Zeta's toll on Louisiana island 'like a bomb was dropped'

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers personnel survey levee damage Friday at Grand Isle, La. The barrier island community south of New Orleans was one of the areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Zeta. More photos at arkansasonline.com/1031zeta/.
(AP/Matthew Hinton)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers personnel survey levee damage Friday at Grand Isle, La. The barrier island community south of New Orleans was one of the areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Zeta. More photos at arkansasonline.com/1031zeta/. (AP/Matthew Hinton)

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Zeta's remnants moved off the northeastern U.S. coast Thursday night, but its effects were evident Friday through a swath of the Southeast. From south Louisiana to Virginia, an estimated 1.3 million homes and businesses remained without power as of midday. Restoration, for many, was expected to take days.

Six deaths have been blamed on the storm. A man was electrocuted by a downed live wire in New Orleans. Four people died in Alabama and Georgia when trees fell on homes, authorities said, including two people who were pinned to their bed. In Biloxi, Miss., a man drowned when he was trapped in rising seawater.

Zeta came ashore on the southeast Louisiana coast, near Cocodrie, La., on Wednesday evening with 110 mph winds, just shy of Category 3 strength. It hit hard on Grand Isle, a popular waterside getaway and recreational fishing destination. With a population of about 1,500 people, the seaside landscape is dominated by rustic fishing camps and vacation homes on pilings high above the flood-prone ground.

Zeta lifted away roofs, snapped telephone polls and washed away parts of a levee designed to protect the narrow island from storm surge.

[Gallery not loading above? Click here for more photos » arkansasonline.com/1031zeta/]

Mark Andolino remembers stinging rain and a howling wind that peeled the roof off part of his Cajun Tide Beach Resort on Grand Isle, the Louisiana barrier island town where residents were among the first to feel the ferocity of then-Hurricane Zeta.

Andolino was salvaging what he could Friday morning, picking up pieces of reusable scrap wood, while mulling what it will take to repair and reopen. He said residents believe Zeta spawned at least one tornado. "I guess that's what did it," he said. "Because we got the most damage on the island right here, basically in the middle of the island."

"The middle of the island looks like a bomb was dropped," said Dodie Vegas, who with her husband owns Bridge Side Marina on the west side of the island.

Part-time resident Jimmy Ellis, a New Orleans-area physician, said his raised camp survived, but he spent Friday morning retrieving fishing equipment and pieces of a Louisiana State University mural that washed away when water swept beneath it.

Andolino rode it out, despite an evacuation having been ordered a day before, when the storm was expected to be a relatively weak, Category 1 hurricane. Zeta's speed and intensity caught many on the coast off guard.

"That thing just souped up and kicked all of our butts, especially the levee," said Lan Tivet, a member of the Grand Isle town council. She had been away from the island on family business as the storm approached and was getting reports from town officials as she made her way back Friday.

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 that hit in 1916. And the coronavirus pandemic has only made things more difficult for evacuees.

It's been an especially active season in Louisiana, hit so far by two tropical storms and three hurricanes, including Laura, which devastated southwestern Louisiana in August.

"We have three sets of hurricane evacuees that are sheltering in Louisiana simultaneously," Gov. John Bel Edwards noted during a Friday news conference. That included 3,051 people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Laura, 172 from Hurricane Delta, which hit weeks later in the same area, and 27 from Zeta.

Zeta toppled trees in New Orleans and the surge tossed a shrimp boat into a front yard in coastal Mississippi. The mayor of Thomasville, Ala., reported hundreds of downed trees, blocking streets and damaging homes.

As a weakening tropical storm, Zeta was blamed for a landslide that blocked a North Carolina road, severing access between mountain counties and forcing motorists to take a 90-mile detour, authorities said.

And the 2020 hurricane season isn't over. Forecasters said disturbed air off the northern coast of South America could become a tropical depression and head toward Nicaragua by early next week.

Information for this article was contributed by Jeff Amy and Skip Foreman of The Associated Press.

After chainsawing a power pole, crews from Entergy separate the pole with a crane as it overhangs La. Hwy 1after it was damaged by Hurricane Zeta at the Wateredge Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas.  (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
After chainsawing a power pole, crews from Entergy separate the pole with a crane as it overhangs La. Hwy 1after it was damaged by Hurricane Zeta at the Wateredge Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey levee damage along Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas.   (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey levee damage along Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
A camping trailer building has collapsed on a fence after being damaged by Hurricane Zeta in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
A camping trailer building has collapsed on a fence after being damaged by Hurricane Zeta in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Mark Andollina, left, and his son, Nicholas Andollina, center, remove part of a roof damaged by Hurricane Zeta at the Cajun Tide Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Mark Andollina, left, and his son, Nicholas Andollina, center, remove part of a roof damaged by Hurricane Zeta at the Cajun Tide Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Mark Andollina, left, and Shane Holder, remove part of a roof damaged by Hurricane Zeta from the road at the Cajun Tide Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Mark Andollina, left, and Shane Holder, remove part of a roof damaged by Hurricane Zeta from the road at the Cajun Tide Beach Resort in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
A camping trailer by a neighboring camp has been damaged by Hurricane Zeta in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
A camping trailer by a neighboring camp has been damaged by Hurricane Zeta in Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey levee damage along Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.  Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas.  (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey levee damage along Grand Isle, La., Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans that was one of the hardest-hit areas. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Amanda Underwood sorts through belongings Thursday, Oct. 19, 2020, after the RV her family lived in at Gulf Haven RV Resort in Gulfport, Miss., overturned when Hurricane Zeta hit the area Wednesday night. The family was not home at the time. According to residents at Gulf Haven, there were four RVs that overturned during the storm. (Barbara Gauntt/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)
Amanda Underwood sorts through belongings Thursday, Oct. 19, 2020, after the RV her family lived in at Gulf Haven RV Resort in Gulfport, Miss., overturned when Hurricane Zeta hit the area Wednesday night. The family was not home at the time. According to residents at Gulf Haven, there were four RVs that overturned during the storm. (Barbara Gauntt/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)

Upcoming Events