Ida's torrential rainfall has totaled more than a foot in some areas and caused the collapse of a highway in Mississippi, leading to fatalities. Officials are urging people to avoid flooded areas.
From catastrophic storm surge to hours of destructive winds to torrential rainfall that's still to come, Hurricane Ida is expected to cause major financial damage across multiple states.
As residents and responders in Louisiana and Mississippi begin the long road to recovery from Ida, Mother Nature will be offering no sort of assistance in the short term. AccuWeather meteorologists say sweltering conditions will roast the Southeast this week, with RealFeel® Temperatures hovering at or around 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday in the Louisiana areas of Houma and New Orleans, where Ida made some of its biggest messes. Come Wednesday, that RealFeel Temperature® will likely top 100 F in New Orleans and get warmer in Houma as well.
Over 1 million residents are still without power in the Bayou State, making for potentially hazardous conditions in handling the warmth without air conditioning. For tips on how to stay cool without A/C, click here.
After the devastation that Hurricane Ida brought to the Gulf Coast, many people are displaced, without power and without resources. Here are a few places to donate to and provide help:
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The Red Cross: The Red Cross provides shelters, meals and water, emergency supplies and more.
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Salvation Army: The organization uses donations to provide food, drinks, shelter, support and other emergency services.
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Feed the Second Line: An non-profit organization with a focus on supporting the culture bearers of New Orleans, Feed the Second Line provides groceries and other essentials as well as creates job opportunities within the city.
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Relief Gang: The Houston-based Relief Gang, founded after Hurricane Harvey, stretches across state lines to provide help to other areas impacted by hurricanes.
Photos emerged early Tuesday morning showing the condition of collapsed Highway 26 in George County, Mississippi, where two lives were claimed late Monday. According to George County Emergency Management Director John Glass, seven vehicles had to be pulled from the collapsed roadway, while 10 injuries were reported. Heavy rain from Ida reduced drivers’ visibility, officials said, preventing them from knowing they were driving into the washed-out highway. Glass added that the road was still actively washing out on Tuesday morning, WLOX reported.
Images from the Mississippi Highway Patrol show the depth of the washed-out highway and the scope of the accident, which required the use of a crane to pull cars from the wreckage.
Emergency responders stand in the washed-out highway in Mississippi where seven cars were involved in a late Monday accident, resulting in two deaths and 10 injuries. (Facebook/MHP Troop K)
Rescue efforts required the use of a crane on Tuesday morning to pull vehicles and debris from the washed-out highway. (Facebook/MHP Troop K)
Officials in Jackson, Mississippi, are urging residents to avoid flooded areas as Ida trudges through the state. “We’re still concerned about the potential of flooding in flood-prone areas, in low lying areas,” Mayor Chokwe Lumumba told AccuWeather National Reporter Emmy Victor. “We want to make certain that residents don’t walk, swim or ride, in standing water. They may not be aware of what the present dangers may be within that water or the depth of that water.” Victor reported that at least a dozen water rescues are hard at work in the city as Ida continues to dump flooding rains over the city. Lumumba told Victor that it wasn’t just the rain that was causing problems, however, but also the winds as Jackson sees its share of downed trees and power outages.
Ochsner Health, which operates over a dozen hospitals that were hit by Ida, evacuated 165 patients on Monday, The Associated Press reported. The patients were transferred to other hospitals and medical centers in the state that were spared by Ida as it roared ashore in southeastern Louisiana as a devastating Category 4 hurricane. “We know that we’re in for several days, maybe a couple of weeks of this situation,” Warner Thomas, President and CEO of Ochsner Health said. Prior to Ida’s landfall, Louisiana hospitals were inundated with coronavirus patients amid a new wave fueled by the delta variant. Around 2,400 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19, the AP reported.
