Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 hazardous storm, arrived Sunday off the coast of Louisiana, in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico, on the 16th anniversary of the devastation brought to the city by Hurricane Katrina.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ida reached the shoreline bringing winds of up to 240 miles per hour.
President Joe Biden today visited the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He said the federal government is preparing for the worst and that it will probably take weeks for some areas to get their electricity back after the hurricane.
President Biden called on the people to be extremely careful.
” I want to emphasize again, this is going to be a devastating and (very) devastating hurricane, a life-threatening storm. So please, all of you in Mississippi and Louisiana … and God knows, maybe even further east, take precautions… Take it seriously, really very seriously, “said President Biden from FEMA headquarters.
Hurricane warnings were issued for Intracoastal City, Louisiana, at the mouth of the Pearl River, as well as Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and the metropolitan city of New Orleans.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina reached the Louisiana coast as a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina caused 1,800 casualties, shattered the protective embankment, and brought devastating flooding to New Orleans. The city’s federal embankment system has improved since then.
Ahead of Ida’s arrival, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards warned those on its trajectory to prepare for shelter, rather than try to evacuate.
“If you are on the #Ida hurricane trajectory, your only job now is to stay safe where you are. Find the safest place in your home, get through the storm there and stay there until the storm is gone,” he wrote on Twitter. .
Governor Edwards declared a state of emergency and said 5,000 National Guard forces are on standby along the coast for search-and-rescue efforts. Moreover, 10,000 power line workers are on standby to respond to outages as soon as the storm passes.
“She is going to crash into us directly,” Bebe McElroy told the Associated Press news agency as she prepared to leave her home in the Louisiana coastal village of Cocodrie. “I just walk around praying, saying, ‘Dear God, just take care of us.'”
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered people living outside the city’s defense system to evacuate.
“The projected trajectory indicates it is heading for New Orleans. Not good,” said Jim Kossin, a scientist at The Climate Service, a private consulting firm.
From southeastern Louisiana to Mississippi and Alabama, total rainfall can range from 20 to 40 centimeters, with more than 50 centimeters possible in some areas, the government weather service said. Heavy rains and storms can cause widespread flooding in the area.
In Alabama, Governor Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency for the coastal and western areas of the state.
Hospitals in areas north of the Gulf of Mexico are now facing natural disasters as they struggle with an increase in patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, due to the highly contagious delta variant.
“COVID certainly makes this storm more complicated,” Mike Hulefeld, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Ochsner Health Hospital, told the Associated Press news agency.
Since the onset of the pandemic, Louisiana has had 679,796 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12,359 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Center. According to the center for vaccine statistics, only 41.01% of the nearly 4.7 million inhabitants of this state are vaccinated.
“Again we find ourselves facing a natural disaster amid the pandemic,” Jennifer Avegno, chief health officer for New Orleans, told the Associated Press news agency.
Ida arrived on the ground in Cuba on Friday and by Saturday cleaning had begun. Trees fell and buildings were damaged, but no deaths were reported.
* Some information about this article was taken from The Associated Press .
