Storm Surge/Tide — St. Mary, Louisiana

2019-07-13 to 2019-07-14 · St. Mary, Louisiana

Event narrative

Voluntary evacuations south of the Intracoastal Waterway were upgraded to mandatory due to storm surge impacts increasing. Cypremort Point, Burns Point, and areas outside of the levee in the Morgan City saw storm surge flooding. Levels varied from a few Inches to 6 feet deep. Storm surge overtopped several levees, including the one on Highway 317. locals compared the storm surge height comparable to a little higher than 2002 Hurricane Lili. The tide at Amerada Pass hit 6.61 feet MHHW, 7.20 feet NAVD88 at Franklin, and 7.79 feet NAVD88 at Cypremort Point.

Wider weather episode

A mesoscale convective vortex interacted with a weak cold front over the the southeast states and northeast Gulf of Mexico. The surface low that developed moved southwest across the gulf then northwest into the south central Louisiana coast. The first tropical watches were issued July 10th from the National Hurricane Center and the center of minimal hurricane made landfall near Intracoastal City during the afternoon of the 13th. Storm surge from Barry peaked between 5 and 6 feet in and around Vermilion Bay. The center of Barry moved northwest across Southwest and West Louisiana in the following days where one band of heavy rain set up in Calcasieu and Beauregard Parishes producing significant flooding.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 846628. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.