US Gulf coast braces as level 4 hurricane Ida looms

OWNERS were boarding up their shops and evacuations were underway on August 28 as Hurricane Ida was on a path to hit New Orleans 16 years to the day the southern US city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

A handful of people were still on New Orleans streets, but many businesses had closed up ahead of what the National Weather Service (NWS) called an “an extremely dangerous major hurricane”.

“Everybody is scared because it’s the anniversary of Katrina and people didn’t take it seriously at the time,” said Austin Suriano, who was helping board up the windows of his father’s watch repair shop.

August 29, when Ida was due to make landfall, marks 16 years since Katrina, the devastating hurricane that flooded 80 per cent of New Orleans, left 1,800 people dead and caused billions of dollars in damage.

President Joe Biden warned on August 28 that “Ida is turning into a very, very dangerous storm” as it built to a Category 2 hurricane, packing 160km/h per hour sustained winds and heavy rain.

Earlier in the day, people evacuating from New Orleans and other cities clogged roads heading north as officials warned locals to leave immediately or hunker down to ride out the storm.

All August 29 flights were cancelled at New Orleans airport.

Tropical storm-force winds were expected to hit the area late on August 28, while Ida was forecast to slam into the coast as a powerful Category Four hurricane – with winds up to 225km/h – in the afternoon or evening of August 29.

Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards said Ida would be one of the most powerful storms to hit the state since the 1850s.

In New Orleans, mayor LaToya Cantrell warned residents to take Ida with utmost seriousness. “Time is not on our side,” she told a briefing. “It’s rapidly growing, it’s intensifying.”

Southern Louisiana was bracing for massive damage and flooding as the fast-intensifying storm roared northward after pummelling western Cuba.

“Extended power loss is almost certain,” New Orleans homeland security director Collin Arnold told reporters on August 28.

Biden said hundreds of emergency personnel had been sent to the region, along with food, water and electric generators.

Shelters were being prepared around the region, but Louisiana has been one of the hardest-hit states by the Covid-19 pandemic, and Biden urged anyone heading to a shelter to wear a mask and take precautions.

The NWS is forecasting a “life-threatening storm surge” – as high as 3.4m near New Orleans and 4.6m around the mouth of the Mississippi River – when the hurricane makes landfall.

It warned of “catastrophic wind damage” and said Ida could spawn tornadoes.

Category Four is the secondhighest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, with a minimum wind strength of 209km/h.

Louisiana has declared a state of emergency, approved by Biden, in preparation for the storm, to expedite federal storm assistance to the southern state.

The hurricane made landfall late on August 27 in western Cuba as a Category 1 storm, packing winds near 130km/h but causing mostly minor damage.

Governor Edwards told a briefing that since Katrina swamped New Orleans in 2005, there has been huge investment in an extensive storm protection system of levees, gates and pumps.

Meantime, a Category One hurricane named Nora made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast, according to the National Hurricane Warning Centre (CNAH).

Nora’s centre “remains near the coast of Mexico after making landfall in the northwest Jalisco” province, CNAH said.

Scientists have warned of a rise in cyclone activity as the ocean surface warms due to climate change, posing an increasing threat to the world’s coastal communities.