As Ida continues to track across the southeastern United States on Tuesday, flooding rainfall will still be the most widespread impact from the tropical entity. However, AccuWeather forecasters say other forms of adverse weather are still in play to the east of Ida's track. From Tuesday through Tuesday night, a swath of the U.S. from the Florida Panhandle to the southern Appalachians will be at risk for severe thunderstorms. In addition to heavy rain, locally damaging wind gusts can occur across portions of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Virginia, with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 70 mph.
AccuWeather forecasters say isolated tornadoes cannot be ruled out. On Monday, nine tornado reports were submitted to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) but none were confirmed as of early Tuesday morning. In one report, one person was injured after an eighteen wheeler was flipped over in a parking lot in Saraland, Alabama.
With rainfall from Ida winding down across the hardest-hit portions of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, more double-digit rainfall totals have been confirmed. Ida dropped more than 10 inches of rain in the past 48 hours over portions of Louisiana and Mississippi, leading to life-threatening flash flooding for some. The area surrounding Lake Pontchartrain appears to have been right in the bulls-eye for Ida's most potent downpours. At least two stations in the area have reported more than a foot of rainfall since early Sunday. One of the two stations, near New Orleans, actually received a mind-boggling foot and a half of rainfall in under 48 hours.
A partial highway collapse has left two people dead and at least 10 injured following heavy rainfall from Ida. A portion of Highway 26 in Lucedale, Mississippi, crumbled late Monday night, taking seven vehicles with along with it. Three of the 10 people injured are in critical condition. Images from the scene show that the ground supporting the roadway had given way, wiping out a large portion of the paved road above in the process.
While speaking to local media outlet WLOX, the Emergency Manager for George County, John Glass, said the incident occurred around 10 p.m. CDT Monday. Glass also warned that the road was still actively washing out and encouraged motorists to stay off the roads whenever possible.
AccuWeather forecasters say much of southern Mississippi has received upwards of six inches of rainfall as a result of Ida. Rainfall of this amount can be enough to saturate soil and loosen the ground, allowing for washouts to happen more often.
Tulane University, located in New Orleans, has announced that its campus will be closed until early October due to the destruction wrought by Ida. Classes at the university have been canceled through Sept. 12, and all remaining students on campus are set to be evacuated beginning Tuesday morning. Students will be evacuated by bus to Houston, Texas, and are required to only bring a maximum of two pieces of luggage and their valuables.
In a release distributed on Monday, the university stated: "Due to catastrophic transmission damage to the city power grid, all of Orleans Parish is currently without power. Other pieces of critical infrastructure, including services associated with Sewerage & Water Board and the supply chain and critical labor for the region, may be impacted for several weeks. Like all in the region, Tulane experienced a range of damage that requires repair."
Classes will resume online on Sept. 13, and students will only be allowed to back to campus at the conclusion of fall break on Oct. 11.
While the center of Ida is located over central Mississippi, heavy rain continues to fall to the east and north of the storm's center. AccuWeather forecasters say heavy rainfall will target portions of northern Mississippi and Alabama overnight and into Tuesday morning. A general 1-3 inches of rain has already fallen in these areas, with more on the way. Although the heaviest of Ida's rainfall has eased up for portions of far southern Mississippi and Alabama, flash flood warnings are still in effect for these areas overnight.
In this radar image taken late Monday night, August 30, 2021, Tropical Depression Ida can be seen unleashing heavy rainfall across portions of Mississippi and Alabama. (AccuWeather)
Following a multi-hour outage, 911 emergency services were fully restored for the City of New Orleans Monday afternoon. The outage lasted just under 12 hours, during which time some of the worst impacts from Ida pummeled the area. While 911 communications are back up and running, the Orleans Parish Communications District (OPCD) says that some trying to call for assistance may still experience network difficulties. The OPCD urges anyone who attempts to reach out for help but cannot connect to 911 to call out to 504-671-3600 instead.
