Ida downs New Orleans power on deadly path through Louisiana
Hurricane Ida knocked out power to all of New Orleans and inundated coastal Louisiana communities on a deadly path through the Gulf Coast that was still unfolding and promised more destruction.
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Forecasters warned of damaging winds, heavy rainfall that could cause flash floods and life-threatening storm surge as Ida continued its rampage on Aug. 30 through southeastern Louisiana and then moved into Mississippi. It made landfall on the same day 16 years earlier that Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi, and its 150-mph (230 kph) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland.
Ida was already blamed for at least one death in Louisiana. Deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office responded to a report of someone injured by a fallen tree at a home in Prairieville outside Baton Rouge and confirmed the death, the office said on Aug. 29 on Facebook. The victim was not identified.
The power outage in New Orleans, meanwhile, heightened the city's vulnerability to flooding and left hundreds of thousands of people without air conditioning and refrigeration in sweltering summer heat.
Ida had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) early on Aug. 30, meaning it was a Category 1 hurricane more than 12 hours after it made landfall in southern Louisiana. Forecasters said it would rapidly weaken throughout the morning.
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The storm was centered 45 miles (70 kilometers) south-southwest of McComb, a city in southwestern Mississippi. It was moving north at 9 mph (15 kph).
As Ida made landfall on Aug. 29, the rising ocean swamped the barrier island of Grand Isle and roofs on buildings around Port Fourchon blew off. The hurricane then churned through the far southern...
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