Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Humberto weakened to a tropical depression over southwestern Louisiana after hitting the Texas coast with hurricane-strength winds of 85 miles (135 kilometers) per hour, killing one person and knocking out power.

Humberto slammed Texas near the Beaumont-Port Arthur area at about 2 a.m. local time, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on its Web site. At 4 p.m. local time, Humberto was about 10 miles (15 kilometers) northwest of Alexandria, Louisiana, heading northeast at 12 mph. Sustained winds weakened to 35 mph, below the 39-mph threshold required for storm status.

``The storm is dramatically weakening, and I suspect there isn't too much left in terms of strong winds near the center,'' James Franklin, a hurricane specialist at the center in Miami, said in an interview. ``The rain is going to continue, however, well into the next 36 hours covering Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Alabama.''

The center predicts 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain will fall in central Louisiana and Mississippi throughout the evening, and head for Alabama in the next 24 hours.

Humberto was blamed for the death of an 80-year-old man in Bridge City, between Beaumont and Port Arthur, said Summer Linz, a Bridge City police spokeswoman. He was killed when an aluminum patio roof fell on him during the storm, Linz said.

Power Out

Power was cut to most of southeast Texas amid the storm.

Entergy Corp. was working to restore power to more than 114,000 customers along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, according to a company spokeswoman. By mid-day, the company had repaired 10 of the 39 high-voltage lines initially knocked down.

``We have been absolutely crippled by the lack of power,'' Port Arthur Police Sergeant Dennis Odom said in an interview. ``That's our main problem right now. We've only experienced minor damage to some residential buildings.''

Most electrical damage occurred in Jefferson and Orange counties along the Texas-Louisiana line, Entergy spokeswoman Kerry Zimmerman said. The utility aims to restore all power within three days and has more than 1,000 people assessing and repairing the damage. In Louisiana, about 4,000 customers are without power.

``We've been busy clearing away lots of downed trees, and some of the streets are flooded,'' Captain Scott Wheat of Beaumont's Fire and Rescue team said in an interview.

Refineries Closed

Three oil refineries in Port Arthur, about 16 miles southeast of Beaumont, were closed because of power outages. Total SA, Valero Energy Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc refineries in Port Arthur, Texas, lost power.

The three refineries represent 4.8 percent of U.S. daily gasoline output, Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC, a Houston-based consulting company, said in a telephone interview. The plants are among the top 30 in the U.S., with a combined daily processing capacity of 850,000 barrels of crude.

Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Beaumont, Texas, refinery also was in the path of the hurricane.

``We're on the back side of the storm now,'' Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Kathleen Jackson said in an interview. ``The refinery's operational, but of course we're still assessing everything.''

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest U.S. oil import terminal, said operations were unaffected by Humberto.

``We're keeping an eye on the storm, but as of now, all operations are a go,'' said Barb Hestermann, business development and marketing representative at New Orleans-based Loop LLC, the port operator.

Offshore Oil Port

Crude oil rose, closing above $80 a barrel in New York for the first time, because of the storm and refinery shutdown.

Crude oil for October delivery rose 13 cents to $80.04 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $80.20, the highest since trading began in 1983. Prices are up 25 percent from a year earlier.

Gasoline for October delivery rose 2.7 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $2.043 a gallon in New York. Futures are up 28 percent from a year earlier.

Schools closed in Louisiana's Cameron and Calcasieu parishes, and flood watches were issued by the National Weather Service.

Humberto's sustained winds of 80 mph earlier made the system a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Hurricane-force winds extended 15 miles from the eye of the storm, and tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph reached out about 60 miles.

The system became a hurricane 18 hours after developing into a depression. No other storm on record has reached Humberto's intensity at a faster rate near landfall, the hurricane center said.

Separately, the ninth storm of the year formed to the east of the Lesser Antilles. Tropical Storm Ingrid was centered about 840 miles east of the islands, moving west-northwest at 6 mph with sustained winds of about 40 mph.

Some strengthening is possible over the next 24 hours, the hurricane center said at 11 p.m. local time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kelly Riddell in Washington at Kriddell1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 13, 2007 22:59 EDT