After airlines cancelled all flights at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans on Monday, another full day of cancellations were announced Monday evening. All incoming and outgoing flights have been cancelled for Tuesday, with nearly 200 cancellations already reported for Wednesday, according to the airport. After an initial damage assessment, the airport found that there had been no significant damage to terminal facilities, the runways or taxiways, but there would need to be repairs to jet bridges. A loss of water pressure was also impacting parts of the airport operations such as air conditioning and functioning restrooms. The airport had also lost commercial power and was operating on emergency generator power. Crews were already on the scene to clear debris on airport roadways and repairing perimeter fence damage.
Those who evacuated from the path of Hurricane Ida should wait until they received the all clear from their local officials before returning to their homes, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday. “It’s pretty clear that if you have evacuated, now is not the time to return unless and until your parish informs you that it is okay to do so,” Edwards said. “Businesses aren’t open, stores aren’t open, schools aren’t open, and quite frankly we need to put as little demand on our water systems and on our electric grid as possible.”
President Joe Biden spoke Monday afternoon at the White House during a virtual briefing and pledged full government resources as the long recovery from the damages brought by Hurricane Ida begins in earnest. “We’re there to help you get back on your feet,” Biden told Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, according to CNBC. Louisiana and Mississippi have been hardest hit thus far by Ida, which as of late Monday afternoon had been downgraded to a tropical depression. Biden said it was critical to coordinate federal, state and local governments to ensure recovery efforts are smooth and effective. He added that 5,000 members of the National Guard have been activated to assist with recovery.
He said the federal government had marshaled more the 25,000 electrical crews from 30 states to help get the power back on, CNBC reported. More than 1 million customers in Louisiana were without power late Monday afternoon, and in Mississippi, that number was close to 100,000. "People in Louisiana and Mississippi are resilient, but it is in moments like these that we can see the power of government to meet the needs of people and respond to people, if government is prepared to respond. That is our job.” Watch a highlight from Biden's remarks below.
A rolling stone gathers no moss, and umbrellas in the Northeast haven’t gathered any dust due to frequent rounds of rain and storms in the past month. Over the past 30 days, rainfall has been more than 200% of normal, including Pittsburgh and New York City. With tropical downpours from Ida on the way, residents should brace for widespread flooding issues. "Many areas along the path of Ida from the central Appalachians as well as parts of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England are likely to have rounds of rain over a 12- to 18-hour period, but intense rainfall can last six to eight hours," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said. The rain is expected to arrive late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as Ida tracks over the region.
Homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, in Jean Lafitte, La. The weather died down shortly before dawn. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Ida made landfall in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Sunday afternoon as a Category 4 storm, and as communities begin to pick up the pieces, AccuWeather has made a preliminary estimate on the economic damage dealt by the storm. AccuWeather Founder and CEO Dr. Joel N. Myers estimated the total damage and economic loss resulting from Hurricane Ida will be between $70 billion and $80 billion.
“As AccuWeather accurately predicted, significant wind damage, destructive storm surge and inland flooding, as well as mass power outages, occurred in southeastern Louisiana, and unfortunately those power outages may last for a week or longer causing a near complete shutdown of New Orleans, among other cities and towns,” said Myers. “Power outages will exacerbate extreme discomfort caused by the heat and humidity and lead to the development of mold in the impacted areas, which can cause serious health and safety issues due to the combination of standing water and a lack of air conditioning. Oil production and refining along the Gulf Coast will certainly be impacted.”
The scope of the economic loss goes beyond businesses along the Gulf Coast that shuttered in anticipation for Ida. “As a key port city in the Mississippi River, New Orleans will experience significant delays. This will affect the supply chain and impact the entire U.S. economy in various ways as New Orleans is a major conduit of commerce,” said Myers. This estimate also includes the serious risk for flooding through the end of the week as Ida tracks across the Tennessee Valley, mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Louisiana Gov. Jon Bel Edwards held a press conference on Monday afternoon to provide an update on the rescue efforts in the wake of Ida. So far, the National Guard has rescued nearly 200 people across Orleans, Jefferson and St. John the Baptist parishes, according to Associated Press reporter Melinda Deslatte. Although the rain has subsided in southeastern Louisiana, some communities are still underwater. Rescue crews were also working amid AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures around 90 F on Monday afternoon.
