Storm Francine barrelled across the US south on Thursday, pounding the region with heavy rains and gusty winds while causing widespread power outages for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. It had weakened from a Category 2 hurricane to a tropical depression as it moved northeastward over central Mississippi, but still packed winds of 55 kmph and threatened areas with dangerous storm surges early on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.

It was expected to weaken further and become a post-tropical cyclone later in the day, the center added.

In the low-lying, coastal Louisiana city of Houma in Terrebonne Parish, where the storm made landfall on Wednesday evening with winds near 160 kmph, Christine Bundy, 72, was hooking up a new generator she’d just bought.

“A Cat. 2 is nothing,” she told Reuters by telephone on Thursday. “This house has been through every storm since 1975.”

It took the deadly hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm that hit Louisiana in 2021, to earn Bundy’s respect and fear.

“Ida took our roof off, tore up the fence and everything,” she said. “With this one, we’re just cleaning up a little.”

Heavy rains were expected throughout the day in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle after many spots were inundated with downpours for hours. In all, some spots could see as much as 30 cm of rain before the storm completely subsides, the National Weather Service said.

Government offices, schools and libraries were closed throughout the region as widespread flooding was reported.

“Our drainage system just couldn’t keep up,” said Jennifer Van Vrancken, a councilwoman in Jefferson Parish, which encompasses part of the New Orleans metropolitan area.

“This will be a flood where people remember getting water inside their homes.”