The National Hurricane Center in Miami is projecting the storm to make landfall around 6 a.m. Tuesday near the Alabama-Florida state line and curve eastward by Wednesday morning. The track could change, but so far Ida is not expected to cross over Southwest Mississippi.

Lincoln County Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey said local and state officials are keeping an eye on the tropical storm, but so far Ida has given them no cause for alarm. He said the biggest concern with Ida would be rainfall.

"I don't expect anything for us here locally but maybe some rain, at the most 10-15 mph winds, maybe a little bit higher gusts," he said. "We have a conference call with the National Weather Service at 10 a.m. (Monday), but I don't see any reason for us to have any major concerns."

Galey said Ida, which has weakened considerably in the last 24 hours, has not been able to draw its needed energy from a November-chilled Gulf of Mexico and has caught interference from an upper-level weather system.

NHC downgraded Tropical Storm Ida from a Category One hurricane early Monday morning when its winds fell to around 70 mph. Over the weekend, a newly formed Ida dumped heavy rain on El Salvador, where flooding and mudslides killed more than 120 people.

Tropical Storm Ida is the first storm of the 2009 hurricane season to threaten the Gulf Coast. The season ends Dec. 1.