After dumping water on Louisiana Sunday, Lee weakened late in the day to a tropical depression with 35-mile-per-hour winds. In New Orleans, the levees protected the city from more than a foot of rain, and across the South fewer evacuations were required than some had feared. The storm is now moving northward toward Appalachia, where there’s the potential for flash floods like the ones that devastated Vermont after Hurricane Irene. Lee’s winds also stoked wildfires in East Texas, killing a mother and her child.
