Hurricane Francine came ashore in southern Louisiana on Wednesday, threatening New Orleans and the wider Gulf Coast with powerful winds, rain and a storm surge that led to evacuation orders for thousands of people.
Francine packed maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour after the eye of the storm traveled inland over southern Louisiana about 105 kilometers west-southwest of New Orleans, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The hurricane center briefly upgraded the storm from Category 1 to Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale just before it made landfall. Even as a Category 1 storm, its very dangerous winds are capable of producing damage, and the whole of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi was under a warning for storm surge that the hurricane center called life-threatening.
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