The Louisiana National Guard drives down a flooded street in St. John the Baptist Parish on Aug. 30, 2021. (Image/ Louisiana National Guard)
Joanne Najdala had a memorable trip to New Orleans, but likely not for the reasons she envisioned. Najdala had flown into the Big Easy to celebrate a friend's birthday, but was unable to get a flight out of town in time before Ida roared ashore on Sunday.
"I honestly didn’t think the winds would be this bad," Najdala told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell on Sunday. "I didn’t think that everything would be closed this bad. I thought there would at least be some places that would be open so we could get some more food."
New Orleans resident Martha Wiggins has seen her fair share of storms to hit the city over the past 12 years she's called the Big Easy home. Wiggins told Wadell that she left her home in the Treme neighborhood of the city for a hotel room in downtown New Orleans.
"People took this one serious," Wiggins told Wadell. "Unfortunately, I think for a lot of people it comes down to financially ... evacuating is expensive and not everybody has the ability to do it." "These storms come out of nowhere, and most of us are not prepared financially for this, even if it is hurricane season," Wiggins said.
At 4 p.m. CDT Monday, the National Hurricane Center downgraded Ida from a tropical storm to a tropical depression as maximum sustained winds fell to 35 mph. The center of Ida was about 20 miles north-northwest of Jackson, Mississippi, as the system advanced toward the Tennessee Valley. Despite being downgraded, AccuWeather meteorologists warn that it could cause major flooding as tropical downpours drench the mid-Atlantic and Northeast through Thursday. The center of Ida could even track directly over Baltimore or Philadelphia before it moves over the Atlantic Ocean and potentially Atlantic Canada.
By Monday afternoon, the northern edges of Ida, which was a tropical storm, were sending rainfall into southwestern Tennessee. AccuWeather forecasters have warned that as much as 4-8 inches of rain could come down in central Tennessee, particularly near Humphreys County where an estimated 17 inches of rain fell on Aug. 21, leading to nearly two dozen fatalities and widespread destruction. Officials from the state’s Emergency Management Agency are warning that the system could trigger immense flooding in the state, including the same areas that are still reeling from last week’s tragic flooding. Rain from Ida was falling as far west as eastern Arkansas and, to the east, was coming down in the Atlanta metro area, AccuWeather's national radar showed.
A radar image showing Ida, which had weakened to tropical storm force, moving farther inland on Monday, Aug. 30, 2021.
The NFL regular season kicks off on the second weekend of September, but the location of one team’s home opener is up in the air. The New Orleans Saints are scheduled to host the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, Sept. 12, but that could change depending on how long it takes for New Orleans to recover from Ida. “We don’t know relative on Week One in the Superdome,” Saints coach Sean Payton said, according to Pro Football Talk. “We’ll have a Plan B. There’s a lot of things from a priority standpoint that are more important to our city.” The team has already been displaced by Ida with the Saints currently setting up shop over 500 miles away at AT&T Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys, The Associated Press said. According to Jeff Duncan of The Times-Picayune, the Superdome did not suffer any major structural damage from Ida. Stadium staff conducted a walkthrough Monday morning and only found one leaking window.
In 2005, the Saints were forced to play a home game at Giants Stadium after Hurricane Katrina due to damage from the historic storm.
Russel L. Honoré, the former commander of Joint Task Force for Hurricane Katrina, explained to CNN's Kate Bolduan today the two important steps that need to happen next for Louisiana. The first thing, he said, is to get the roads open because those currently without utilities will want to evacuate.
"You can't sustain families where there's no drinking water and or toilets flushed, because you don't have electricity, and you do not have comms. If you do not have communications you can't coordinate, if you can't coordinate, you can't collaborate, and you can't get the stuff where you need it," Honoré explained. Once the roads are open, the next key tactic will be the government getting gasoline to those areas. "You've got to get gas to Louisiana so people can do the search and rescues, the hospitals can stay open, and they can get the critical infrastructure open that pumps drinking water, and pumps out sewage," Honoré said.
