As of 2 p.m., Zeta was about 25 miles south-southeast of Charlottesville, Virginia, per the NHC. The storm was traveling at 53 mph and was expected to continue a fast northeastward track through Thursday night.
“On the forecast track, the center of Zeta will continue to move across Virginia this afternoon, and emerge over the western Atlantic by this evening,” the NHC said.
Parts of eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia are forecast to see damaging winds and gusts through Thursday evening, the NHC said. And parts of the central Appalachians, the mid-Atlantic and lower to middle Ohio Valley could see rainfall totals between 1 and 3 inches, resulting in possible flooding.
Louisiana still recovering from earlier storms
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that Zeta made landfall as an “extremely strong” Category 2 storm, and it was just 1 mile per hour short of qualifying as a Category 3.
The first death attributed to Zeta was reported Wednesday, when a 55-year-old man was electrocuted by a downed power line, the Louisiana governor’s office said, citing the Orleans Parish coroner.
Around 500,000 people in Louisiana were without power Thursday morning, including two-thirds of New Orleans residents, according to Christina Stephens, the deputy chief of staff for the governor.
Officials asked people to stay off the roads due to downed power lines with possible live wires. There were no reports of significant flooding in the city, according to local officials. But there was coastal flooding and some vessels broke loose from barges, damaging bridges.
The governor’s office said the damaged bridges would be inspected to determine whether they are passable.
Power outages also presented problems for polling places, and Edwards said restoring power to those locations was a priority. A task force has been formed to ensure there are alternate polling places for those that remain out of service, the governor said.
Officials in Jefferson and Terrebonne parishes had issued mandatory evacuation orders ahead of the storm for coastal areas and places outside major levees. In New Orleans, voluntary evacuations were called for similar areas.
Zeta was mainly a wind event, Gov. Edwards said. Grand Isle along the Louisiana coast suffered the most damage, he said, but flooding damage was mostly due to storm surge and not rainfall.
Most of the evacuees have been displaced since August from Laura and have been spread among six hotels in New Orleans, the governor’s office said.
Edwards said more than 1,500 National Guard members had been activated and more than 5,000 linemen were staged to begin recovery and power restoration efforts Thursday morning.
Millions without power
At least 32.7 million people from the Gulf Coast toward the Carolinas had been under Tropical Storm warnings earlier Thusday morning. The last time metro Atlanta was under such a warning was October 2018 as Hurricane Michael passed over the region.
One man was killed in Georgia Thursday morning when a large oak tree fell onto a mobile home in Cherokee County, about 40 miles north of Atlanta, according to Captain Jay Baker of the county sheriff’s office.
Officials believe the death to be related to Zeta’s high winds, Baker told CNN.
“At about 4 a.m., the wind picked up, trees started falling,” he said. “The tree was uprooted.”
Three other adults and a child were also in the mobile home at the time, Baker said, but they were uninjured.
Two people were killed when a tree fell over their bed in their Gwinnett County, Georgia, home, according to local fire and emergency officials. Firefighters, police and rescue personnel were on scene working to recover the bodies, officials said.
In Mississippi, Biloxi resident Leslie Richardson, 58, also died because of Zeta, per Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer. Richardson drowned after he was videotaping the waves at a Biloxi marina, Switzer told CNN.
Richardson and another man were recording the waves when they became surrounded by rising water, Switzer said. Richardson called 911 and both men swam to a tree, where they held on for a while.
Ultimately, Richardson was overtaken by storm surge and drowned, Switzer said. The other man survived.
‘Significant’ damage seen in southwest Alabama
“Structural damage. Ambulance building destroyed. Windows blown in several homes & businesses. Numerous trees on homes & cars. Communications & internet out,” it posted.
The order won’t apply to law enforcement or employees traveling to and from work, the mayor’s account said.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency earlier this week. On Wednesday, she asked residents to finish storm preparations quickly and warned that even the central part of the state could see tropical storm winds.
Before turning its path toward the US coast, Zeta struck the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico on Monday night as a Category 1 hurricane.
CNN’s Amara Walker contributed to this report.
