Hurricane Nate speeds toward Gulf Coast, NWS warns preparations should be ‘rushed to completion’

“Preparations along the Gulf Coast should be RUSHED TO COMPLETION this morning! Conditions deteriorate quickly this afternoon!!”, a tweet Saturday morning read.

Part of the urgency stems from how quickly the storm is moving – 22 mph according to the latest estimate from the National Hurricane Center. Whereas forecasts earlier this week predicted a Sunday morning landfall, the expectation now is that Nate, which is less than 250 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, will hit the U.S. Saturday evening.

Hurricane Nate is also “intensifying quickly” according to NHC, as it makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico toward the U.S. Late last night it was upgraded to a hurricane, and has since intensified and has 85 mph maximum sustained winds.

Landfall is expected to be somewhere between Louisiana and the Florida panhandle. States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

President Trump has approved an emergency declaration for Louisiana, unlocking federal resources. Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has named William Doran III as the federal coordinating officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas, the White House said in a statement Saturday morning.

Hurricane Nate brings the threat of heavy rainfall, “life-threatening” storm surge, surf and rip current conditions, hurricane force winds, and even isolated tornadoes. Up to five to nine feet of storm surge could happen along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts this evening.

One notable city that is threatened by the storm is New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu declared a state of emergency on Thursday, and on Friday, some evacuations in his city were underway. The city is bracing for possible flooding as parts of the city’s drainage system are not in full working order.

“We are in a stronger place w/ power and pumps. But, if #Nate produces large amount of rainfall, we could see some localized flooding,” Landrieu tweeted Friday.

Nate has been tied to at least 25 deaths in Central America so far.

Forecasters believe Nate will weaken back into a tropical storm relatively quickly once it makes landfall over the U.S., and unlike the remnants of Hurricane Harvey, which sat and dumped rain on Texas and Louisiana, will move quickly up the interior eastern U.S., bringing rain to places that have been experiencing drought conditions.

The remnants of the impending hurricane are then expected to veer east toward Pennsylvania and even Washington, D.C., according to the latest NHC forecast cone.

Two U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are still recovering from Hurricane Maria, which ran through the Caribbean last month. Some Puerto Ricans are still struggling to gain access to food, water, and gas, and power may not be returned to some parts of the island for months. President Trump visited Puerto Rico to meet with local officials and people impacted by the storm on Tuesday. Officials raised the death toll tied to Maria to 34 on Tuesday.