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This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on September 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.

SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI — The training in northwest Mississippi that Cassandra Welchlin led was focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, but the longtime community organizer wanted to make space to sing.

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around …

“Come on, y’all!” Welchlin told the crowd of nearly 100, who joined in on the next verse. Turn me around …

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around. I’m gonna keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom lane …

“I am so happy to have y’all in the house,” she said at one point. “If y’all could see what I see.”

What Welchlin saw that August morning were the faces of Black women — and a lot of them. Their interests, varied and historically overlooked, are at the center of a new kind of intentional voter engagement training.

“Black women mobilize their communities,” she told The 19th. “They are the catalyst.”

Welchlin is executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, a civic engagement and policy advocacy organization whose members, all of them Black women, have traveled the state for months to host trainings called the “Power of the Sister Vote Boot Camp.”

On paper, their goal with the boot camps is an increase in voter turnout among Black women in the Mississippi counties where they visit. They also want to create a years-in-the-making pipeline to better mobilize Black women, whom Welchin views as the glue holding together democracy, especially in a state and region that continues to be impacted by policies that have historically suppressed Black voters.

“I was raised in a house of Black women — my aunties, my grandma, and then the neighborhood of elders,” she said. “I know the power of Black women taking care of Black women, and taking care of the community.”

At the trainings, Welchlin and her staff dress in military fatigues — a “boot camp” theme that has manifested into the advertisement the group uses to promote the events and the T-shirts they distribute to attendees. But there is a deeper significance.

“Voting feels like a battle in Mississippi,” she explained.

Mississippi is one of just three states that does not offer early voting to all residents, and one of eight states that does not offer online voter registration. The 12-hour window that many residents have to cast a ballot on Election Day can be difficult for people with irregular work shifts, child care responsibilities and challenges to accessing transportation.

Welchlin said she knows Black women overwhelmingly run their households. They also take on the added responsibility of getting their communities to the ballot box.

Yet Black women in Mississippi are the largest group of women in low-wage jobs, face one of the highest rates of poverty in the country and rank among the lowest in elected representation at the statehouse.

“I wanted to do something a little bit more strategic and formal that would bring excitement,” Welchlin said. “I just kind of sat with the idea of, ‘What would make people want to come?’”

The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, which has long made issues like equal pay, Medicaid expansion and paid family and medical leave a priority in their work, is an affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. The organization has programming focused on Black women’s civic participation, including a “Sistervote” initiative.

Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and convener of the national Black Women’s Roundtable programming, credited Welchlin for designing a training theme that not only has the potential to turn out more voters, but could lead to more Black women becoming leaders who run for office. She added that Welchlin is taking their political power “to another level.”

“Having a Cassandra Welchlin in leadership, who’s doing unique things — there could be more Black elected officials in the state of Mississippi, because the demographics are there. But when you talk statewide, it’s not reached its full potential,” she said.

There are about 1.9 million registered voters in Mississippi, where the governor’s office, Senate and House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans. Welchlin’s group estimates that more than 123,000 Black women in the state did not vote in the past three election cycles. The group’s  goal is to increase voter participation among these women by 10 percent this November. Black women voters in the counties the group has targeted for boot camps are among those who have voted most infrequently since 2021.

It’s part of why Allytra Perryman, deputy director of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, which has partnered to help host some boot camps, also sees such potential in mobilizing them.

“When you train a Black woman on how to do anything, you train a community,” she said.

On the morning of the boot camp, Velvet Scott seemed to be everywhere.

As director of civic engagement and voting rights for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, she was ready to help roll out attendee tables and chairs; she was there to open boxes and hand materials to roundtable staff. She and Welchlin made sure the check-in table had updated registration lists, lunch was ordered and the child care in a nearby room was set up.

“Today we’re going to go through, of course, important information, but we’re going to have fun while doing it,” Scott told the women, many already wearing the matching boot camp T-shirts. 

Their meeting space was attached to a church on a hill — New Hope Missionary Baptist Church — nestled along a road filled with so many churches it’s called Church Road. Among the permanent signage adorning the room were Biblical-themed messages of hope: “We will not fail nor be discouraged, till our mission is complete….”

“We welcome you today to be energized and to be educated,” said Pamela Helton, a leader within New Hope and the wife of the church pastor, in opening remarks.

Earlier, Welchlin seemed determined to shake the hands of every person who walked through the doors. For those she knew, she offered a hug. “So glad to see so many beautiful Black women,” she said at one point. “We comin’.”

