New Orleans:
The death toll from Hurricane Ida was anticipated to climb “considerably,” Louisiana’s governor warned Monday, as rescuers combed via the “catastrophic” harm wreaked as it tore via the southern United States as a Category 4 stormsoar.
The city of New Orleans was nonetheless with no energy virtually 24 hours soon after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast, precisely 16 years to the day 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 the Today show Monday morning.
One death has been confirmed so far but Edwards stated he anticipated the toll “to go up considerably.”
Images of people today becoming plucked from flooded automobiles and images of destroyed houses surfaced on social media, although the harm in New Orleans itself remained restricted.
Branches, broken glass and other debris littered New Orleans’s downtown, although in the touristy French Quarter, a quantity of trees have been uprooted.
Ida — which was downgraded to a tropical storm early Monday — knocked out energy for all of New Orleans, with more than a million properties across Louisiana with no energy, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.US.
“I was there 16 years ago. The wind seems worse this time but the damage seems less bad,” stated French Quarter resident Dereck Terry, surveying his neighborhood in flip flops and a t-shirt, umbrella in hand.
“I have a broken window. Some tiles from the roof are on the streets and water came inside,” the 53-year-old retired pharmacist added.
According to Edwards the levee technique in the impacted parishes had “really held up very well, otherwise we would be facing much more problems today.”
Electricity provider Entergy reported that it was delivering back-up energy to New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, which operates the pumping stations used to handle flooding.
– ‘Total devastation’ –
In the town of Jean Lafitte, just south of New Orleans, mayor Tim Kerner stated the quickly increasing waters had overtopped the 7.5-foot-higher (2.3-meter) levees.
“Total devastation, catastrophic, our town levees have been overtopped,” Kerner told ABC-affiliate WGNO.
“We have anywhere between 75 to 200 people stranded in Barataria,” soon after a barge took out the swing bridge to the island.
Cynthia Lee Sheng, president of Jefferson Parish covering portion of the Greater New Orleans location, stated people today have been sheltering in their attics.
Several residents of LaPlace, just upstream from New Orleans, posted appeals for aid on social media, saying they have been trapped by increasing flood waters.
“The damage is really catastrophic,” Edwards told Today, adding that Ida had “delivered the surge that was forecasted. The wind that was forecasted and the rain.”
President Joe Biden declared a main disaster for Louisiana and Mississippi, which provides the states access to federal help.
One particular person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office stated.
Edwards reported on Twitter that Louisiana had deployed more than 1,600 personnel to conduct search and rescue across the state.
“We’re going to be responding to this hurricane for quite a while and then we’re going to be recovering from it for many months,” Edwards stated.
US Army Major General Hank Taylor told journalists at Pentagon briefing the military, federal emergency management officials and the National Guard had activated more than 5,200 personnel in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama.
“They bring a variety of assets including high water vehicles, rotary lift and other transportation capability to support recovery efforts,” he stated.
– ‘Way much less debris’ –
Most residents had heeded warnings of catastrophic harm and authorities’ guidelines to flee.
“I stayed for Katrina and from what I’ve seen so far there is way less debris in the streets than after Katrina,” Mike, who has lived in the French Quarter, told AFP Monday, declining to give his last name.
The memory of Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, is nonetheless fresh in the state, exactly where it brought on some 1,800 deaths and billions of dollars in harm.
The National Hurricane Center issued warnings of storm surges and flash floods more than portions of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern Alabama as Ida travels northeast.
As of 1500 GMT Monday, Ida was situated about 65 miles (105 kilometers) southwest of Jackson, Mississippi, packing maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour.
The storm technique will move additional inland and is anticipated to be situated more than western and central Mississippi by Monday afternoon, just before tracking across the United States all the way to the mid-Atlantic via Wednesday, developing the prospective for flash flooding along the way.
Scientists have warned of a rise in cyclone activity as the ocean surface warms due to climate transform, posing an rising threat to the world’s coastal communities.
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