Misery deepens in Ida’s aftermath
No power, no water: La. residents suffer in sweltering heat
NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of thousands of Louisianans sweltered in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida on Tuesday with no electricity, no tap water, precious little gasoline and no clear idea of when things might improve.
Long lines that wrapped around the block formed at the few gas stations that had fuel and generator power to pump it. People cleared rotting food out of refrigerators. Neighbors shared generators and borrowed buckets of swimming pool water to bathe or to flush toilets.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us and no one is under the illusion that this is going to be a short process,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said as the cleanup and rebuilding began across the soggy region in the summer heat.
New Orleans officials announced seven places around the city people could get a meal and sit in air conditioning. The city was also using 70 transit buses as cooling sites and will have drive-thru food, water and ice distribution locations set up Wednesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.
She said residents would see progress, but also acknowledged frustration in the days ahead.
“We know it’s hot. We know we do not have any power and that continues to be a priority,” she said.
Edwards said that state
officials likewise were working to set up places to distribute food, water and ice. The governor’s office also said discussions were underway about establishing cooling stations and places where people on oxygen could plug in their machines, but it had no details on when those might be up and running.
More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power when Ida slammed the electric grid Sunday with its 150 mph winds, toppling a major transmission tower and knocking out thousands of miles of lines and hundreds
of substations.
An estimated 25,000-plus utility workers labored to restore electricity, but officials said it could take weeks.
With water treatment plants overwhelmed by floodwaters or crippled by power outages, some places are also facing shortages of drinking water. About 441,000 people in 17 parishes had no water, and an additional 319,000 were under boil-water advisories, federal officials said.
The number of deaths climbed to at least four in Louisiana and Mississippi, including two people killed Monday night when seven vehicles plunged
into a 20-foot-deep hole near Lucedale, Mississippi, where a highway had collapsed after torrential rains.
In Slidell, crews searched for a 71-year-old man who was attacked by an alligator that tore off his arm as he walked through Ida’s floodwaters. His wife pulled him to the steps of the home and paddled away to get help, but when she returned, he was gone, authorities said.
Wildlife officials warned of bears, snakes, alligators and feral hogs looking for food in the storm’s aftermath.
Edwards traveled with FEMA Administrator
Deanne Criswell to see the damage. She said FEMA teams would go house to house in hard-hit neighborhoods to register people for aid, particularly in areas with widespread cellphone outages.
In New Orleans, drivers lined up for roughly a quarter-mile, waiting to get into a Costco that was one of the few spots in the city with gasoline.
Renell Debose spent a week suffering in the Superdome after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,800 people and left the city nearly uninhabitable.
“I love my city. I’m built for this. But I can’t make it without any air conditioning,” she said.
Shelly Huff, who like Debose was waiting for gas at Costco, said: “It’s been rough. Not having power is probably the worst thing. But I have great neighbors, one who evacuated left us a generator. We’ve been sharing food and supplies, so it hasn’t been too bad.”
In hard-hit Houma, 60 miles southwest of New Orleans, the reality of life without air conditioning, refrigeration or other more basic needs began to sink in.
“Our desperate need right now is tarps, gasoline for generators, food, water,” pastor Chad Ducote said.
Adding to the misery was the steamy weather. A heat advisory was issued for New Orleans and the rest of the region, with forecasters saying the combination of high temperatures and humidity could make it feel like 106 degrees Wednesday.
Also stuck in New Orleans were tourists who didn’t get out before the storm. The airport canceled all incoming and outgoing commercial flights for a third day.
Cynthia Andrews couldn’t go back to her New Orleans home if she wanted to. She was in a wheelchair, tethered by a power cord to the generator system running the elevators and hallway lights at the Le Meridien hotel.
When the power went out Sunday, the machine that helps Andrews breathe after a lung collapse in 2018 stopped working. The hotel let her stay in the lobby, giving her a cot after she spent nearly a whole night in her wheelchair.
“It was so scary, but as long as this thing keeps running, I’ll be OK,” she said.