New Orleans left in blackout as Ida tears through southern states
HURRICANE Ida knocked out power to all of New Orleans and inundated coastal Louisiana communities on a deadly path through the Gulf Coast.
Forecasters warned of damaging winds, heavy rain that could cause flash floods, and life-threatening storm surges as Ida continued its rampage through south-eastern Louisiana yesterday before moving into Mississippi.
It made landfall on the same day 16 years earlier that Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi, and its 150mph (230kph) winds made it the joint fifth-strongest hurricane ever to hit the mainland.
Ida has already been blamed for at least one death in Louisiana. Deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office responded when someone was killed by a falling tree at a home in Prairieville near Baton Rouge.
The power cut in New Orleans, meanwhile, heightened the city’s vulnerability to flooding and left hundreds of thousands of people without air conditioning and refrigeration in sweltering heat.
The 911 system in Orleans Parish also experienced issues early yesterday.
Anyone needing emergency assistance was urged to go to their nearest fire station or approach their nearest officer, the New Orleans Emergency Communications Centre tweeted.
Ida had maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120kph) early yesterday, meaning it was a Category One hurricane more than 12 hours after it made landfall in southern Louisiana. Forecasters said it would rapidly weaken throughout the morning.
The storm was centred 45 miles (70km) south-west of Mccomb, a city in south-western Mississippi, and was moving north.
As Ida made landfall on Sunday, the rising ocean swamped the barrier island of Grand Isle and roofs on buildings around Port Fourchon were blown off.
The hurricane then churned through the southern Louisiana wetlands, putting more than two million people living in and around New Orleans and Baton Rouge under threat.
In Baton Rouge, 27-year-old Robert Owens watched the sky in his neighbourhood light up as transformers blew up all around him.
“Never in my life have I encountered something this major,” he said as giant gusts rattled the windows of his home.
Significant flooding was reported late on Sunday in Laplace, a community adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain, meteorologists in New Orleans said. Many people took to social media, pleading for boat rescues as the water rose.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said rescue crews would not be able to immediately help those stranded while the storm raged.
“Many, many people are going to be tested in ways that we can only imagine today,” he said, adding: “There is always light after darkness, and I can assure you we are going to get through this.”
The entire city of New Orleans was without power late on Sunday, according to city officials.
The city’s power supplier, Entergy, confirmed that the only power in the city was coming from generators.
The supplier’s tweeted message included a screenshot that cited “catastrophic transmission damage” for the power failure.
The city relies on Entergy for back-up power for the pumps that remove storm water from city streets. Rain from Ida is expected to test that pump system.
Overall, more than one million customers in Louisiana were without power, and another 80,000 or so in Mississippi were in the dark, according to Poweroutage.us.
In New Orleans, wind tore at awnings and caused buildings to sway and water to spill out of Lake Pontchartrain.
The Coast Guard office there received more than a dozen reports of breakaway barges. Officials said Ida’s swift intensification to a massive hurricane in just three days left no time to organise a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans’ 390,000 residents.
In Lafitte, about 35 miles south of New Orleans, a loose barge struck a bridge, according to Jefferson Parish officials. And US Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Ricky Boyette said engineers detected a “negative flow” on the Mississippi River as a result of storm surge.
Ida was churning in one of the country’s most important industrial corridors, which is home to a large number of petrochemical sites.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality was in contact with more than 1,500 oil refineries, chemical plants and other sensitive facilities and will respond to any reported pollution leaks or petroleum spills, an agency spokesman said.
Never in my life have I encountered something this major