Sunday, August 29, 2021

'Catastrophic damage' reported as Hurricane Ida slams Louisiana

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a man riding a wave on a surfboard in the water© Provided by NBC News

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday in southeast Louisiana as a Category 4 storm and federal authorities reported "catastrophic" damage in parts of the area. By early Sunday evening, Ida had weakened to a Category 3 storm, with sustained winds of 125 mph, but authorities said it would remain a hurricane late into the night and that it would still be a tropical storm as it tracks inland well into Monday afternoon.

Ida made landfall over Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at about 11:55 a.m. CT as the storm moved into the mouth of the Mississippi River, the National Hurricane Center said.

The latest on Hurricane Ida:

  • Hurricane Ida made landfall along the Gulf Coast — near Port Fourchon, Louisiana — on Sunday, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
  • Ida is a Category 3 storm with top sustained winds of 125 mph. The National Hurricane Center reported "catastrophic damage" and warned of "extremely life-threatening" storm surges.
  • All flights were canceled at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, and over 670,000 homes and businesses were without power in Louisiana. President Joe Biden has deployed emergency response resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the area.
  • Find more up-to-the-minute updates at our live blog.

Warnings at landfall

The hurricane center said Air Force Reserve aircraft and radar data showed that "Ida's maximum sustained winds at landfall were estimated to be 150 mph." Rainfall projections topped 2 feet in some parts of southern Louisiana.

"This is going to be devastating — a devastating, a life-threatening storm," President Joe Biden told reporters after he was briefed by officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "So please, all you folks in Mississippi and in Louisiana ... take precautions, listen, take it seriously."

Biden said he signed emergency declarations so Mississippi and Louisiana can use the "full resources and support of the federal government."

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told residents who didn't evacuate to keep loose mattresses within reach — in case powerful gusts ripped off home's roofs.

"Because of the possibility that severe winds will damage your home, it is a good idea to have a mattress nearby that you can use to put over yourself and other family members to protect yourself from any falling debris," he said.

Despite the dire warnings, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell told people who opted against evacuating not to panic.

"Be calm in the midst of this storm. You can be calm," Cantrell said during a briefing Sunday just as Ida was making landfall.

"You have everything that you need. We will get through this together," she said. "Be prepared. Stay where you are."

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Collin Arnold, director of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, warned residents that emergency services wouldn't be able to reach them until Monday.

"You need to stay inside until tomorrow. We'll look at this during the first light of day," Arnold said. "There's nobody coming right now. You need to stay inside."

At landfall, the storm's winds were just short of 157 mph, the level considered a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, which rates storms from 1 to 5 based on maximum sustained wind speed.

Only four storms have made landfall in the continental U.S. as Category 5 hurricanes in the last century: the Labor Day Hurricane in 1935, Camille in 1969, Andrew in 1992 and Michael in 2018.

'Extremely life-threatening'

"Everybody in the path of Ida should be prepared for very heavy rainfall, very strong winds, life-threatening storm surge along with the coast and isolated tornadoes as well," National Weather Service meteorologist Jennifer McNatt told NBC News on Sunday.

The storm is expected to move "well inland" over parts of Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday; rapid weakening is expected once it hits land, but rainfall up to 6 inches was forecast as far north as the Upper Ohio Valley into Tuesday and Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The hurricane center said inundation by "extremely life-threatening" storm surge was expected imminently from Burns Point, Louisiana, to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It said "catastrophic wind damage" is likely as Ida moves onshore along the southeast coast of Louisiana over the next few hours.

The hurricane center said the region also might get tornadoes Sunday into Monday from southeast Louisiana all the way to the western Florida Panhandle.

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With all Sunday flights canceled in New Orleans, tens of people thousands fled by car, clogging highways.

McNatt said drivers should watch out for flash floods.

"There's a lot of people that drive into flooded roads, and it causes them to be swept off the roads," she said.

In preparation of Hurricane Ida, a worker attaches protective plywood to windows and doors of a business in the French Quarter in New Orleans on Aug. 28, 2021. (Eric Gay / AP)© Eric Gay In preparation of Hurricane Ida, a worker attaches protective plywood to windows and doors of a business in the French Quarter in New Orleans on Aug. 28, 2021. (Eric Gay / AP)

Edwards said 600 people and teams from 15 states were standing by to conduct search-and-rescue operations. The government has told people who don't evacuate to be prepared to ride it out on their own for 72 hours without help.

"We're as ready as we can be," Edwards told CNN. "It's going to be a very, very challenging storm."

Tammy Williams of Baton Rouge was filling her car with gas Saturday to prepare. She told NBC News' Sam Brock that she was most concerned about power outages and flooding. She planned to hunker down and ride out the storm.

"We see hurricanes all the time coming through here, and by the time they get here they've dissipated," she said. "So you kind of get into a bad habit of saying, 'Oh, well, it's fine.' So to know that this could be a Category 4 is a little bit scary. It happened at the last minute, so my family, my pets, everybody is here. And where are we going to go? Hotel rooms are full, houses are full.

"So we're just going to stay and pray and hope it works out and we don't have a repeat of 2016,' she said, referring to the floods that year.

The 16th anniversary of Katrina

As New Orleans marks the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, those who remain are bracing for the worst.

Cantrell, the mayor, said Saturday that the hurricane had developed "more rapidly than anyone has prepared for, and there are no indications at all that it will weaken."

She said it was too late for the city to order a mandatory evacuation and called for residents to evacuate voluntarily or shelter in place and "hunker down."

City officials said Sunday that they are confident their levee systems will withstand the storm.

"We're very confident in a way that we have never, as a community, been before. It's a different time. It's a different place," said Ramsey Green, New Orleans' deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure.

"And we've had 16 years to really protect our city from what occurred tragically on this date 16 years ago."

Green noted that officials were concerned about rainfall cells' hitting above the city within the levee system and inundating the area with high levels of rain. In that case, the area "would see flooding in low-lying areas."

"Please wait for this water to be pumped out of our city," Green said.

Early Sunday evening, authorities in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, urged residents near White Ditch, a canal east of Stella, to "SEEK HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY!!!!" on Facebook, saying the sheriff's office had received reports that water had overtopped the levee.

"EVACUATE," the parish government said. No other details were immediately available.

Covid-19 concerns

Cynthia Cashman, 68, who lives in the Riverbend section of New Orleans, was hunkering down in her second-floor apartment with her roommate and her 89-year-old mother. They decided to stay because of Covid-19 fears. Her mother was particularly fearful of catching Covid-19 if they fled to a state like Texas.

"She didn't want to evacuate," Cashman said. "We'd have to go to grocery stores and go out, and there's no mask mandates. I mean, it would be really unsafe. We're all vaccinated, but still."

Hospitals in New Orleans are in a "severe outbreak," with a seven-day average of 220 new infections, according to the city's Covid-19 dashboard, which was last updated Saturday.

Across Louisiana, more than 3,400 new cases had been confirmed as of Friday, according to data published by the state Health Department. At least 2,684 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 in the state.

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