Visitors strikes bumper to bumper alongside I-10 West as residents evacuate in direction of Texas earlier than the arrival of Hurricane Ida in Vinton, Louisiana.
Adrees Latif | REUTERS
Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday as a Class four storm with winds of 150 miles per hour, one of many strongest storms to hit the area since Hurricane Katrina, the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated.
The Nationwide Hurricane Middle warned on Sunday at 11 a.m. ET that life-threatening storm surge of 9 toes or extra is predicted from Burns Level, Louisiana, to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and will probably topple native levees.
Hurricane-force winds began to achieve the coast of southeastern Louisiana on Sunday morning earlier than the storm made landfall close to Port Fourchon, Louisiana.
Within the final hour, sustained winds of 43 miles per hour and a gust to 67 miles per hour had been reported at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. Ida was about 15 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and roughly 45 miles southeast of Houma, Louisiana, the Hurricane Middle stated.
Ida made landfall on the anniversary of Katrina, the damaging Class three storm that devastated Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years in the past, killing greater than 1,800 folks and inflicting $125 billion in harm.
The power and path of Ida might be a big check of New Orleans’ post-Katrina flood defenses, together with levees, flood partitions and gates that had been constructed to offer storm safety. Katrina had brought about levee breaches and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans.
Ida has additionally triggered considerations concerning the metropolis’s hospitals, that are already overwhelmed with Covid-19 sufferers and have little room for evacuated sufferers. Shelters in Louisiana will run at diminished capacities due the pandemic, although state officers are working to safe lodge rooms for evacuees.
Ida intensified so shortly that officers did not have time to order necessary evacuations. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered a compulsory evacuation for a small space of town outdoors the levee system, however stated there wasn’t time to subject one for the entire metropolis.
All Sunday flights had been additionally canceled as a result of approaching storm, the New Orleans Airport stated Saturday.
President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and Mississippi, a transfer that authorizes the Division of Homeland Safety and Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) to coordinate all catastrophe reduction efforts.
“The storm is a life-threatening storm,” the president stated throughout a briefing on the FEMA headquarters on Sunday. “Its devastation is prone to be immense. Everybody ought to hearken to the directions from native and state officers.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Saturday stated the storm might be one of many strongest to hit the state since no less than the 1850s.
A resident takes house sandbags from a metropolis run sandbag distribution location on the Dryades YMCA alongside Oretha Fort Haley Blvd., Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, in New Orleans, as residents put together for Hurricane Ida.
Max Becherer | The Instances-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate by way of AP
Forecasters with the Nationwide Climate Service “are extraordinarily assured within the present monitor and the depth as forecasted for Hurricane Ida, and you do not actually hear them talking fairly often about that degree of confidence,” Edwards stated throughout a day press briefing.
Damaging winds will unfold into southwestern Mississippi on Sunday night time and early Monday, doubtless inflicting widespread tree harm and energy outages, and heavy rainfall and is predicted throughout the central Gulf Coast, the Hurricane Middle stated.
Because the storm strikes inland, vital flooding is forecast throughout parts of the Decrease Mississippi, Tennessee Valley, Higher Ohio Valley, Central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic by Wednesday, in line with the Hurricane Middle.
Ida is the primary main storm to hit the Gulf Coast in the course of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. The Atlantic hurricane season of 2020 was essentially the most lively on report, with 30 named storms, 13 of which had been hurricanes.
Scientists warn of more and more harmful hurricane seasons as local weather change fuels extra frequent and catastrophic storms. NOAA expects the 2021 season to see between 15 and 21 named storms, together with seven to 10 hurricanes.
This story is growing. Please verify again for updates.
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