HOUSTON, July 14 (Xinhua) -- Tropical storm Barry weakened to a tropical depression on Sunday afternoon, while its rain bands still created a flooding threat stretching from central Louisiana to eastern Mississipi and beyond.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) discontinued its tropical storm warning for Southeast Louisiana on Sunday. Barry is expected to move across central and northern Louisiana and then over Arkansas on Sunday night and Monday.
"There is a high risk of flash flooding today in portions of Louisiana," the NHC said on Twitter earlier Sunday morning, while Barry was moving northwards at about 10 km per hour, dumping large amounts of rain.
According to the NHC, part of south-central Louisiana could still have rainfall totals up to 30 centimeters.
The level of the Mississippi River, already swollen from historic rains and flooding upstream, was at nearly 5.2 meters in the state's biggest city New Orleans -- just below flood stage.
A day after Barry hit the United States as a hurricane on Saturday, it continued to dump heavy rains over the area as it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
All flights in and out of the airport in New Orleans have been cancelled since then, while thousands have evacuated their homes, tens of thousands have lost power and first responders have been poised for action.
However, in a news conference on Sunday evening, Louisiana's governor John Bel Edwards said he was "extremely grateful" that Barry did not cause the disastrous floods that had earlier been forecast.
Barry's rains could have been much worse, said Edwards, adding that the state is now better prepared for future storms.
As of Sunday morning, more than 100,000 customers in Louisiana had no electricity, and over 60,000 were customers of Entergy Corporation, which is primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations in the Deep South of the United States.
However, new forecasts show many rivers wouldn't reach their maximum height predicted before the storm hit, though flash floods remained a threat, Edwards said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, most airlines, which cancelled their flights due to the storm on Saturday, had resumed normal operations at New Orleans International Airport by noontime on Sunday.
