Francine dumps heavy rain on Louisiana Gulf Coast | LiveNOW from FOX

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Francine slammed into the Louisiana coast Wednesday evening as a dangerous Category 2 hurricane that knocked out electricity to more than a quarter-million customers and threatened widespread flooding as it sent a potentially deadly storm surge rushing inland along the Gulf Coast. It has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Francine crashed ashore in Terrebonne Parish, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of Morgan City, the National Hurricane Center announced at 4 p.m. CDT. Packing top sustained winds near 100 mph (155 kph), the hurricane then battered a fragile coastal region that hasn’t fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

Power outages in Louisiana topped 261,000 hours after landfall, spread widely across southeast Louisiana. Blackouts affected the majority of homes and businesses in coastal parishes nearest where the storm came ashore as well as their inland neighbors, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.