A weakening Tropical Storm Ida brought drenching rain to the U.S. Gulf Coast as it slowly approached shore on Tuesday after shutting down almost 30 percent of Gulf energy production.

Once a Category 2 hurricane, Ida’s threat was easing as its top
sustained winds fell to 50 miles per hour (80 kph), the U.S. National
Hurricane Center said in a 4 a.m. EST (0900 GMT) advisory.

The center of the storm is expected to cross the U.S. Gulf Coast near
Mobile, Alabama, later on Tuesday morning, the hurricane center said.
After landfall, the storm is forecast to weaken further as it turns
east over northern Florida.

Oil prices eased to $79 a barrel as Ida was downgraded from a Category 2 hurricane.

But the storm was already bringing heavy rainfall onshore. A tropical
storm warning was in effect from Grand Isle, Louisiana, eastward to
Aucilla River, Florida. The region was being pounded by rain and there
were reports of flooded streets.

The warning area included New Orleans, which is still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In Mobile, Alabama Governor Bob Riley warned residents to be on guard
and declared a state of emergency for the state. Some 2.8 million
residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida could feel the
storm’s effects, the U.S. Census Bureau said.

The Coast Guard closed the Port of Mobile, halting traffic on Mobile
Bay, and authorities closed schools and government offices in coastal
counties in Alabama and Florida, telling residents of flood-prone areas
and mobile homes to evacuate.

On Monday, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter plucked two workers from a
storm-damaged oil rig south of New Orleans. Ida is blamed for 124 flood
and mudslide deaths in El Salvador.

GULF OIL PRODUCTION CUT

Ida, which was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm earlier
on Monday, posed the first real storm threat of the 2009 Atlantic
hurricane season to Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas production, and
forced some companies to shut down offshore platforms and evacuate
personnel.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service said Ida had shut down 29.6 percent of Gulf oil production and 27.5 percent of gas output.

Energy markets have been hypersensitive to Gulf cyclones since the
devastating 2004 and 2005 seasons, when storms like Katrina disrupted
U.S. output and sent pump prices soaring.

With Ida weakening, most offshore oil rigs in the Gulf would not see
any damage, said Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist at private
forecaster Planalytics Inc.

“I think that by tomorrow it will be normal operations across the production region,” Rouiller said on Monday.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the only U.S. terminal capable of
handling the largest tankers, stopped unloading ships due to stormy
seas. The Independence Hub, a major offshore natural gas processing
facility, also was closed.

A quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas are produced
from fields in the Gulf, and the coast is home to 40 percent of the
nation’s refining capacity.

At 4 a.m. EST (0900 GMT), the center of Ida was about 60 miles (97 km)
south-southwest of Mobile and was moving north at about 9 mph (15 kph),
the hurricane center said.

A few coastal Alabama businesses boarded up their windows but many
residents and visitors seemed to dismiss the late-season storm as
little more than a nuisance.

Schools, beaches and parks closed in the Florida Panhandle, the same
area hit in August by Tropical Storm Claudette, the only other cyclone
to make a U.S. landfall during the 2009 Atlantic season, one of the
least active in a decade.

Source: Reuters

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