When Welchlin helped host the first boot camp ahead of last year’ gubernatorial race, her organization did not collect data about the trainings. Anecdotal feedback showed a clear interest in organizing Black women around voter turnout, but the full scope of the programming’s reach in its pilot run is unclear.

“We realized that we had a gap,” Welchlin said. “But part of it had to do with capacity on our end to collect that data and do the follow-up.”

Scott, who joined the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable late last year, has committed to doing things differently. She honed a data mindset while first working in insurance, a job that brought her into the homes of Black and Brown people who increasingly sought her guidance about available social services. In 2018, Scott began volunteering at a youth-focused civic engagement organization and then joined the staff full time.

At the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, Scott tries to capture more information about the organization’s approach to community programming. That’s meant more of a focus on spreadsheets, more surveys and more individual follow-ups to ensure attendees have support afterward.

Scott has tweaked the boot camps since they launched in April in order to make them more accessible. She’s made some trainings available on weeknights instead of Saturdays, when people tend to be most busy with family responsibilities. She has sometimes shortened the hours of programming to see if a tighter agenda keeps up engagement. She recently helped organize a virtual training.

As a mother to a newly walking toddler, she tries to think about what the attendees might need. She, like Welchlin, feels strongly about onsite child care. (During the Southaven training, Scott stepped away to breastfeed her child.) She ensures that a meal is provided during the trainings, as well as a gift card. The group set aside roughly $50,000 to run the program this election cycle, according to Scott. They’ve been under budget thanks to partnerships with other civic engagement groups.

Scott believes strongly in the power of Black women organizing their communities.

“We don’t live single-issue lives,” she said. “So to uplift Black women in the room is to say, ‘Hey, I see you. We’re going to work on this together, we’re going to be in community together, and we’re going to be in fellowship together.’”

Scott also wants to find the balance in her work. She’s tried to move away from an unspoken expectation in community organizing that she must be go-go-go. She doesn’t want to burn out, and she wants to be present with her family.

“Rest is resistance,” Scott said, who referenced research on the topic. “And advocates deserve joy.”

When Jessica Orey hears Welchlin’s singing, she perks up. Orey is attending alone, and the music comforts her.

As a young adult, Orey jumped into organizing through a local NAACP chapter. Those meetings also made space for “freedom songs” used at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s why Orey was impressed by its emphasis in Southaven.

“She’s kind of bringing back the old school type-feel of it,” Orey said of Welchlin. “Like, hey, we’re going to sing our way through. This is what’s going to push us to the next level.”

Welchlin said her mentor, Hollis Watkins, the late civil rights activist who founded the voting rights organization Southern Echo, taught her the freedom songs that he once sang at mass organizing meetings.

“It’s teaching a new generation about what the meaning of song is, and what these words mean,” she said. “And so it’s a history lesson, while it’s also a spiritual blessing to our souls.”

Sheneka Bell is also in the room alone, listening along.

At 45, Bell is a longtime voter but has not been active in voter turnout efforts. But politics continues to seep into her life — from the national debate about reproductive rights, to local property rezoning. Last year, Bell joined the local county chapter of the NAACP.

“I have a responsibility to understand what’s going on in my neighborhood and beyond,” she said.

In some ways, Orey felt compelled to be at the boot camp: Her grandmother is Delores Orey, a longtime civil rights activist who worked alongside key leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

“This is all I know. This is what Big Mama taught us,” said the 36-year-old, referring to her grandmother. “This is what Big Mama pushed for. So if any injustice is around me, it’s like, ‘What would Big Mama do?’ A lot of this stuff is ingrained. It’s a part of my DNA.”

After her grandmother died in 2014, Orey stepped back from community organizing. But she wants to get involved again, and she felt like the boot camp was a first step. Orey has since signed up for roundtable updates and alerts from several civic engagement groups. She recently participated in a GOTV event in Jackson.

“I know it’s time for me as a former advocate,” she said. “I need to get my shoes back in the game. There’s work to be done.”

Since the boot camp, Bell has looked into signing up to be a poll worker. She is open to phone banking, and recently showed her nieces how to check their voter registration statuses.

“I’m new to this space,” she said. “I’ve never done any of this before.”

Welchlin is not surprised that women like Orey and Bell are drawn to these endeavors in Mississippi, a state that played a key role in the long fight for universal voting rights. It is home to historic voter registration drives like Freedom Summer, and it is the birthplace of activists like Fannie Lou Hamer.

Civic engagement groups say the struggles continue.