Honoré also appeared on MSNBC, and lauded improvements in logistics and infrastructure since Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago to the day, but warned that the power outages at gas stations and pharmacies during Hurricane Ida still "set us back 100 years."
Even though Ida will be a tropical rainstorm by the time it reaches the mid-Atlantic and Northeast later this week, it will have the potential to cause widespread and potentially severe impacts. A "tremendous" amount of rain is forecast for portions of the central Appalachians to the mid-Atlantic and New England, with the potential for life-threatening and damaging flooding, AccuWeather forecasters say. "A band of 4-8 inches of rain is forecast from northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania to northern New Jersey, the Hudson Valley of New York state and portions of southern and central New England," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said, adding that areas farther to the Southeast could receive 2 to 4 inches.
Severe weather is also forecast for the mid-Atlantic region Wednesday, and there could even be some tornadoes as a result. This includes Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia and Columbia, South Carolina.
Hurricane Ida's wind gusts were impressive across Louisiana, with a ship captain clocking a gust of 172 mph in Port Fourchon, where Ida made landfall. Specialized weather sensors deployed by WeatherFlow recorded a gust of 138 mph at Dulac and 122 mph near the Galliano airport. A water plant in Grand Isle clocked 136 mph, while 128 mph gusts were observed at a NOAA station in Southwest Pass. A dredge on Bottle Bayou saw 119 mph, while two oil rigs near the coast measured 112 and 119 mph. The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport experienced wind gusts up to 90 mph despite being far from where Ida crashed ashore.
Speaking with MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle a day after his state was hit by one of the strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall on the U.S. mainland, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a grim warning about what to expect. "We have one confirmed death, but I don't want to mislead anyone," Edwards said. "Robust search and rescue is happening right now and I fully expect that that death count will go up considerably throughout the day." Rescues have been underway in parts of Louisiana for a day now -- even as Hurricane Ida was hitting. Dramatic footage captured on camera showed a woman being rescued on Sunday from high floodwaters on Interstate 10 in New Orleans.
Not everyone in New Orleans evacuated the city ahead of Hurricane Ida, but those that elected to evacuate are being told to keep their distance. “If you have evacuated out of #NOLA, we request that you DO NOT RETURN until further notice,” the city’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said on Monday. “There is widespread debris, power remains out, and emergency services are working to respond to those still in the city.” The agency was unable to give an estimate of when people will be allowed to return, but said that they will provide an update when it is safe for residents to come home.
Over 1 million customers in Louisiana were without power on Monday afternoon, one day after Ida made landfall twice in the state and retained hurricane status on land for hours. The majority of outages are in the southeastern portion of the state. According to a new update released by Entergy, the state’s largest electric provider, some customers in the hardest-hit areas of Louisiana could be without power for weeks due to major transmission lines being out of service due to Ida. About 216 substations, 207 transmission lines, and more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service. One electrical tower that was destroyed reportedly withstood the impacts of Katrina 16 years ago.
Traffic diverts around downed power lines Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, in Metairie, La. A fearsome Hurricane Ida has left scores of coastal Louisiana residents trapped by floodwaters and pleading to be rescued while making a shambles of the electrical grid across a wide swath of the state in the sweltering, late-summer heat. One of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland has now weakened into a tropical storm as it pushes inland over Mississippi with torrential rain and shrieking winds. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Hurricane Ida has dropped over 9 inches of rain in Louisiana and southern Mississippi and Alabama, causing widespread flooding. One USGS gauge on the Amite River near Maurepas, Louisiana, rose to its second-highest crest on record. That gauge is west of New Orleans and north of LaPlace, where water rescues were reported overnight. Over 30 other gauges in the area were experiencing or expected to experience moderate to major flooding, with two forecast to crest within feet of all-time records Monday afternoon and evening: the Tchefuncte River near Covington, Louisiana, and the Bogue Falaya River near Covington, Louisiana.
