From: clarinews@clarinet.com (STEVE WATSKY)
Newsgroups: biz.clarinet.sample,clari.news.disaster,clari.local.texas,clari.news.weather,clari.news.urgent
Subject: At least 33 hurt as Hurricane Andrew hits Louisiana, spawning tornadoes
Keywords: severe weather, trouble, municipal goverment, government,
	general weather, weather
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:51:12 GMT
Followup-To: biz.clarinet.sample
X-Supersedes: <andrewU2aQ1145ae@clarinet.com>
Location: texas
ACategory: national
Slugword: andrew
Priority: regular
Format: breaking
ANPA: Wc: 1045; Id: z3890; Sel: txnbw; Adate: 8-26-1045aed; Ver: 17/5; V: ld
Codes: ynbwbtx., yngcbtx., ynwwbtx., xxxxxxxx
Note: urgent
 (complete writethru -- new coordinates; Bush plans visit)


	LAFAYETTE, La. (UPI) -- Hurricane Andrew's deadly winds, some gusting
to 160 mph, roared into the Louisiana bayou country Wednesday, knocking
out power, tearing out trees and spawning tornadoes that injured at
least 33 people.
	Andrew, the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, killed 16 people in
Florida and the Bahamas and left a $15 billion to $20 billion path of
destruction before heading into the Gulf of Mexico and finally slamming
into Louisiana.
	Andrew's eye skirted the coast for hours early Wednesday before
coming ashore with 125 mph winds about 25 miles west-southwest of Morgan
City. Gusts of 160 mph were reported at New Iberia along with flooding,
forecasters said.
	Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center, predicted the
storm system would gradually turn northeasterly and go into Mississippi.
He said the major threat now was heavy rains and potential flash
flooding.
	At 10 a.m. CDT, the center of Hurricane Andrew was estimated near
latitude 30.5 degrees north and longitude 91.6 degrees west, or about 25
miles west of Baton Rouge, moving in a northerly direction at 8 mph.
	Hurricane force winds of about about 75 mph extended out from the
center of the storm system. Rains of up to 10 inches were predicted.
	Hurricane warnings remained in effect from Grand Isle, La. westward
through Port Arthur, Texas, but were discontinued west of Port Authur.
	Before Andrew made landfall it's highest winds dropped from 140 mph
and it was downgraded from a Catagory 4 storm to a Catagory 3. Further
weakening was expected as it moved north into Lousiana.
	Gov. Edwin Edwards said 13 tornadoes were sighted around the state,
one of them injuring 33 people near New Orleans. Only one death had been
reported so far, a heart attack victim, he said.
	``While nobody can do much about this storm, we are as well prepared
as possible and people are really reacting heroically,'' Edwards said.
	President Bush said that he would travel to Louisiana to make a
first-hand assessment of the damage.
	``I want to go to Louisiana as soon as possible,'' he said. adding
that the ``destruction from this storm goes beyond anything we've known
in recent years.''
	The president also said the federal government is ``making available
today $10 million to create 5,000 short-term jobs for Floridians to
clean up and restore public services in the aftermath of this hurricane.
''
	He said the $10 million will be administered by Florida Gov. Lawton
Chiles and ``may be used to employ workers left without jobs by the
hurricane.''
	``We will be assessing similar needs'' in Louisiana, Bush said.
	The president also declared Louisiana a disaster area, making federal
rebuilding funds available.
	The only tornado injuries were at La Place, about 20 miles west of
New Orleans, where police said a block of homes was flattened.
	State Police Sgt. Ed Holzendorf said the twister left ``one whole
block of homes completely totalled -- I mean flattened.''
	Rose McDuffie, a spokeswoman for La Place Parishes Hospital, said
three of the injured remained hospitalized, two in critical condition
with head injuries and the third in stable condition.
	McDuffie said the hospital was also slightly damaged by the tornado
and a doctors' office building nearby was ``structurally damaged.'' She
said power was out in most of the city. The hospital was on emergency
power.
	Lafayette was raked by horizontal rain and winds clocked at nearly
100 mph at the airport. Many trees could be seen broken and lying in the
streets as dawn broke. Power crews were pulling trees off powerlines.
	At New Iberia, about 20 miles south of Lafayette, the roof was ripped
from a refugee shelter, one report said. Gusts of 160 mph were reported
in the area. There was no immediate word on injuries.
	Power companies reported at least 43,000 customers without power,
most of them along the marshes and bayours of the coast.
	In Morgan City, most of the 15,000 residents had already evacuated
early Tuesday -- hours before the storm hit.
	``We're expecting the worst and hoping for the best,'' Mayor Cedrick
LaFleur said.
	Edwards had predicted ``some very serious consequences'' for Morgan
City if Andrew's most intense wind and rain hit the community, because
the city sits in a low area surrounded by marshes and sugar cane fields.
	In the Gulf itself, Grand Isle, a small community on a barrier island
south of New Orleans, was reported under 2 feet of water early
Wednesday, but many of the homes and other buildings there are built on
stilts.
	An estimated 1.8 million people were ordered or urged to evacuate
Louisiana's 11 coastal coastal parishes (counties), and thousands more
were evacuated in Texas from Sabine Pass, Port Neches, Port Arthur and
along Bolivar Peninsula.
	New Orleans, which is below sea level with a population of more than
600,000, is considered very vulnerable to a direct hit from a hurricane,
but it was spared the most intense rain and winds of Andrew.
	Tuesday night, Gov. Edwards activated 1,700 members of the Louisiana
National Guard to help evacuation efforts and prevent looting.
	Before Andrew came ashore, residents who did not evacuate staged
massive runs on bottled water, canned goods and batteries at local
stores.
	In boarded-up Cocodrie, La., a fishing village, Hubert Dupre and his
family loaded up their possessions earlier Tuesday to drive inland.
	``I'm not expecting anything when I come back,'' Dupre said.
	One of the first sagas of survival came Tuesday, when a Coast Guard
helicopter rescued four people and two dogs from a disabled 65-foot
fishing vessel in the Gulf, 50 miles south of Houma, La. They were in
good condition.
	The Coast Guard also reported seven people aboard a 70-foot fishing
vessel were missing in the Gulf, about 40 miles south of Morgan City. A
rescue helicopter was turned back by high winds.
	The American Red Cross was rushing disaster relief personnel and
truckloads of supplies to a staging area in Jackson, Miss. The agency
opened 38 shelters in Louisiana, eight in Texas and two in Mississippi.
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