In July, a federal court ordered Mississippi policymakers to redraw some state legislative maps that they established in 2022, after the court concluded that the maps illegally diluted the political power of Black residents.

Among the areas impacted by the racial gerrymandering is DeSoto County, which includes Southaven, the site of the August boot camp.

Some noted a recent state law over the voters rolls and technical issues at precincts during last year’s close governor’s race. Some polling precincts in Hinds County, home to the capital city of Jackson, ran out of ballots. Long lines were reported and some people were seen leaving polling locations without voting. More than 80 percent of Jackson residents are Black.

The state also has one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement bans in the nation, taking away voting rights from people who are convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes.

Welchlin cautioned against ignoring inequity around the ballot box in Mississippi, especially as Republican lawmakers advance voting restrictions around the country. They have increasingly claimed without proof that there is widespread voter fraud, and such policies often appear in states with large Black and Brown populations.

“Mississippi is part of the fabric of the struggles in the South,” Welchlin said. “We have a history, and a muscle, and a foundation in which we have built.” 

As the boot camps in Mississippi wrap up this election cycle, its ripple effect is coming into focus. A state lawmaker recently expressed interest in running a boot camp. At least one organization is now trying to offer similar programming targeting Black men. And the umbrella organization’s Michigan affiliate has reached out about replicating some of boot camp programming. 

“We know that their data is going to look different, but we’re giving them the template to adjust it the way they need,” she said. “It’s a model, and Michigan is going to be testing it.”

Welchin has tried to lean into the joy of the work ahead, despite the obvious obstacles. With Black women by her side, she feels empowered to find a way.

“Good things do come from the South, and we know that Black women have been a part of making that happen,” she said.

To check your voter registration status or to get more information about registering to vote, text 19thnews to 26797.

The post ‘Voting feels like a battle’: In Mississippi, a group of Black women is reimagining voter turnout appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Six percent of rides provided by the company that coordinates Medicaid recipients’ transportation to medical  appointments  – or three times the allowable limit – were late or missed in July.

The company’s first report to the Division of Medicaid since assuming the contract for transportation services indicated that five percent of scheduled rides were late, and one percent was missed, said Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield. 

The company’s contract states that no more than two percent of scheduled rides should be late or missed each day. 

For-profit, Denver-based Modivcare is working to lower the percentage of rides that are late or missed, said company spokesperson Melody Lai in an email.

“We utilize data and close partnerships with healthcare facilities, transportation providers, and members across the state to continuously improve service,” she said. 

Modivcare, which began its three-year, $96.5 million contract with the state on June 8 of this year, scheduled over 52,000 trips with beneficiaries in July. 

About 3,000 of the rides were late or missed. 

Nearly 40,000 rides were completed after cancellations made by both Medicaid recipients and drivers in July. Thirty-seven trips took 45 minutes longer than average. 

Modivcare’s contract mandates it submit monthly reports detailing late or missed trips, along with other information.

Despite filing a public records request, Mississippi Today did not obtain a copy of the company’s first monthly report. The Division of Medicaid indicated that the reports could contain proprietary, third-party trade secrets and that Modivcare had the right to obtain a protective order prohibiting the release of the records.

State Medicaid programs are required to provide rides to doctor appointments to health plan recipients. States can manage the benefit directly, provide the service through Medicaid managed care contracts or contract with a third-party broker, like Mississippi. 

Modivcare subcontracts with local transportation companies to provide rides to beneficiaries. Late or missed trips are considered the fault of the transportation companies that provide rides to beneficiaries, Westerfield said.  

Mississippi Today last month reported that a woman who uses a wheelchair missed four doctors appointments after Modivcare assumed responsibility for the service in June. She said drivers refused to give her a ride on two occasions because they did not feel comfortable securing her mobility device. On another occasion, Modivcare told her there were no available drivers with the capacity to transport a wheelchair. Another time, the driver did not show up to the location she indicated. 

Modivcare’s contract with the Division of Medicaid requires that each wheelchair vehicle have a wheelchair securement device that meets American with Disabilities Act guidelines. 

People with disabilities are some of the most frequent users of the service. 

Modivcare has been penalized for a high volume of late or missed rides in other states. 

The New Jersey Department of Human Services fined Modivcare $1.7 million between 2017 and 2022 for failing to meet its contractual obligations, including missing scheduled pickups, reported the Bergen Record. The New Jersey Legislature considered a bill in 2023 to establish performance and reporting standards for Medicaid transportation services, but the legislation died in committee. 

