No quick relief in sight for Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana residents still reeling from flooding and damage caused by Hurricane Ida scrambled Wednesday for food, gas, water and relief from the sweltering heat as thousands of line workers toiled to restore electricity and officials vowed to set up more sites where people could get free meals and cool off.

There was a glimmer of hope when power company Entergy announced its crews had turned power on for parts of eastern New Orleans, but did not specify how many homes and businesses had lights. Still, power and water outages affected hundreds of thousands of people, many of them with no way to get immediate relief.

"I don't have a car. I don't have no choice but to stay," said Charles

Harris, 58, as he looked for a place to eat Tuesday in a New Orleans neighborhood where Ida snapped utility poles and brought down power lines.

Harris had no access to a generator and said the heat was starting to wear him down. New Orleans and the rest of the region were under a heat advisory, with forecasters saying the high temperatures and humidity could make it feel like 106 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday.

New Orleans officials announced seven places around the city where people could get a meal and sit in air conditioning. The city was also using 70 transit buses as cooling sites and was to have drive-thru food, water and ice distribution locations set up on Wednesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.