Hurricane Ida wreaks havoc in Louisiana, leaving more than 500,000 without power
By Amir Vera and Jay Croft, CNN
(CNN) -- Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, early Sunday afternoon as an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
Ida, striking on the 16th anniversary of the historically devastating Hurricane Katrina, tied as the state's most powerful storm ever with Laura from last year and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday Hurricane Ida is one of the strongest storms to make landfall in Louisiana in modern times, as it rapidly intensified at an unprecedented rate, right up until the 1 p.m. landfall.
Edwards urged residents to remain indoors and to be patient, as the state does not know how soon first responders would be able to respond to calls for assistance.
"Once the storm has passed, you need to be prepared to shelter in place for the first 72 hours," Edwards said. "We have every possible resource ready to go, to help you. We'll get there sooner than 72 hours if at all possible, in order to rescue people across the state of Louisiana."
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Edwards also told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that his state "is as ready as we can be," but he expects Ida to be "a very serious test of our levy systems, especially in our coastal Louisiana." He later said the state doesn't anticipate any overtopping of the Mississippi River levees, or overtopping of the levees in the hurricane risk reduction system around the Greater New Orleans area.
Live updates: Hurricane Ida heads toward the Gulf Coast
The state invested significantly in shoring up the levy system after the catastrophic failure after Katrina. Edwards said Ida "will be the most severe test," but he expects the levees to hold. "The next 24, 36 hours are just going to be very, very critical for us here in Louisiana."
Despite the preparation, Hurricane Ida is causing a levee to overtop on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish between the parish line and White Ditch, according to the New Orleans National Weather Service office.
The Louisiana National Guard has been activated, with more than 4,900 guardsmen staged across 14 parishes. They have 195 high water vehicles, 73 boats and 34 helicopters ready to support and assist residents, the governor said.
Ida became a Category 4 storm early Sunday morning, rapidly intensifying to sustained winds of 150 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The center of storm is passing east, about 5 miles, from Houma, Louisiana, at 6 p.m. ET (5 p.m. CDT).
The storm's maximum sustained winds are down to 130 mph, according to the 5 p.m. ET NHC update. It's located 40 miles southwest of New Orleans, moving northwest at 10 mph.
By Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Ida had left more than 500,000 customers without power in Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us. And Energy Louisiana said some of its customers could be without power for weeks.
Ida also caused more than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production to shut down, regulators said Sunday, indicating the hurricane is having a significant impact on energy supply.
"Everyone should listen to the instructions from local and state officials just how dangerous this is, and take it seriously. It's not just the coast, it's not just New Orleans, it's north as well," President Joe Biden said Sunday at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, DC.
Biden said he already signed an emergency declaration for both Louisiana and Mississippi.
'This is a buzz saw we have coming'
Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told CNN by phone Sunday he believes there were "probably several dozen" people who didn't leave south Plaquemines Parish for Hurricane Ida and intended to ride out the storm.
Nungesser said he was convincing people to leave as late as 11 p.m. Saturday, but those who have stayed behind should be prepared.
"I was telling people if you're going to stay, put an ax in your attic" because there may not be a chance to look for one once the water begins to rise, Nungesser said. "If it comes up and you're trapped in an attic, you've got to cut your way out to get on the roof."
Ronald Dufrene, a commercial shrimper, planned to stay on his 100-foot shrimp boat in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, with his wife. He said he's stayed on his boat for every storm for the last 42 years.
"I rode out three of them last year. Don't get me wrong. This is a buzz saw we have coming," he said. "Mother Nature's a beast.
"I feel it's the safest place for me and my family is on that boat. You get on the highway and you drive 10 to 15 hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic. ... I've got enough food and water for months."
Joshua Legg, another hurricane veteran, stayed on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to ride out Ida. He posted video on Facebook.
"We're losing roofs right now," Legg told CNN.
Legg said his home is safe and he is in a Category 5-rated structure. He said he was a police officer for 15 years and still works with search and rescue efforts to help his community.
Sharlette Landry evacuated Grand Isle, Louisiana, and watched her security camera feeds, which showed water quickly rising before her home lost power Sunday.
"I did prepare, but you can never be prepared for this magnitude of a storm," Landry, who posted a video on Facebook, told CNN. "I was very surprised at how fast it rose. I've never seen it that high and I'm sure it's higher now at my place."
Arlene Mire of Port Vincent, Louisiana, planned to stay home initially. But she knows exactly how high the water must get to breach her home: 11 feet, 3 inches.
"My house has drowned before," she said. "We'll lock it up and boogie. We won't stay in the house when the water comes."
A tornado watch is in effect until 8 p.m. ET for parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Quick-moving, brief tornadoes will be possible throughout Sunday.
