Zeta, downgraded to a tropical storm after making landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane, hitting the New Orleans metropolitan area with rains and high winds that destroyed buildings, left more than two million people without power and threatened causing 9-foot (three-meter) storm surge inland in a region that has experienced numerous storms this year.
The phenomenon, although weakened, continues to hit North Carolina and southeastern Virginia on Thursday, killing at least three people as it passes through Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia.
The first reported was that of a 55-year-old man who according to a Louisiana coroner was electrocuted by a downed power line in New Orleans.
Later, Mississippi police said the storm killed a man who was found Wednesday at a Bioloxi marina.
In Cherokee County, Georgia, a man died after a tree fell on him.
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In Georgia alone, more than a million users were without power.
And more than a million in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Storm Zeta presented winds of 50 miles per hour
(85 kilometers per hour) on
Thursday afternoon
as it entered the Carolinas, hours after making landfall, but meteorologists said it was still dangerous.
The phenomenon is advancing rapidly - at about 53 mph (85 km / h) - towards the northeast of the country.
A portion of Washington Garden apartments collapsed in the winds from Hurricane Zeta in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 28, 2020. REUTERS
Guy McInnis, President of the Township of St. Bernard, Louisiana said emergency workers were doing their best to respond to reports of people in distress after they lost the roofs of their homes.
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"We took the onslaught from Zeta, and he gave us a good blow," McInnis told WDSU-TV.
Roads were flooded near the coast
, where forecasters said Zeta made landfall in the Terrebone Bay area near Cocodrie, a roadside fishing village that has a marine laboratory but few full-time residents. , if there is one.
A building in the laboratory was flooded.
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Oct. 28, 202000: 50
With much of the city in darkness and more than 200 trees down, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell pleaded with residents to stay home and allow authorities to assess the damage rather than go out and do it themselves.
"Although we survived, we suffered damage, we were beaten," he
said.
A dark Bourbon street in New Orleans' French Quarter, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. AP
Zeta had maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour
(177 kilometers per hour) as a Category 2 hurricane when it made landfall, and is the 27th named storm to occur in a busy season in the Atlantic, more than a month that ends.
He set a record by becoming the 11th named phenomenon to hit the continental United States in a season, two more than the nine recorded in 1916.
[Can you stop a hurricane with an atomic bomb? And with an iceberg? A storm is coming and there are crazy ideas to stop it]
In Mobile, Alabama, a wind gust of 91 miles per hour (146 kilometers per hour) was recorded, and an indicator from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office reported
storm surge of 10 feet (3 meters) in Waveland, Mississippi.
Trump declares state of emergency in Mississippi after Hurricane Zeta
President Donald Trump declared an emergency exists in Mississippi and ordered the delivery of federal assistance to be expedited to help state, local and tribal efforts to recover from the ravages of Hurricane Zeta.
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Sept.
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Trump authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts in the state and provide assistance to save lives and protect property.
A statement on the statement released Wednesday night said the steps were ordered for Clarke, Forrest, George, Greene, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Jones, Lamar, Pearl River, Perry, Stone and Wayne counties.
He added that FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize and provide equipment and resources to attend the emergency caused by the Zeta crossing.
With information from The Associated Press and NBC NEWS.