Updated at 7:28 a.m. ET
(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Isaac knocked out power, flooded Gulf-front roads and pushed water over the top of an 18-mile section of a rural Louisiana levee before dawn Wednesday as it began a slow, wet slog across the state with a newly fortified New Orleans in its path.
Wind gusts and sheets of rain pelted the nearly empty streets of New Orleans, where people watched the incoming Isaac from behind levees that were strengthened after the much stronger Hurricane Katrina hit seven years ago to the day.
Water pushed by the large and powerful storm flooded over an 18-mile stretch of one levee in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans, flooding some homes in a thinly populated area. No injuries were reported.
"When this is over, I think we need to check the wind speeds because I lost a good portion of my roof, my fence is down, and water is blowing through the sockets in my house from the back wall," Parish President Billy Nungesser said in a phone call to CBS New Orleans affiliate WWL. "That only happened in Katrina."
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Isaac was packing 80 mph winds, making it a Category 1 hurricane. It came ashore at 7:45 p.m. EDT Tuesday near the mouth of the Mississippi River, driving a wall of water nearly 11 feet high inland and soaking a neck of land that stretches into the Gulf of Mexico. Its next major target was New Orleans, 70 miles to the northwest, where forecasters said the city's skyscrapers could feel gusts up to 100 mph.
WFOR Miami's interactive storm tracker
Isaac's winds and sheets of rain were whipping through nearly empty streets in New Orleans while in neighboring Mississippi the storm pushed Gulf water over sections of the main beachfront highway that runs the length of the state's shore.
Ryan Bernie, a spokesman for the city of New Orleans, said the storm had caused only some minor street flooding before dawn and felled trees but had left roughly 125,000 customers in the city without power.
In Mississippi, the main beachfront highway, U.S. 90, was closed in sections by storm surge flooding. At one spot in Biloxi, a foot of water covered the in-town highway for a couple of blocks and it looked like more was coming in. High tide around 9:30 a.m. was likely to bring up more water.
In largely abandoned Plaquemines Parish, storm surge was piling up against levees between the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River along the boot of Louisiana. A levee on the parish's evacuated east bank had been overtopped.
Plaquemines emergency management spokesman Caitlin Campbell said an 18-mile stretch along the thinly populated east bank was being overtopped by surge. Sheriff's deputies were going house-to-house getting residents who'd remained after an earlier evacuation to move to higher ground. Campbell said no injuries were reported and streets were passable.
Hundreds of thousands of people were without power across the state's southern parishes, including more than 250,000 in New Orleans and its suburbs, power provider Entergy reported.
Tens of thousands of people had been told ahead of Isaac to leave low-lying areas of Mississippi and Louisiana, including 700 patients of Louisiana nursing homes. Mississippi shut down the state's 12 shorefront casinos.
The hurricane promised to lend even more solemnity to commemoration ceremonies Wednesday for Katrina's 1,800 dead in Louisiana and Mississippi, including the tolling of the bells at St. Louis Cathedral overlooking New Orleans' Jackson Square.
As Isaac neared the city, there was little fear or panic.
"Isaac is the son of Abraham," said Margaret Thomas, who was trapped for a week in her home in New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood by Katrina's floodwaters, yet chose to stay put this time. "It's a special name. That means God will protect us."
Still, the storm drew intense scrutiny because of its timing — coinciding with Katrina and the first major speeches of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., already delayed and tempered by the storm.
Gulf Coast officials warned of the dangers of the powerful storm but decided not to call for mass evacuations like those that preceded Katrina, which packed 135 mph winds in 2005.
"We don't expect a Katrina-like event, but remember there are things about a Category 1 storm that can kill you," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, urging people to use common sense and to stay off any streets that may flood.
Tracy Smith, 26, a New Orleans resident who decided that she and her family would be safer at La Quinta hotel near the quarter than at home, ducked outside shortly after midnight to gauge the storm's severity. Farrell yelled over to her to watch out for a restaurant sign that had become partially detached from a building and threatened to fly off.
Smith, a former deputy sheriff, was trapped for several days with about 100 inmates in a New Orleans jail during Hurricane Katrina, up to her waist in floodwaters. She is still haunted by the experience.
"That's why I was panicked for this storm," she said.