This month, The Maine Monitor wrote that patients have reported missing appointments and being refused rides by the company, which provides transportation services to 16 counties in Maine. 

In Georgia, Modivcare and Southeasttrans, another non-emergency medical transportation company, were fined over $1 million from 2018 to 2020 for picking up patients late, KFF reported. 

Modivcare was the lowest bidder during the contract selection process in Mississippi. The agency chose it over Medical Transportation Management, Inc., the previous contractor, and Verida, Inc. 

Westerfield said that when the number of late or missed trips exceeds the two percent threshold, the division works with the company to correct the issue. If the issue persists, the company will receive official warning letters and the division could choose to seek damages. 

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AT&T workers are back on the job today after the company reached a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America to end a month-long strike in the Southeast.

The new deal includes a 19.33% pay increase for all workers, and more affordable healthcare premiums.

Wire technicians and utility operations employes get an extra 3% pay increase.

In a statement, CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. praised the solidarity of the striking workers. 

“I believe in the power of unity, and the unity our members and retirees have shown during these contract negotiations has been outstanding and gave our bargaining teams the backing they needed to deliver strong contracts,” he said.

CWA district president Jermaine Travis told Mississippi Today that he and his coworkers are happy to be back at work. 

“It’s been a long month, so everybody is excited to get back to work and get back to taking care of business,” he said.

Travis also noted the significance of the strike, the longest telecommunications strike in the Southeast. 

“I think we’re gonna look back at this strike, at this moment in history, and see it was really important for workers to stand up for the rights and force companies to do right by them, so I think we did a good thing,” he said.

AT&T has also reached a tentative agreement with the CWA in the West.

“As we’ve said since day 1, our goal has been to reach fair agreements that recognize the hard work our employees do to serve our customers with competitive market-based pay and benefits that are among the best in the nation — and that’s exactly what was accomplished,” AT&T said in a released statement. “These agreements also support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors.

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After 13 hours of watching college football Saturday – and enduring seemingly 21,989 TV timeouts – this bleary-eyed correspondent is left with more questions than answers.

For instance, is Ole Miss, the nation’s fifth-ranked team, really this good? (Honestly, I think the Rebels are.)

Are Mississippi State and Southern Miss this bad? (The season is still a puppy, but, boy, those are two teams that really need for something good to happen. Soon.)

Through three games, Lane Kiffin’s offense averages nearly 700 yards per game, nearly nine yards per play and exactly 56 points per game. Granted, the Rebels have not played a really good football team yet, but these eyes see no weaknesses, glaring or otherwise. Apparently, Wake Forest doesn’t either because the Demon Deacons are paying Ole Miss $750,000 to not play the return game in Oxford next year.

As for Mississippi State, there was nothing holy about Toledo. The Rockets earned a $1.2 million paycheck and dominated the Bulldogs in every phase of the game in a 41-17 victory that was ever bit as one-sided as it sounds. The pertinent question seems not so much how can a 10.5-point underdog win by 24 points on the road, but why was Toledo ever a double-digit underdog in the first place?

Toledo plays in the Mid-American Conference, where the league’s best teams are nearly always competitive with Power 5 conference teams. We saw it a week ago when Northern Illinois won at Notre Dame. That was a week after Notre Dame won on the road at Texas A&M and a week before the Irish crushed Purdue 66-7. That same Saturday, Bowling Green led for much of the game before losing at Penn State. Last year, Toledo lost to Illinois by three points in its opener before winning 11 regular season games and the MAC regular season title. 

My point: Toledo is a well-coached, veteran team, used to success, and no doubt came to Starkville expecting to win. What the Rockets couldn’t have expected was to dominate. But Toledo led 14-0 early, 28-3 at halftime and 35-3 in the third quarter. It could have been worse than the final 41-17.

For State, the worst part is that the Bulldogs were dominated at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. There was nothing fluke-y about it. Twenty of Toledo’s 73 offensive plays gained 10 for more yards. On the flip side, Toledo defenders combined for five sacks, six tackles for losses. State ran the ball 27 times for a paltry 66 yards.

That’s particularly sobering when you realize that the Bulldogs’ remaining schedule includes five of the nation’s top seven ranked teams. After Florida, in Starkville, this Saturday, State’s next two games are against the nation’s top two teams, Texas and Georgia, both on the road.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss continued its early season demolition of inferior competition. After clubbing Furman and Middle Tennessee State by a combined 128-3, the Rebels faced their first Power 5 competition and first road game of the season. The Rebels made it look easy. The first possession of the game pretty much set the tone: 75 yards and five plays in 87 seconds, touchdown Ole Miss. It was almost like a dummy drill. Before the first quarter was over, Ole Miss would score three touchdowns, and it easily could have been four.

