Hurricane Zeta makes landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 storm

Hurricane Zeta made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday as a Category 2 storm, the latest to strike the state during 2020’s record-breaking hurricane season. 

According to The Associated Press, Zeta had sustained winds of 110 during the afternoon as workers closed one of the last floodgates surrounding New Orleans. 

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that City Hall and the city’s iconic streetcars had closed in preparation for the storm, which had initially been predicted to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane. 

Tropical storm warnings were issued as far as the north Georgia mountains. 

“The good news for us — and look, you take good news where you can find it — the storm’s forward speed is 17 mph. That’s projected to increase, and so it’s going to get in and out of the area relatively quickly, and then we’re going to be able to assess the damage more quickly,” Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said in an interview on The Weather Channel on Wednesday. 

Zeta is the 27th named storm this season. 

While previous storms this season did not directly hit New Orleans, it was in the warning areas of seven previous storms this year. City emergency director Collin Arnold said the city may not “be as lucky with this one,” according to the AP. 

On Tuesday, Zeta ran across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, toppling trees and briefly cutting power to more than 300,000 people, but no deaths have been reported.

The AP reported that Zeta’s path is slightly east of August’s Hurricane Laura, which killed at least 27 people in Louisiana after making landfall in the community of Creole. 

Earlier this month, Hurricane Delta hit the same area, exacerbating damage caused by Laura. 

Authorities later reported that three people had died during Delta or in its aftermath in Louisiana and Florida.