Hurricane Ida inflicts ‘catastrophic’ destruction on Louisiana
- Parts of New Orleans facing weeks without power
- Hurricane blew ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina
Rescuers combed through the “catastrophic” damage Hurricane Ida did to Louisiana, a day after the fierce storm killed at least two people, stranded others in rising floodwaters and sheared the roofs off homes.
The city of New Orleans was still mostly without power over 24 hours after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm, exactly 16 years to the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall, wreaking deadly havoc.
“The biggest concern is we’re still doing search and rescue and we have individuals all across southeast Louisiana … who are in a bad place,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told NBC’s Today.
Two deaths have been confirmed as crews began fanning out in boats and off-road vehicles to search communities cut off by the hurricane.
Images of people being plucked from flooded cars and pictures of destroyed homes surfaced on social media, while the damage in New Orleans itself remained limited.
Ida – which was downgraded to a tropical depression on Monday – knocked out power for all of New Orleans, with more than a million properties across Louisiana without power, according to outage tracker PowerOutage. US.