The next tropical storm could form in the Atlantic as Francine drenches South

All six named storms that formed this hurricane season have made landfall somewhere, including Francine, which crashed into Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane Wednesday evening.

The next potential named storm — tropical depression 7 — could break that streak. The latest forecast track from the National Hurricane Center keeps would-be Gordon far out to sea, with a slow crawl west for the next few days and a potential curve away from land by early next week.

With Francine now drenching inland states as a tropical depression, the rest of the board looks pretty clear.

As of Wednesday morning, the easternmost disturbance saw its chances of development fall to zero. The disturbance immediately to its west fell to a 20% chance of development in the next few days or week.

“The proximity of dry air near the system is expected to limit additional development over the next couple of days. Environmental conditions are expected to become even less conducive over the weekend while the system moves slowly west-northwestward,” forecasters wrote.

The third disturbance, off the southeast coast, has a 30% chance of strengthening into a tropical depression in the next week. Forecasters expect it to drift north or northwest, away from Florida, if it forms.

As for Francine, it weakened Thursday after it knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, sent storm surge rushing into coastal communities and raised flooding fears in New Orleans and beyond.

As heavy rain drenched the northern Gulf Coast, New Orleans awoke to widespread power outages and debris-covered streets. Just before sunrise, large swaths of the city were without power, and home generators roared outside some houses. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

Up to 6 inches of rain was possible in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia, with up to 10 inches possible in some parts of Alabama and Florida, forecasters said. Flash flooding threatened cities as far away as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Francine slammed the Louisiana coast Wednesday evening with 100 mph winds in coastal Terrebonne Parish, battering a fragile coastal region that has not fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. The system then moved at a fast clip toward New Orleans, lashing the city with torrential rain.

In New Orleans, rushing water nearly enveloped a pickup truck in an underpass, trapping the driver inside. A 39-year-old emergency room nurse who lived nearby grabbed a hammer, waded into the waist-high water, smashed the window and pulled the driver out. It was all captured on live television by a WDSU news crew.

“It’s just second nature I guess, being a nurse, you just go in and get it done, right?” Miles Crawford told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. “I just had to get to get him out of there.”

He said the water was up to the driver’s head and rising. Crawford told the man to move to the back of the truck’s cab, which gave him more room and since the front end of the pickup was angled down, into deeper water.

“I wasn’t really questioning whether I should do it — it was just who is going to get it done,” he recalled, adding that he never caught the man’s name.

News footage from coastal communities showed waves from lakes, rivers and Gulf waters thrashing seawalls. Water poured into city streets in blinding downpours. Oak and cypress trees leaned in the high winds, and some utility poles swayed.

By early Thursday, water was receding in Jefferson Parish, where streets flooded, but canals were still high, parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said in a social media post. Pumps that operated through the night could not keep up with the storm, causing sewer system problems, she said.

She asked residents to give the parish time to clear the streets, noting that the hazards after a storm can sometimes be more dangerous than the storm itself.

As the sun rose in Morgan City, about 30 miles from where Francine made landfall, residents gathered tree branches that were strewn across their yards, where water rose almost to their doors. Pamela Miller, 54, stepped outside to survey the damage after a large tree fell on the roof of her home.

“It was a really loud noise, a jolt, and that’s when we realized the tree had come down,” she said. “Luckily it did not go through the roof.”

Jeffrey Beadle, 67, emerged from the hotel room where he sheltered for the night.

Beadle left his home in low-lying Bayou Louis, about 10 miles outside town, on Wednesday as the rain picked up. He lived there for 30 years without any major damage, but he was worried this time would be different because his home was right in the hurricane’s path. He loaded his car in preparation to check on his home.

“There’s nobody over on that end I can call,” he said, explaining that he did not know what he would find. “Hope everything’s good.”

Sheriff’s deputies helped evacuate dozens of people, including many small children, who were trapped by rising water Wednesday evening in Thibodaux. Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said deputies also rescued residents in the Kraemer community.

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Francine from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph as it churned north-northeast over Mississippi. The system was expected to continue weakening and become a post-tropical cyclone later Thursday before slowing down and moving over central and northern Mississippi through early Friday.

Power outages topped 390,000 early Thursday in Louisiana, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us, with an additional 46,000 outages reported in Mississippi.

In addition to torrential rains, there was a lingering threat of spinoff tornadoes from the storm Thursday in Florida and Alabama.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the National Guard would fan out to parishes affected by Francine. The Guard has food, water, nearly 400 high-water vehicles, about 100 boats and 50 helicopters to respond to the storm, including for search-and-rescue operations.

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