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Barry landed just before 2pm. Saturday afternoon, near Intracoastal City, Louisiana, in the form of a tropical storm, just hours after its brief hurricane category 1.
The National Weather Service said the storm had driven winds of 70 km / h, while forecasters warned of the dangerousness of a storm and high winds in the area.
National Hurricane Center director Ken Graham said Barry had collected "a large sheet of moisture" and should bring rain to the area throughout the weekend.
The water passes over the dike at the Point Celeste pumping station in Louisiana while Hurricane Barry lands.
(Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser)
The storm is expected to cause the most damage in Louisiana and parts of Mississippi, with wind and rain affecting more than 3 million people.
Videos have shown water over a dike in the parish of Plaquemines south of New Orleans, where the earth's fingers extend deep into the Gulf of Mexico. The officials were still convinced that the levees would remain firm.
More than 70,000 customers were without power on Saturday morning, including nearly 67,000 in Louisiana and over 3,000 in Mississippi, according to poweroutage.us.
The storm briefly turned into a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained maximum winds of 75 mph, just above the threshold to be a hurricane. However, when he made landfall, he was again downgraded to a tropical storm. It is expected that it will weaken again and become a tropical depression Sunday.
THE SAFE COAST GUARD 12 INSERTED ON THE DISTANT ISLAND OF LOUISIANA
The coastguard rescued more than a dozen people from Jean Charles Island, south of New Orleans, where the water was rising so high that some people clung to the roofs . But in the city, locals and tourists wandered through almost empty streets in light rain or stayed in the interior.
Torrential rains also whipped the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. Parts of Dauphin Island, a barrier island located in Alabama, 200 miles (322 km) from Barry, have been inundated by rain and gulf waters, said Mayor Jeff Collier, who drove into a Humvee to examine the damage. He added that the island was still fueled early Saturday afternoon and that the damage from the wind was minimal.
TROPICAL STORM BARRY PROMOTES STORM OVERVOLTAGE, WARNINGS AGAINST FLOODING: WHY DOES NEW ORLEANNE HAVE AN INCREASED RISK?
During a storm update on Facebook Live, Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center, revealed a computer screen showing a huge swirling mess of water hanging in the air. ;air.
"It's just an incredible amount of moisture," he said. "It's off the table."
Mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, thanked the residents for staying away from the street and urged them to remain vigilant because the worst of the wind and rain was not yet come.
"Although you may not have seen the rains as we talked about, they are coming to us," Cantrell said.
Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic floods in New Orleans in 2005 and reportedly caused more than 1,800 deaths in Louisiana and in other states, according to some estimates.
After Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers has put in place a multibillion-dollar hurricane protection system that is not complete. The work included repairing and upgrading some 350 miles of dikes and more than 70 pumping stations used to remove floodwaters.
President Trump has already declared the state of emergency in Louisiana, allowing relief efforts by the federal government. In addition, about 10,000 people from Plaquemines Parish, at the extreme southeastern tip of Louisiana, were evacuated on Thursday.
New Orleans is particularly vulnerable to flooding because of its low altitude. Only about half of the city is above sea level – a drop from what was once 100%, according to the Atlantic, which cites human activity as the main reason for the decline.
The sky is cloudy as above Lake Pontchartrain on Lakeshore Drive, few floods have been reported in New Orleans, in front of Tropical Storm Barry that will touch the ground on Saturday, July 13, 2019. (AP Photo / Matthew Hinton)
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Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards warned that the impact of the storm, associated with the already-high Mississippi River – swollen by heavy rains and snowmelt upstream this spring – could be a combination dangerous.
"Louisiana can flood three ways: storm surge, high rivers and rain," Edwards said. "We are going to have all three."
Paulina Dedaj, Madeline Farber and Fox News Associated Press contributed to this report.
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