Jaxson Dart has now completed 73 of 88 passes for 1,172 yards. That’s 83 percent. He throws lasers.

Ole Miss now plays a good Sun Belt team Georgia Southern, at home, before beginning conference play the following week against Kentucky. Road games at South Carolina and LSU follow that. The Rebels will be favored in all.

At Hattiesburg, Southern Miss started fast, taking a 14-0 lead over a talented South Florida team that had played Alabama on even terms for three and a half quarters the previous week. After USM’s quick start, reality set in. South Florida scored the next 28 points en route to a dominant, 49-24 victory. Most disheartening of all for USM: The Golden Eagles’ defensive front was supposed to be the strength of the team, but South Florida gashed USM for 369 yards rushing. Southern Miss now goes on the road to face Rich Rodriguez’s Jacksonville State team, which won nine games and the New Orleans Bowl last year.

Elsewhere:

• Previously No. 1 Georgia, for once, looked human in a 13-12 win at Kentucky.
• Previously No. 2 Texas lost Quinn Ewers but used Arch Manning’s five-touchdown performance to trounce UTSA 56-7 and move up to No. 1 ahead of Georgia. To this observer of three generations of quarterbacks named Manning, the athletic, 19-year-old Arch, whose performance included a 67-yard touchdown run, looked far more like his grandfather Archie than either of his famous quarterbacking uncles Peyton and Eli.
• No. 4 Alabama went on the road to blast Wisconsin 42-10.
• No. 16 LSU outlasted South Carolina 36-33 in a game marred by officiating that was sketchy at best.
• Vanderbilt fell from the unbeaten ranks, dropping a 36-32 decision to Georgia State of the Sun Belt Conference.
• Jackson State trounced Southern University 33-15 for its fifth straight victory over the Jaguars before a crowd of just over 32,000 at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
• Colorado bounced back with a 28-9 victory over Colorado State. Former Jackson State coach Deion Sanders had his son, Shadeur, throwing the ball and padding his stats with a 19-point lead with under two minutes to play. CBS announcers, understandably, were both incredulous and critical. Alas, sportsmanship will never be Deion’s long suit.

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At least Francine wasn’t a lie.

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The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has issued another fine to the United Kingdom-based company Drax for 2022 air emissions violations at its wood pellet plant in Gloster.

The company first announced the penalty on Tuesday. MDEQ’s announcement came a day later.

Drax’s Gloster facility, Amite BioEnergy, released 50% more than its permitted limit of a group of chemicals known as Hazardous Air Pollutants, or HAPs, in 2022. The plant also released 84% more, or almost double, than its permitted limit of methanol, a type of HAP, that same year.

MDEQ fined the facility $225,000, making it the third time the state has fined Drax since its plant opened in 2016. In 2020, MDEQ fined Drax $2.5 million, one of the largest Clean Air Act penalties in state history, for releasing over three times the legal limit for Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, since the plant opened. Drax didn’t come into compliance until 2021, almost five years later.

MDEQ also fined Drax $110,000 in 2019 for recordkeeping and monitoring violations, as well as for excessive use of a fire pump engine.

The plant, one of the largest employers in the area, processes wood into pellets that Drax then sends back to the United Kingdom. Wood pellet companies, including Drax and Enviva, send pellets made in Mississippi and other Southern states back to Europe and Asia, where countries use the biomass as a way of meeting their clean energy goals. However, a large group of scientists and conservationists from around the world have criticized the practice, arguing that using wood pellets for fuel actually increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Extended exposure of large amounts of HAPs can increase the chances of health effects such as cancer, damage to the immune system, neurological, reproductive, developmental, and respiratory issues among other symptoms, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since learning of the $2.5 million fine in 2020, a group of Gloster residents have alleged that people living near Amite BioEnergy have experienced health issues, including respiratory symptoms, caused by the plant’s emissions.

This week’s fine requires Drax to pay $150,000 directly to MDEQ, and use the remaining $75,000 to build a dust suppression screen. In addition to their concerns around air and noise pollution, residents living near the plant have said that dust from the facility often blows onto their property. Drax will spend an additional $75,000 to build the screen, the company said. MDEQ’s order requires the screen to be built within the next 300 days.

