor Power overturned Tuesday afternoon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said. The search, interrupted by darkness and bad weather, has totaled nearly 40 hours and more than 1,440 square m...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hurricane Zeta slammed into the storm-weary Gulf Coast on Wednesday, pelting the New Orleans metro area with rain and howling winds that ripped apart buildings, knocked out power to thousands and threatened to push up to 9 feet of sea water inland in a region already pounded by multiple storms this year. The storm killed at least one person, a 55-year-old man who a Louisiana coroner said was electrocuted by a downed power line in New Orleans, and officials said life-threatening conditions would last into Thursday. St. B...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Residents of the storm-pummeled Gulf Coast steeled themselves Tuesday for yet another tropical weather strike as Tropical Storm Zeta took aim at southeast Louisiana, fraying the nerves of evacuees from earlier storms and raising concerns in New Orleans about the low-lying city's antiquated drainage pump system. Zeta, the 27th named storm of a very busy Atlantic hurricane season, was a hurricane when it began raking across Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula early Tuesday. It emerged in the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm but was e...
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — First, Hurricane Laura roared ashore with its staggering, 150 mph (241 kph) winds. Then Hurricane Delta followed, with less wind but with ferocious downpours. The two back-to-back hurricanes in the space of six weeks have left this pocket of southwest Louisiana blanketed with tarpaulins, debris and flooded streets — but not despair. Earnestine and Milton Wesley had decided to ride out Delta in their Lake Charles home, damaged just weeks earlier by Laura. As the wind rustled the tarp above them, they grabbed it thr...
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Residents in south Louisiana braced to relive a nightmare Friday as rain bands from an approaching Hurricane Delta began soaking the same area that was badly battered by a deadly Hurricane Laura six weeks ago. The city of Lake Charles was already a landscape of towering debris piles still uncollected after Laura. Blue-tarped roofs still stretched as far as the eye could see Friday. Streets were lined with sawed-up trees, moldy mattresses and box springs and duct work and other wreckage of destroyed or badly damaged b...
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Ripping tarps from already damaged roofs and scattering debris piled by roadsides, Hurricane Delta inflicted a new round of destruction on Louisiana as it struck communities still reeling after Hurricane Laura took a similar path just six weeks earlier. When Delta came ashore Friday as a Category 2 hurricane, almost all homes and buildings in Lake Charles still bore battered roofs and other damage from Laura. Piles of moldy mattresses, sawed-up trees and other debris still lined the streets. Mayor Nic Hunter said t...
MORGAN CITY, La. (AP) — For the sixth time in the Atlantic hurricane season, people in Louisiana are once more fleeing the state's barrier islands and sailing boats to safe harbor while emergency officials ramp up command centers and consider ordering evacuations. The storm being watched Wednesday was Hurricane Delta, the 25th named storm of the Atlantic's unprecedented hurricane season. Forecasts placed most of Louisiana within Delta's path, with the latest National Hurricane Center estimating landfall in the state on Friday. The center's f...
WAVELAND, Miss. (AP) — Tropical Storm Sally slowed down Sunday as it churned northward toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, increasing the risk of heavy rain and dangerous storm surge before an expected strike as a Category 2 hurricane in southern Louisiana. "I know for a lot of people this storm seemed to come out of nowhere," said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards. "We need everybody to pay attention to this storm. Let's take this one seriously." Forecasters from the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Sally is expected to become a hurricane on M...
WAVELAND, Miss. (AP) — Hurricane Sally, one of a record-tying five storms churning simultaneously in the Atlantic, closed in on the Gulf Coast on Monday with rapidly strengthening winds of at least 100 mph (161 kph) and the potential for up to 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain that could bring severe flooding. The storm was on a track to brush by the southeastern tip of Louisiana and then blow ashore late Tuesday or early Wednesday near the Mississippi-Alabama state line for what could be a long, slow and ruinous drenching. Storm-weary Gulf Coast res...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — On Saturday afternoons, pianist Harry Mayronne wheels a piano onto the front porch of the home of jazz singer Anais St. John for their weekly performance. The duo – spaced 6-feet apart – serenades a handful of friends and neighbors assembled on chairs on the sidewalk and a larger audience online. For years, the two have performed intimate cabaret-style jazz numbers at the city's swanky clubs and hotels. But now as the coronavirus has shuttered those venues, they and other musicians have been forced to find other outle...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine and the media got an up-close look Monday at a huge, newly completed rocket for the program aimed at putting a man and woman on the moon as early as 2024. Bridenstine was in New Orleans to see the first of the "core stage" rockets for NASA's Space Launch System at the Michoud Assembly Center, where it was built for NASA's Artemis program. The rocket, 212 feet (65 meters) tall and more than 27 feet (8 meters) in diameter, is to be loaded on a barge by year's end for transport to the Stennis S...
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Tropical-force winds from fast-moving Gordon smashed into the coastline of Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle on Tuesday evening, the frontal edge of a system just offshore that forecasters warned could become a hurricane by the time it makes landfall. Tropical Storm Gordon strengthened some in the final hours as it neared the central Gulf Coast, clocking top sustained winds of 70 mph 110 kph). The National Hurricane Center said Gordon's tight core was about 75 miles (125 kilometers) southeast of Biloxi, M...
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Nearly 50 years after he was arrested in the kidnapping and rape of a nurse, a Louisiana man walked out of prison on Wednesday, his life sentence and conviction overturned by a judge who said the case against him was "weak at best." Authorities withheld evidence decades ago that could have exonerated Wilbert Jones, now 65, State District Judge Richard Anderson said. Jones thanked God for the freedom, and his loyal family for never giving up hope. He also hugged his legal team at the Innocence Project New Orleans as t...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The tallow tree, a "super invader" with toxic leaves and no natural enemies in North America, is conquering the South. Overtaking forests from Texas to Florida, tallows grow three times faster than most native hardwoods, and each one casts off 100,000 seeds a year. Controlled burns haven't stopped their spread, nor have herbicide sprays from helicopters. Cutting them down works only when each stump is immediately doused with chemicals. Harvesting them for biofuel remains more a promise than a practical solution. Some scientis...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In appearance, Fats Domino wasn't a typical teen idol. He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat as an album cover. But Domino sold more than 110 million records, with hits including "Blueberry Hill," ''Ain't That a Shame" and other standards of rock 'n' roll. Domino, the amiable rock 'n' roll pioneer whose steady, pounding piano and easy baritone helped change popular music even as it honored the grand, good-humored tradition of the Crescent City, died early T...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Fats Domino, the amiable rock 'n' roll pioneer whose steady, pounding piano and easy baritone helped change popular music while honoring the traditions of the Crescent City, has died. He was 89. Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, coroner's office, said Domino died of natural causes early Tuesday. In appearance, he was no matinee idol. He stood 5-feet-5 and weighed more than 200 pounds, with a wide, boyish smile and a haircut as flat as an album cover. But Domino sold more than 110 million reco...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When Tropical Storm Nate formed and forecasts put New Orleans in its projected path for this weekend, one big question loomed for residents and business owners: Will the pumps work? "That's now a thought in everybody who lives in New Orleans," said Devin Shearman, a manager at Katie's restaurant and lounge, which flooded during an unexpected rainstorm Aug. 5. It was one of two flash floods this past summer that led to revelations about personnel and equipment problems at the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, the agency th...
