not reach hurricane strength, but post-season reanalysis confirmed the upgrade to Category 1 status. Cindy weakened back into a tropical storm as it crossed over extreme southeastern Louisiana and Breton Sound before making a second landfall near Waveland, Mississippi with 50 mph (85 km/h) winds on July 6. Cindy moved to the northeast over Mississippi and Alabama, weakening to a tropical depression that day. The depression became extratropical over the Carolinas on July 7 and moved to the northeast dissipating in the Gulf of St Lawrence on July 12. Preparations Upon being declared a tropical depression, meteorologists in Mexico began advising residents about the possibility of heavy rainfall across the Yucatán Peninsula. The National Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Storm Warning from Morgan City, Louisiana to Destin, Florida, and both tourists and residents evacuated the Louisiana and Florida coasts. Workers were evacuated from six oil rigs in the storm's path, and 23 coastal refineries stopped unloading oil as Cindy's approach made such activities dangerous. Numerous flights in and out of New Orleans were cancelled and Amtrak suspended passenger rail service until after the storm passed. Recreational vehicles were told to leave Grand Isle in case a full-scale evacuation was needed. In Mississippi, jail inmates filled sandbags which would be distributed to flood prone areas throughout the state. Impact Three deaths were attributed to Cindy, none of them near the storm's landfall. One person was killed in Georgia, and two in Maryland from a car crash. Approximately 300,000 homes and businesses in southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast lost electrical power and a storm surge of 4–6 feet (1.2-1.8 m) affected the same area, causing some beach erosion near Grand Isle, Louisiana. Hurricane Cindy's total damage was estimated to be US$320 million. In New Orleans, Louisiana, wind gusts reached 70 mph (110 km/h), many trees were damaged or uprooted and scattered street flooding was reported. As thousands lost electrical power, the city experienced its worst blackout since Hurricane Betsy 40 years earlier. Although still listed as a "Tropical Storm" by the weather service at the time, many laypeople in New Orleans were under the impression that Cindy was a hurricane, and referred to it as "Hurricane Cindy" before it was officially upgraded. Many people in the New Orleans metropolitan area expected minimal effects from the storm, but were cleaning up debris and were without power for days after Cindy's passage.