Power outages persist, nine days later

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.

There were also continuing 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.

State health officials, meanwhile, announced that they are revoking the licenses of seven nursing homes that were evacuated to a warehouse where seven residents died.

A revamped levee system helped protect New Orleans from large-scale flooding and damage, though Ida knocked out power to the entire city.