Hurricane Ida Carves Path of Destruction across LA

Tropical Storm Ida pummeled New Orleans and the Louisiana coast overnight with lashing rain and ferocious gusts, leaving much of the region without electricity and bracing for widespread floods.

The storm, wielding some of the most powerful winds ever to hit the state, drove a wall of water inland when it thundered ashore Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane and reversed the course of part of the Mississippi River. All of New Orleans was without power when evening fell on Sunday. As Ida moves north, it’s expected to unleash as much as 2 feet of rain.

U.S. gasoline futures jumped on Monday as the storm disrupted refineries and other oil-processing facilities.

The New Orleans Fire Department said on social media that a grocery store had caught fire. In Kenner, just outside New Orleans, at least a dozen fires were reported, according to the city’s Facebook page.

“We’re in for some historic floods,” said Jim Rouiller, lead meteorologist at the Energy Weather Group. “The rainfall — that is going to be the next story.”

Ida struck New Orleans on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the costliest tropical cyclone in U.S. history that left much of the city in ruins. The levees, pumps and other infrastructure rebuilt after that 2005 storm are being put to their biggest test yet. Louisiana’s hospitals are already overwhelmed with more than 2,600 coronavirus patients.

President Joe Biden approved a federal disaster declaration for Louisiana to assist with recovery. While the storm’s impact wasn’t fully clear early on Monday, and first responders didn’t plan to start answering search and rescue calls until sunrise, signs have already emerged that Ida’s toll has been dire. The storm was responsible for at least one death, as the Louisiana health department said a man in Ascension Parish was killed when a tree fell on his home.

More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and about 100,000 in Mississippi were without power, according to Poweroutage.us. The utility serving New Orleans, Entergy Corp., said some could be in the dark for weeks. The company’s transmission system suffered “catastrophic damage,” it said in a statement.

Ida drove so much water off the Gulf of Mexico that the Mississippi River flowed backward. In downtown New Orleans, the river has already risen by 7 feet in the last 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service.

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