The powerful Category 4 hurricane Ida, with winds of up to 240 km / h, made landfall in Louisiana this Sunday shortly after noon local time (17:00 GMT), exactly 16 years after Katrina devastated this southern region of the United States. United States.
“Find the safest home environment and stay here until the storm is over,” tweeted state Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Heavy rains and winds have been felt since morning on the deserted streets of New Orleans, in a city full of walled windows and houses surrounded by sandbags awaiting this hurricane that has been categorized as “extremely dangerous.” .
The governor said Anada – which added strength as it approached the mainland through the warm Gulf waters – would be one of the biggest storms to hit Louisiana since the 1850s.
By noon Sunday, some areas of the town of Grand Isle, on a barrier island south of New Orleans, were already beginning to flood due to rising water levels, CNN reported.
Amid urgent warnings of possible catastrophic damage, most residents followed the authorities ’recommendations to leave the area. And a record number of people saturated New Orleans exit roads in the days leading up to the arrival of Ida.
The hurricane was already making its effects felt inland, with more than 120,000 customers running out of electricity at noon on Sunday, according to the poweroutage.us site. And sea level was already more than a meter and a half above its usual level in several places, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
In a neighborhood in eastern New Orleans, in the early hours of Sunday some residents made last-minute adjustments to prepare.
“I’m not sure I’m ready,” said Charles Fields, who at the time was still bringing his garden furniture home, “but we’ll have to face it.”
– “Important test” –
Governor Edwards warned Sunday that Ida will be “an important test” for the state’s flood prevention system.
And he explained to CNN that it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of residents evacuated.
The storm “brings several challenging difficulties for us, with hospitals so full of covid patients,” he also said.
The southern state, with a low vaccination rate, has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. With 2,700 on Saturday, hospitalizations are close to the highest levels of the pandemic.
This Sunday also marks the sixteenth anniversary of Katrina, the devastating hurricane that flooded 80% of New Orleans, leaving 1,800 dead and billions of dollars in damage.
“It’s very painful to think of another powerful storm with Hurricane Ida hitting land on this anniversary,” Edwards had previously said.
Rainfall of 25 to 46 cm is expected in southern Louisiana through Monday, and even a little more in some areas.
– Outbound and delta –
The White House said Sunday that federal agencies have deployed more than 2,000 emergency workers in the region – including 13 urban search and rescue teams alongside food and water supplies as well as power generators.
Local authorities, the Red Cross and other organizations have prepared dozens of shelters for at least 16,000 people, the White House added.
Plans to deal with the hurricane and to activate the shelters have been complicated by covid-19.
President Joe Biden, who declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, on Saturday urged anyone in shelters to wear masks and keep a safe distance.
– More hurricanes –
Iada had previously made landfall Friday night in western Cuba with Category 1, leaving some property damage and power outages, according to the Granma newspaper.
In parallel, Hurricane Nora was on Sunday morning “very close” to the Mexican coast of the Pacific, after hitting Saturday night in the state of Jalisco, where it left material damage.
Nora, a Category 1 on a scale of 5, causes “heavy rains and flooding,” the NHC said in its latest report.
The Jalisco government reported this Sunday that “support work for coastal municipalities has intensified.”
The meteor will continue to move “very close and roughly parallel to the coast of Mexico,” the NHC added, not ruling out turning right “inland and dissipating the next day or so.”
Last weekend another hurricane, Grace, hit Mexican Veracruz (east) as category 3 and killed at least 11 people in that state and its neighbor, Puebla (center).
Scientists have warned of an increase in the number of strong cyclones as the ocean’s surface warms due to climate change, posing a growing threat to the world’s coastal communities. .