Hurricane Ida power outages, misery persist 9 days later
NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Louisiana, most of them outside New Orleans, still didn’t have power Tuesday and more than half of the gas stations in two major cities were without fuel nine days after Hurricane Ida slammed into the state, splintering homes and toppling electric lines.
There were also persistent signs of recovery, however, as the total number of people without electricity has fallen from more than a million at its peak, while hundreds of thousands of people have had their water restored. AT&T, which suffered widespread cellphone outages after the storm, reported that its wireless network now is operating normally in Louisiana.
As residents struggled to recover, state organizations, church groups and volunteers labored for a ninth day to hand out food, water and other necessary supplies to those left without resources when their homes were destroyed or left uninhabitable.
The disparity in power restoration between New Orleans, where nearly ¾ of the city had electricity again, and other communities where almost all residents were still in the dark prompted frustration and finger-pointing.
State Rep. Tanner Magee, the House’s second-ranking Republican who lives in the devastated city of Houma in Terrebonne Parish, said he’s convinced his region is being shortchanged in favor of New Orleans.
“It’s very infuriating to me,” Magee said.
Though water was running again in his area, most hospitals in the region remained shuttered and the parish was in desperate need of temporary shelter for first responders and others vital to the rebuilding effort, he said.
Warner Thomas, president and CEO of the state’s largest hospital system —
Ochsner Health — warned that it would be “some time” before hospitals in Terrebonne and Lafourche parish fully reopen. Emergency rooms at the two hospitals, however, were open.
Carnival Cruise Line announced Tuesday that it will keep one of its ships, Carnival Glory, docked in New Orleans through Sept. 18 to serve as housing for first responders.
Kim Bass said the Louisiana heat was the hardest thing to cope with without power at her home in St. John the Baptist Parish. She said she and her husband were using a generator to keep food refrigerated but had no air conditioning. Water service was intermittent.
“So you may have water one minute, then you may not have water for the next two days,” she said.
Fuel shortages also persisted across hard-hit areas of the state. More than 50% of gas stations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge remained without gasoline Tuesday morning, according to Gasbuddy.com.