Just as Hurricane Ida was bearing down on the Louisiana coastline, the state's hospitals were packed with COVID-19 patients, The Associated Press reported. As of Sunday, according to the AP, nearly 2,500 patients were being treated for the coronavirus in hospitals throughout the state. Gov. John Bel Edwards admitted in an AP interview that Louisiana was in a "very dangerous place with our hospitals." He added, "I hate to say it this way, but we have a lot of people on ventilators today and they don’t work without electricity." And that was before Ida knocked out power to the entire city of New Orleans late Sunday night. Before that happened, however, some of the state's largest hospitals had already gone into emergency lockdown. More than 1 million customers were without power on Monday morning in Louisiana.
Some good news is that hospitals are better equipped for hurricane disasters than they were 16 years ago when Katrina struck. Dr. Jeff Elder, medical director for emergency management at LCMC Health, told the AP that changes were made in the wake of the Katrina disaster, including in many cases keeping backup generators in raised positions to stay above the floodwaters. Hospitals also took some preemptive measures, including transferring some patients to other facilities. For more on the preparation effort, watch the video below.
"Ida continues to weaken, but the damage is done across eastern Louisiana," AccuWeather Chief Broadcast Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said on the latest episode of AccuWeather's Weather Insider podcast. The big story remains the storm's rain, Rayno noted as Ida tracked farther inland. The rain will actually intensify later this week across parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia and New England thanks to a piece of energy in the atmosphere. Listen to Rayno's forecast below.
Hurricane Ida was unfortunately as advertised, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a message shared to Twitter Monday morning. Edwards said, for the most part, all of the levees "performed extremely well, especially the federal levees." But the hurricane's inundating rain, powerful storm surge and punishing winds all had devastating impacts across southeastern Louisiana.
"Virtually no one has electricity in this part of our state right now. We have water systems that are out. We have tremendous damage to homes and to businesses," the governor said. He also noted that many individuals are awaiting rescue since their homes are currently not inhabitable due to floodwaters, but added that help is on the way as rescuers in a fleet of high-water vehicles make their way around the storm-battered region.
Hurricane Ida made landfall shortly before noon local time on Sunday, but for a brief period of time, it wasn't the only named system in the Atlantic basin. Tropical Storm Julian formed in the open Atlantic about an hour ahead of Ida's catastrophic landfall in Louisiana. Julian formed about 1,100 miles west of the Azores and 865 miles south-southeast of Cape Race, New Foundland. While Ida has been a named storm since Thursday, Aug. 26, Julian couldn't even last one full day as a tropical system. The National Hurricane Center said the storm became an extra-tropical storm late Sunday.
The path of short-lived Tropical Storm Julian.
In the wake of Julian's brief lifespan, another named storm formed over the open waters of the Atlantic Monday morning. Tropical Depression 10 strengthened into Tropical Storm Kate about 750 miles east-northeast of the Leeward Islands around 9:30 a.m. Monday. The weak storm is not expected to be a threat to land.
Damage assessments began at first light throughout southeastern Louisiana as Ida tracked farther north.
Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng called for a mandatory curfew for the entire parish on Monday morning that is slated to remain in effect until 6 a.m. on Tuesday. "All residents should stay off the roads as there are many hazards." officials said. Scott Walker, the council chairman for the parish, asked residents to limit the use of water due to extremely low water pressure.
Emergency management and law enforcement officials in New Orleans urged residents to remain sheltered in place as the city's massive power outage persisted. "Now is not the time to leave your home," the New Orleans Police Department said. "There is no power. Trees, limbs, and lines are down everywhere. It is not safe to leave your home right now. Please remain sheltered in place.
Elsewhere, the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office said Ida caused "catastrophic" damage throughout the parish. "Deputies have been deployed in full force today responding to emergencies, searching for those who need help, and helping clear roads," the sheriff's office said. A parish-wide curfew remains in effect there as well. "We understand evacuees are anxious to return to survey damage and assist others. Today is not that day. Parish officials will be making an announcement about reentry in the near future."
