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Hurricane Zeta: Two dead and two million without power after storm smashes Gulf Coast

'We're going to see a whole lot of damage …' says Waveland mayor Mike Smith

Matt Mathers
Thursday 29 October 2020 09:52 EDT
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Storm brought 110mph winds
Storm brought 110mph winds (Associated Press)

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Two people have been killed and two million more left without power after Hurricane Zeta barrelled through the Gulf Coast.

Hurricane Zeta made landfall on the southeastern coast of Louisiana on Wednesday before moving towards Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.

A Louisiana coroner said a 55-year-old man was electrocuted by a downed power line in New Orleans, and officials said life-threatening conditions would last into Thursday.

In Georgia, authorities said a man was killed when high winds caused a tree to fall on to a mobile home in Cherokee County.

Zeta has been downgraded to a tropical storm but still poses a significant threat and could cause life-threatening storm surges of up to 11ft, forecasters said.

Some 1.8 millions residents across the four states have been left without electricity, 800,000 of those in Georgia.

On Wednesday, Zeta tore through Cocodrie, a small village about 85 miles southwest of New Orleans.

It then hit New Orleans before raging towards Mississippi, bringing howling winds and storms surges.

Authorities early on Thursday morning put in place a tropical storm warning for Atlanta, Georgia as Zeta raced its way northeast.

Heavy rain accompanied wind speeds of 35-45 mph and gusts of 65 mph early on in the city that has only seen one other tropical storm warning.

Hurricane Irma roared into Florida as a deadly Category 4 hurricane in September 2017 causing widespread threats across the south.

The National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia, confirmed then that Atlanta - more than 250 miles (402 kilometres) inland from either the Atlantic or Gulf coasts - was under a tropical storm warning for the first time.

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