From CNN on Hurricane Isaac:
As of 5 a.m. CT (6 a.m. ET), Isaac was moving west-northwest at only 6 miles per hour — a very slow speed, giving it much more time to pound the region. Maximum sustained winds were at 80 miles per hour.
“For many people, it’s going to be all day today, into tonight, into tomorrow” that the heavy rains will persist, (Richard) Knabb (director of the National Hurricane Center) said.
Isaac’s center was about 35 miles south-southeast of Houma, Louisiana, and about 55 miles south-southwest of New Orleans.
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Emergency management officials reported the overtopping of an 18-mile stretch of a back levee in Plaquemines Parish from Braithwaite to White Ditch, which will “result in significant deep flooding in the area,” the National Weather Service of New Orleans said.
More than 430,000 customers were without power across Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the Entergy power company said Wednesday morning.
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Isaac, which was a tropical storm last week in the Atlantic Ocean, killed nearly two dozen people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before starting its journey across the Gulf of Mexico.
On Tuesday, Isaac was classified as a Category 1 hurricane. It is significantly weaker than Category 3 Katrina, though forecasters warn it is capable of causing significant flooding.