Tropical Storm Lee causes severe flooding across Gulf states

New Orleans (CNN) -- While New Orleans has braved Tropical Storm Lee without any major problems, residents of other communities on the Gulf Coast soldiered through severe flooding Sunday from the plodding, drenching storm.
State and local officials -- plus the Facebook page for Louisiana's emergency management division and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu -- reported flooding in numerous Louisiana parishes including Iberia, Terrebone, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Tammany and Jefferson.
Mississippi has also been hard hit. A news release Sunday from its emergency management agency points to several flooded roads and damaged homes in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson and Stone counties. And the website for Entergy, a major utility in the area, shows mostly pockets of power outages as far west as the Houston suburbs and as far north as Arkansas.
Centered over southern Louisiana, the storm continued to pump out rain -- as much as 20 inches expected in spots through Monday night, according to the National Hurricane Center -- as it chugged northward Sunday toward the Tennessee Valley. In an advisory, the center warned, "These rains are expected to cause extensive flooding."