Storm Ida: Second person dies as a million face weeks without power in aftermath of hurricane
Follow here for the latest updates after weather system makes landfall at Port Fourchon
Hurricane Ida, the fifth-strongest to ever hit the mainland United States, has finally been downgraded to a tropical storm after spending 16 hours churning across Louisiana in what Joe Biden declared a “major disaster”.
Two people were confirmed dead in the storm’s aftermath, with the death toll expected to rise “considerably”.
Intensifying faster than experts had predicted, the weather system blasted into New Orleans exactly 16 years to the day after the devastating Hurricane Katrina, where it knocked power out across the city, tore off roofs and even reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.
Residents of the Gulf Coast evacuated their homes and businesses were shut down as much of the Louisiana coastline was plunged underwater. The hurricane claimed at least one life, after a tree fell onto a residential property in Baton Rouge.
Louisiana’s governor John Bel Edwards lamented that, “if you had to draw up the worst possible path for a hurricane in Louisiana, it would be something very, very close to what we’re seeing”, warning residents of his state to brace for potentially weeks of recovery.
It was declared a tropical storm on Monday by the National Hurricane Centre, which warned that dangerous storm surges, damaging winds, and flash flooding would continue over portions of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi.
Images show aftermath of Hurricane Ida in New Orleans as rescue efforts get underway
New Orleans Police: ‘Now is not the time to leave your home'
New Orleans Police have told residents to “shelter in place” and not leave their homes.
“Now is not the time to leave your home. There is no power. Trees, limbs, and lines are down everywhere. It is not safe to leave your home right now. Please remain sheltered in place,” the department tweeted on Monday morning.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told MSNBC on Monday that he expects the death count to “go up considerably throughout the day”.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation also urged residents to stay off the roads.
Apartment building fire caught on camera amid storm aftermath
More than a dozen fires were reported in the town of Kenner, west of New Orleans, amid the aftermath of Storm Ida, Mayor Ben Zahn and Fire Chief Terence Morris announced.
“Unfortunately, the department has very low water pressure because of the numerous breaks in the parish’s water system due to downed trees,” city officials said in a statement. “Also, flooding and downed trees and power lines are making travel in the city quite dangerous. In addition to those issues, the high winds from Hurricane Ida - which appear to be subsiding with the exception of gusts - are also making it difficult and unsafe for our firefighters to roll to calls.”
Governor: Storm recovery will take ‘many months’
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told NBC that recovering from storm Ida will take “many months,” but he added that he hopes that power will return to “much of New Orleans relatively soon” after all eight transmission lines leading into the city were taken out of commission by the storm.
Other official estimates suggest that some areas in and around the city could be without power for three weeks and be without water for five days.
Images show flooding covering entire highway and enveloping fire station
VIDEO: Historic New Orleans music shop destroyed by storm
The historic Karnofsky music shop in New Orleans where Louis Armstrong, jazz trumpeter and vocalist, was employed, was destroyed as Hurricane Ida hit the city.
Retired journalist John McCusker told 4WWL: “Louis said it was the Karnofskys that instilled the love of singing in his heart.”
“The family would feed him and they would eat dinner together and they would sing to get the children to sleep,” he added.
The immigrant family loaned Mr Armstrong the money for his first cornet and later transformed their tailor shop to the first jazz record store in New Orleans. It collapsed on Sunday under the pressure from Hurricane Ida.
Biden to speak on Hurricane Ida as officials urge evacuees to stay away
President Joe Biden is set to speak later this afternoon about the catastrophic damage done to the southeastern US by Hurricane Ida.
This comes as Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announced that the recovery from the storm “is going to be a fairly long ordeal”.
“This is going to be a fairly long ordeal in terms of getting everything cleaned up and certainly getting everything repaired,” Mr Edwards said in a statement.
“Obviously Hurricane Ida packed a very powerful punch. She came in and did everything that was advertised, unfortunately,” the governor added.
“We have thousands of people out right now with high-water vehicles and boats who are doing search and rescue. We have dozens of helicopters up,” Mr Edwards said, and added that the state “is doing everything we can to get to all the individuals who need help”.
According to the governor, the levee system “performed extremely well, especially the federal levees”.
“But at the end of the day, the storm surge, the rain, the wind all had devastating impacts across southeast Louisiana,” he added.
Meteorologist: ‘This thing is winding down’
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has said that Storm Ida is still classified as a Tropical Storm as it moves into the country, but that it should be off-shore as Thursday moves into Friday.
“This thing is winding down and that’s the good news. It is not winding down when it comes to rainfall. Tropical-like rains where you walk outside and you could be wet in a minute, that is how hard these areas are seeing the rainfall,” Mr Myers said. “We’ve had a couple of tornado warnings earlier today. But the tornado watch has been posted until four and we’re not seeing anything rotating at this hour.”
He added that the storm would move “offshore by Thursday into Friday” and then be “long, long gone”.
“But we’re still going to see areas with four to six inches of rain far from where this made landfall, so we may see some flash flooding,” he said.
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