Tropical Storm Lee moves into north Alabama after dumping rain, flooding roads

MOBILE, Alabama
Tropical Storm Lee finally took its torrents elsewhere Sunday afternoon, but not before pushing in a storm tide that for much of the day flooded coastal roads and cut off the Causeway.
 
The remnants of the storm, which the National Hurricane Center has stopped tracking, may have claimed as many as eight lives.
 
Around 3:30 p.m. today, two teenage kayakers were reported missing along the western shore of Mobile Bay in an area between Dog River and the Theodore Industrial Canal. The U.S. Coast Guard was searching for them using an airplane, a helicopter and a 41-foot boat. The Mobile County Sheriff’s Flotilla also was taking part in the search.
 
Earlier today, the Coast Guard suspended its search for Conrad Charleston Hathcoat, a 16-year-old Hoover boy who was swept out to sea while playing in the surf at Fort Morgan on Sunday.
 
Confirmed dead include Dataurius Nurell Parker of Lucedale, who died in a one-car accident on a rain-slick Spring Hill Avenue in Mobile early Sunday.
 
John Howard Anderson Jr., a 57-year-old Mississippi man, drowned late Sunday in floodwaters in that state’s Tishomingo County, in the far northeast corner of the state. A body boarder in Galveston, Texas, drowned after being swept out by the surf. And a mother and her 18-month-old child died when a wildfire whipped by Lee’s winds engulfed a mobile home near Gladewater, Texas.
 
The center of Lee’s remnant, which was swept up by a cold front, was expected to streak across Alabama tonight and be in the Carolinas by noon Tuesday. Maximum sustained winds had dropped to 35 mph.
 

Lee’s rain Tropical Storm Lee dumped almost a foot of rain on parts of southwest Alabama. Here are some totals for the storm released by the National Weather Service
West Mobile: 11.35 inches
Grand Bay: 10.39
near Theodore: 9.78
near Orange Beach: 9.75
near Foley: 9.73
near Elberta: 9.65
near Tillman’s Corner: 9.47
Mobile Regional Airport: 9.19 Near Point Clear 7.9
Near Wilmer 7.51
Near Fairhope 7.41

Source: National Weather Service

Through 4 p.m. today, Lee had dropped more than 10 inches of rain in southern parts of Mobile County, the National Weather Service said. Almost 10 inches fell in an area of southern Baldwin County that included Orange Beach, Foley and Elberta. Rain totals were generally greater than 11 inches in the southern half of Mississippi, and as high as 15 inches in some spots in southeastern Louisiana.
 
Despite the prodigious soaking, most creeks and rivers in southwest Alabama did not cause significant damage. Garmon said there was some flooding reported in south Mobile County, but little, if any, property damage seems to have resulted.
 
As recently as Wednesday, coastal Alabama was categorized as being in a severe drought.
 
“We did start off dry,” Garmon said. “Perhaps that helped blunt the situation.”
 
Maybe the most severe dislocation was for motorists. The Mobile River tide gauge peaked at 4.9 feet just before noon today, and rising waters closed the low-lying Causeway earlier than that, with the road finally reopening about 8 p.m. As beach tourists tried to return to Mississippi and Louisiana, westbound I-10 was a snarl, as was the area in Daphne and Spanish Fort around I-10’s interchange with U.S. 90 and U.S. 98.
 
Lee was a hassle for other travelers as well. Carnival Cruise Lines delayed the return of its cruise ship Elation to Mobile until Tuesday morning, after bar pilots were unable to board the ship. Mobile Regional Airport continued to function, although some afternoon departures ran more than an hour late. One flight apiece leaving Mobile and Pensacola were cancelled, as were two departing from Gulfport.
 
Water crept into yards on Bayou Sara in Saraland, which rose slightly above the 4-foot flood stage. But water had not entered any houses by midafternoon. Buddy Harbison, who was pressure-washing his porch and driveway in between squalls, was unconcerned. He said that the water was not nearly as high as other storms.
 
“This house has been here since 1958,” Harbison said. “It’s never gotten any water in it yet.”
 
The story was much the same along the Fish River in Baldwin County. Gib Hixon, chief of Fish River-Marlow Fire Rescue, said water rose about six inches this morning at his home on Honey Road, but hadn’t come any higher.
 
“It’s been in my yard all day, he said. “This was just a minor flood.”
 
Robert Boike, who lives on the west bank of the river on Keeney Drive East, said water had risen to the top of the bulkhead at his house, but no higher.
 
“It was nothing spectacular,” Boike said.
 
The Styx River at Baldwin County 87 also remained above its 12-foot flood stage tonight.
 
On Dauphin Island, few people were on the beach. Squalls were blasting the people who were outside with sand, while a few surfers took their chances with the churning Gulf.
 
Customers trickled in to the Ship & Shore on what should have been a busy day.
 
“It’s been kind of boring,” said Tabitha Miller, a clerk. “It’s not killing us though, since we’re the only gig in town.”
 
Baldwin County Emergency Management Director John Perrett said county road crews spent part of the day cleaning blowing sand off Fort Morgan Road and pulling out people couldn’t tell the sand-covered road from the waterlogged ditch.
 
Damaging winds that hit the Bellefontaine area of southern Mobile County early Sunday morning were ruled today by the Weather Service to have been caused by an EF-1 tornado.
 
The Weather Service also ruled that a storm that hit Innerarity Point, Fla., a peninsula north of Perdido Key, was also a tornado. The Weather Service said that tornado caused the damage that occurred in Lillian on Sunday, but its intensity rating had not been established tonight.
 
Lee produced a number of other apparent tornadoes, including one that hit Saucier, Miss. A funnel cloud also was spotted today in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Garmon said.
 
The Weather Service also said that damage near Wiggins, Miss., and Crestview, Fla., will be assessed Tuesday to determine if they were also caused by tornadoes.
 
Those winds contributed to power outages throughout the day. By 8:30 p.m., more than 192,000 Alabama Power Co. customers statewide were without electricity, spokeswoman Keisa Sharpe said, including 3,821 in the Mobile Division and about 146,000 in the Birmingham Division.
 
Sharpe said the southwest Alabama outages were concentrated in Mobile County, but also included some in Jackson and Monroeville.
 
Southern Pine Electric Cooperative had as many as 3,000 customers without power in Escambia County, but had whittled that number down to 200 by 4 p.m., spokeswoman Melanie Harrison said. Elsewhere, about 6,000 cooperative customers remained without power at 8 p.m., mainly in the area along the Mississippi state line served by the Black Warrior Electric Membership Corp., said Darryl Gates, spokesman for the Alabama Rural Electric Association. Black Warrior includes customers in Choctaw and Marengo counties.