Remnants of Patricia cause 1 fatality in La.
NEW ORLEANS - A 24-year-old Kenner man died when his sports car went out of control and into a canal during a storm, and a small tornado trapped an elderly disabled woman in her trailer home as the remnants of Hurricane Patricia swept across south Louisiana and south Mississippi on Sunday.
Rainfall of 7 inches or more put parts of both states under flash flood watches, with coastal flood warnings because tides 2 to 3 feet above normal were expected overnight. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency asked Mississippi residents to watch out for storms and flash floods.
Speed and a rain-slick road were factors when Raja Sikandar Mahmood's Nissan 350Z went off Joe Yenni Boulevard and into the canal, said Lt. Brian McGregor, a Kenner police spokesman.
The woman's trailer home in St. Rose was knocked off its moorings by the tornado, said Ron Perry, emergency operations director for St. Charles Parish. He said she appeared to be in discomfort but uninjured.
The twister touched down twice in St. Rose, he said -- once at the house, and once at an apartment complex on River Road, damaging a carport and several vehicles. The National Weather Service said it was an EF0 twister with 80-mph winds.
Meteorologist Danielle Manning says some areas southwest of Lake Pontchartrain had more than 6 inches of rain by midafternoon Sunday, and more rain was expected there through Monday. Parts of coastal Mississippi had up to 5 inches, with up to 7 expected through Monday, she said.
Southwest Louisiana got 3 to 4 inches, with a total of 4 to 5 expected by Monday night.
An unrelated cold front brought about 4 inches of rain since Thursday to northwest Louisiana, meteorologist Travis Washington said. It was the most the area has seen in a month and a half, he said.
"It definitely helped. We were in extreme danger of fire weather," he said.