Ida downs New Orleans power on deadly path through Louisiana
A news crew reports on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain ahead of approaching Hurricane Ida in New Orleans, Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)[AP]
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Ida has been downgraded to a tropical storm Monday morning. As a hurricane, the system knocked out power to all of New Orleans and inundated coastal Louisiana communities on a deadly path through the Gulf Coast.
Forecasters said Ida would bring damaging winds, heavy rainfall that could cause flash floods and life-threatening storm surge. It made landfall on the same day 16 years earlier that Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi.
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.