ATLANTA -- Millions of people were without power and at least six were dead Thursday after Hurricane Zeta slammed into Louisiana and made a beeline across the South, leaving shattered buildings and thousands of downed trees.
As many as 2.6 million homes and businesses lost power across seven states, but the lights were coming back on slowly. The sun came out and temperatures lowered, but trees were still swaying as the storm's remnants blew through.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state received "catastrophic" damage on Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish, where Zeta punched three breaches in the levee. Edwards ordered the Louisiana National Guard to fly in soldiers to assist with search and rescue efforts, and urged continued caution.
"Oddly enough, it isn't the storms that typically produce the most injuries and the fatalities. It's the cleanup efforts. It's the use of generators. It's the carbon monoxide poisoning. It's the electrocution that comes from power lines. So, now is the time to be very, very cautious out there," Edwards said.
Lines of cars stretched more than 20 deep at one of the few gas stations open in Marrero, La. The owner was using an industrial generator to run the pumps and accepting cash only.
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"The wait is kind of ridiculous, but it is what it is, you know?" said resident Jeanne Guillory. "I have no lights. I have no idea how long I'll be without power. I'm hopeful that my generator gets fixed. That's why I'm coming to put gas in the tanks. If it doesn't, then I guess I just have a lot of gas to ride the four-wheeler."
A Category 2 hurricane when it hit the southeastern Louisiana coast Wednesday, Zeta weakened to a post-tropical storm by Thursday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The fast-moving storm was centered about 25 miles southwest of Cape May, N.J., and forecast to head east-northeast over the open Atlantic.
North Carolina and southeastern Virginia were still being buffeted with gusty winds, but Zeta was moving along at 53 mph, meaning no single place was blasted too long.
A man was electrocuted in New Orleans, and four people died in Alabama and Georgia when trees fell on homes, authorities said. They included two people who were left pinned to their bed, Gwinnett County fire officials said.
In Biloxi, Miss., Leslie Richardson, 58, drowned when he was trapped in rising seawater after taking video of the raging storm. Richardson and another man exited a floating car and desperately clung to a tree before his strength "just gave out," Harrison County coroner Brian Switzer said.
Downed trees blocked lanes on two interstate highways in Atlanta, the Georgia Department of Transportation reported.
Small towns were hit, too.
Mayor Sheldon Day of Thomasville, Ala., said hundreds of trees fell in roads and on homes, while some gas station canopies blew over.
"At one point, every major thoroughfare was blocked by trees," Day said.
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Hundreds of miles away in North Carolina, a highway was blocked by a toppled tree in Winston-Salem, and Wake Forest University canceled classes for the day.
Zeta was the 27th named storm of a historically busy year with more than a month left in the Atlantic hurricane season. It set a new record as the 11th named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. in a single season, well beyond the nine storms that hit in 1916.
Information for this article was contributed by Stacey Plaisance, Gerald Herbert, Jay Reeves, Denise Lavoie, Melinda Deslatte, Seth Borenstein, Skip Foreman, Leah Willingham, Jeff Martin, Sophia Tulp and Desiree Mathurin of The Associated Press.
