Louisiana coast braces for Tropical Storm Lee

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Lee threatened the Louisiana coast on Friday with torrential rains and flooding and shut nearly half of U.S. offshore crude oil production and a third of offshore gas production.

The slow-moving storm is expected to reach the Louisiana coast early on Sunday and bring 10-15 inches of rain to southeast Louisiana over the weekend, including low-lying New Orleans, battered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Lee was about 185 miles southwest of the Mississippi River's mouth, with maximum winds of 45 mph, the hurricane center said. Its heavy rain and gusty winds were already buffeting the Louisiana coast, it said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal warned that heavy rains, substantial winds and tidal surges from the Gulf of Mexico could produce flash flooding in parts of New Orleans throughout the Labor Day holiday weekend.

"Get ready for the wind, get ready for the rain, it's coming and it's going to be here for a while," Jindal said at a briefing in Baton Rouge. Jindal has declared a state of emergency for Louisiana, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour made a similar ruling for seven coastal counties.

Lee has a 50-60 percent chance of reaching hurricane strength, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bernie Rayno told Reuters Insider (see http://link.reuters.com/vas53s)

"The problem with this system is that it's so slow-moving," Rayno said. "The big story is going to be the flooding."

Major offshore producers like Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc shut down platforms and evacuated staff earlier this week.

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