Hurricane Sally threatens Gulf Coast with a slow drenching

A beach restoration crew member watches as a bulldozer operator hauls sand to build up a barrier along the beach in Bay St. Louis, Miss., as they hope to lessen the effects of the oncoming storm surge from Hurricane Sally, Monday, Sept. 14, 2020. (Lukas Flippo/The Sun Herald via AP)

Hurricane Sally, one of five storms lined up across the Atlantic, is churning towards the Louisiana-Mississippi coast with rapidly strengthening winds of at least 100mph and the potential for as much as 2ft of rain that could bring severe flooding.

Storm-weary Gulf Coast residents rushed to buy bottled water and other supplies ahead of the storm, which has strengthened to a Category 2 storm and is expected to reach Louisiana’s south-eastern tip around daybreak on Tuesday and make its way sluggishly northwards into Mississippi on a path that could threaten the New Orleans metropolitan area and cause a long, slow drenching.