Mississippi Today released a story in April exploring the arrival of the wood pellet industry in the state, how the industry took advantage of the economic voids in rural communities, and the environmental and health concerns that followed.

READ: Trouble in the wood basket: How a global push for rnewable energy took advantage of rural Mississippi

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MORGAN CITY, La. (AP) — Francine weakened Thursday after striking Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, sent storm surge rushing into coastal communities and raised flood fears in New Orleans and beyond as drenching rains spread over the northern Gulf Coast.

New Orleans awoke to widespread power outages and debris-covered streets. Just before sunrise, street lights on some blocks were working but large swaths of the city were without power. The roar of home generators was evident outside some houses.

Some 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of rain were possible in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, with up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) possible in some spots in parts of Alabama and Florida, forecasters said, warning of the potential threat of scattered flash flooding as farflung as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Francine slammed the Louisiana coast Wednesday evening with 100 mph (155 kph) winds in coastal Terrebonne Parish, battering a fragile coastal region that hasn’t fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. It then moved at a fast clip toward New Orleans, pounding the city with torrential rains.

In New Orleans, rushing water nearly enveloped a pickup truck in an underpass, trapping the driver inside. A man who lives nearby grabbed a hammer, waded into the waist-high water, smashed the window and pulled the driver out. It was all captured on live TV by a WDSU-TV news crew Wednesday night.

After guiding the man to shore, Miles Crawford said: “I just had to go in there are do it.”

“I’m a nurse, so got to save lives, right?” Crawford, an emergency room nurse at University Medical Center, said seconds after the rescue. In an interview later outside his home, Crawford had a large bandage on his hand, cut in the rescue.

“I’m used to high-stress, high-level things on a daily basis,” he said. “We deal with things like that all the time, so it was nothing out of the ordinary.”

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. TV news broadcasts from coastal communities showed waves from nearby lakes, rivers and Gulf waters thrashing sea walls. Water poured into city streets amid blinding downpours. Oak and cypress trees leaned in the high winds, and some utility poles swayed back and forth.

Water was receding early Thursday in Jefferson Parish, where streets flooded, but canals were still high, parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said in a social media post. They pumped through the night, but there were sewer system problems and they couldn’t keep up with the storm, she said.

There had not been any major injuries or deaths, Sheng said.

“Let’s keep that going,” she said, asking residents to give the parish time to clear the streets, noting that the hazards after a storm can sometimes be more dangerous than the storm itself.

As the sun rose Thursday in Morgan City, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from where the storm’s center made landfall, Jeffrey Beadle, 67, emerged from the hotel room where he had sheltered for the night as the streets flooded and blasts of wind battered town.

Beadle left his home in low-lying Bayou Louis, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) outside town, on Wednesday afternoon as the rain picked up and left almost all his possessions there. He had lived there for 30 years without suffering any major damage but he was worried this time would be different because his home had been right in the hurricane’s path. He had loaded his car and was preparing to return to check on his home.

“There’s nobody over on that end I can call,” he said. “I don’t know what I am going to, bruh. Hope everything’s good.”

The storm was downgraded Thursday from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 kph) as it churned north-northeast over Mississippi near 12 mph (19 kph) , the National Hurricane Center said. Francine was expected to continue weakening, becoming a post-tropical cyclone later in the day, and to slow down as it turns to the north over the next day, moving over central and northern Mississippi through early Friday.

Power outages in Louisiana topped 390,000 early Thursday, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us, with an additional 46,000 outages reported in Mississippi.

Lafourche Parish sheriff’s deputies helped evacuate 26 people, including many small children, trapped by rising water in housing units in Thibodaux on Wednesday evening and transported most of them to an emergency shelter, Sheriff Craig Webre said in a news release. Deputies rescued residents from rising waters in other areas in Thibodaux and in the Kraemer community.

The sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Francine drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, strengthening to a Category 2 storm before landfall. It weakened late Wednesday to a tropical storm.

In addition to torrential rains, there was a lingering threat of spin-off tornadoes from the storm Thursday in Florida and Alabama.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the National Guard would fan out to parishes impacted by Francine. They have food, water, nearly 400 high-water vehicles, about 100 boats and 50 helicopters to respond to the storm, including for possible search-and-rescue operations.

Since the mid-19th century, some 57 hurricanes have tracked over or made landfall in Louisiana, according to The Weather Channel. Among them are some of the strongest, costliest and deadliest storms in U.S. history.

___

This story was originally published by The Associated Press and is distributed through a partnership between Mississippi Today and The AP. 

Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this story.

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