Over 40,000 people are without power in southern Louisiana as Hurricane Francine slammed into the Gulf Coast Wednesday afternoon.

As of 7:15 p.m. EST, over 70% of Terrebonne Parrish, where the hurricane made landfall, was without power, with neighboring Lafourche and Assumption parishes seeing 48% and 39% of residents in the dark respectively, according to USA TODAY'S power outage tracker.

The Category 2 hurricane's sustained winds reached 100 mph Wednesday and the storm was expected to continue battering the central Louisiana coast into Wednesday evening. The National Hurricane Center said that "life-threatening storm surge and hurricane conditions" were expected.

The hurricane is expected to weaken significantly as it passes through the Mississippi Valley and is likely to be downgraded to a Tropical Depression by the time it reaches Memphis on Thursday evening.

Louisiana power outage tracker

Hurricane Francine tracker

Contributing: John Bacon, Thao Nguyen, Dinah Voyles Pulver and Doyle Rice