came ashore Wednesday in St. Bernard Parish after weakening substantially, but Gov. Jeff Landry warned residents in the southeastern part of the state to stay alert as the system and its remnants passed through.
“We have taken the storm seriously from the beginning,” Landry said during a news conference at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge. But “the latest forecast is extremely encouraging. I want to thank everyone out there who prayed real hard that this storm would not affect Louisiana as some other storms have in the past.”
Landry encouraged Louisianans to visit for information about how to stay safe during extreme weather.
Bertha made landfall around 2 p.m., according to state meteorologist Jay Grymes, who echoed Landry’s advice during the news conference. The storm came ashore with sustained winds of 45 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, making it the first direct hit of Louisiana’s 2026 Atlantic hurricane season.
Though downtown New Orleans could get “downright windy,” those winds were unlikely to be particularly problematic, Grymes said. “Localized flooding is still a potential here,” he added.
“There’s a decent chance that Bertha is going to collapse in the next 48 to 60 hours,” he said. “But don’t count on that.”
The tropical storm weakened Tuesday night, but coastal parishes in southeast Louisiana still braced for rainfall and wind gusts as Bertha approached. The heaviest rains stayed offshore.
The National Weather Service issued a for New Orleans.
It also issued a coastal flood advisory for St. John the Baptist, Orleans, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Jefferson, Lafourche, Terrebonne and St. Charles parishes. The advisory was expected to expire at 4 a.m. Thursday.
And the agency warned of the possibility of scattered power outages, downed tree limbs and limited property damage.
Bertha is expected to maintain tropical storm intensity until it reaches the Texas coast on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Forecasters predicted the storm would not hit the Baton Rouge area, though that area was under an extreme heat warning.
Staff writer Kasey Bubnash contributed to this story.