There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge Sunday in areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) indicated Sunday that the flow of the Mississippi River in New Orleans partially reversed its flow due to the strong storm surge and winds from Hurricane Ida pushing up the river. This is something the USGS says is "extremely uncommon."
"I remember, off hand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon," Scott Perrien, a supervising hydrologist with the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told CNN.
Perrien noted that the river level rose about 7 feet due to the storm surge pushing up the river at the USGS gauge, located in Belle Chasse, about 20 miles south of New Orleans in southeastern Louisiana.
"The river is feeling the effects of the storm over a large area, all the way up to Baton Rouge. The river has risen 1.5 feet in the past 12 hours as the surge pushes up the river, and the water level will likely rise more in the coming hours here in Baton Rouge," Perrien told CNN.
The Mississippi River is now back flowing in the normal direction, though, according to CNN meteorologist Gene Norman.
'We'll be in a much better place' than 16 years ago
Hurricane Ida is the fourth hurricane to slam Louisiana since last August and the state's third major hurricane landfall in that time span.
The hurricane's landfall comes on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana in 2005 as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph sustained winds. Storm surge with Katrina measured up to 24-28 feet, according to the NHC.
The water topped levees and flood walls, and more than 80% of New Orleans flooded. More than 1,500 people in Louisiana died.
Katrina brought storm surge of 15 to 19 feet in eastern New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, and Plaquemines Parish, while the surge was 10 to 14 feet in western New Orleans along the southern shores of Lake Pontchartrain, according to the NHC.
By comparison, Hurricane Ida is forecast to bring a lower storm surge of 12-16 feet to some areas of southeast Louisiana, the NHC says. And near New Orleans it's expected to be even lower: 8-12 feet outside New Orleans and 5-8 feet along Lake Pontchartrain.
That's because the wind field was larger for Katrina: 90 miles from center at landfall, compared to 50 miles for Ida.
Since Katrina, the levee and water control systems in New Orleans were improved: Pumps were upgraded with backup generators and gates were added at key canals to help block water from entering the city during storm surge.
"This is a different city than it was August 28th 2005, in terms of infrastructure and safety," Ramsey Green, New Orleans deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, told reporters Saturday at a news conference ahead of Hurricane Ida's landfall.
Green called the city's levee system "an unprecedentedly powerful protection for the city," which has three lines of defense: the coast, the wetlands and the levee system.
"From that perspective, we need to be comfortable and we need to know that we'll be in a much better place than we were 16 years ago," Green said. "That said, if we have 10 to 20 inches of rain over an abbreviated period of time, we will see flooding. We don't know at this moment -- we see 15 to 20 inches over 48 hours or less, and we can handle it, depending on the event."
Relief already headed to Louisiana
Massachusetts Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team has been activated and will send an 80-member team to the Louisiana area to assist the residents affected by Hurricane Ida, according to a tweet from the task force Sunday afternoon.
In New Orleans, Chef Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen organization set up three kitchens with enough food to serve over 100,000 meals, he said on Twitter Sunday afternoon. The chef left Haiti on Saturday to assemble a team ahead of the storm.
Andres and his team are sheltering in place until the storm passes, and he's encouraged by the pre-positioning he's seen from both the federal government and non-governmental organizations since he arrived in New Orleans on Saturday night.
Once it is safe enough to do so, Andres said, his staff will be operational and that the kitchens are stocked.
Officials throughout the state have implored people to evacuate, with some issuing mandatory orders to do so.
The NWS warned of "structural damage to buildings, with many washing away" as well as winds that could bring "widespread power and communication outages."
New Orleans Emergency Management Services announced on Twitter Sunday it has suspended all operations as Hurricane Ida makes landfall.
"NOEMS operations have been suspended due to dangerous winds," the department said in a tweet Sunday.
NOEMS said operations will resume once conditions are safe for first-responders.
Airlines canceled all flights arriving to and leaving from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Sunday, the airport said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tweeted, "Stunning video taken from inside the eye of #Ida this morning by the NESDIS Ocean Winds Research team during a flight on the @NOAA_HurrHunter P3 aircraft @NOAASatellites."
Tulane University in New Orleans is closed Sunday and Monday, less than a week after students returned to campus.
In Mississippi, at least 15 school districts and universities will be closed Monday, with the majority of schools announcing plans to resume classes on Tuesday, pending the weather forecast.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Friday evening that the National Weather Service and Edwards had indicated there was no time to implement contraflow traffic, meaning New Orleans could not issue a mandatory evacuation for areas inside the levee system.
Contraflow is when authorities use some lanes of traffic for travel in the opposite direction of what was intended so more vehicles can leave an area.
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