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards was one of many officials Monday morning urging residents to remain in their homes. The governor said more than 1,600 personnel had been distributed to conduct search and rescue operations.
Roads were flooded and roofs were torn off buildings in New Orleans on Sunday, Aug. 29, after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane. And that was all before the entire city lost power Sunday night and a flash flood emergency was declared. Ida also caused flooding and coastal impacts in Mississippi and continued to impact both states Monday morning.
Theophilus Charles, 70, weeps while sitting on the front porch of his heavily damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in Houma, Louisiana, U.S., August 30, 2021. Charles, who hunkered down in the house through the category 4 storm, says he has now lost everything. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
Ida isn’t just a worry for the Gulf Coast. Farther north in Tennessee, officials from the state’s Emergency Management Agency are warning that the system could trigger immense flooding in the state, including the same areas that are still reeling from last week’s tragic flooding. As the central portions of the state have hardly begun addressing the devastation wrought by the immense flooding of Trace Creek in Waverley, Tennessee, the still-potent Ida is forecast to impact the west and middle portions of the state on Monday evening.
"It absolutely is a big blip on our radar. we're watching it, we're preparing for it. It's not going to change our plans here for Middle Tennessee, but we want everyone to be prepared," FEMA Spokesperson Darrell Habisch said on Saturday. "Listen to your local emergency managers, listen to your mayors and the county and find out exactly what's coming."
A local storm report issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) office in New Orleans has demonstrated just how powerful Hurricane Ida was after making landfall in Louisiana. Instrumentation onboard a ship docked in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, recorded maximum sustained winds of 149 mph and a wind gust of 172 mph shortly after noon, local time, Sunday. Ida made its first of two landfalls in Louisiana at 11:55 a.m. CDT Sunday in Port Fourchon as a Category 4 hurricane. On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a Category 4 hurricane has sustained winds of 130-156 mph. Therefore, this ground-truth observation proved that Ida was a dangerously strong Category 4 hurricane at landfall.
Over 1 million Louisiana customers, including all of New Orleans, remain without power early Monday morning. The number of outages in the neighboring state of Mississippi has begun climbing as well, topping 100,000 as of 4:15 a.m. CDT, as the now tropical storm begins to work its way through the Southeast.
The storm is located about 95 miles south-southwest of Jackson, Missippi, and is moving north at 8 mph as of the latest advisory from the NHC.
As of 4 a.m. CDT Monday, Ida has lost some wind intensity and is now designated as a tropical storm, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). After making landfall just before noon CDT Sunday, Ida spent about 16 hours over land before it shed its hurricane designation. This means that hurricane-force winds pummeled southeastern Louisiana for long portions of Sunday and Sunday night. Regardless of the change in designation from a hurricane to a tropical storm, dangerous impacts will persist along the path of Ida including flash flooding, dangerous storm surge and damaging winds.
More than a dozen fires were active in Kenner, Louisiana, early Monday morning and firefighters were unable to spring into action. Because of Ida, area firefighters have encountered two main setbacks: lack of water pressure and unsafe conditions. According to a statement released by city officials, "the department has very low water pressure because of the numerous breaks in the parish’s water system due to downed trees." A lack of water pressure means firefighters do not have access to the volume of water necessary to make hoses viable instruments in the fight against fires. Strong winds, downed trees and powerlines across the city continue to hinder the travel of first responders. According to Kenner's fire chief Terence Morris, wind gusts over 35 mph make it unsafe for crews to operate aerial trucks while wind gusts of 50 mph make it unsafe to use pump trucks. Just after 3 a.m. CDT, wind gusts upwards of 37 mph were still being reported at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
The Emergency Communications Center for the City of New Orleans tweeted early Monday morning that its 911 system was "experiencing technical difficulties." As Ida continues to ravage the area, officials urged those in the area experiencing an emergency to "go to your nearest fire station or approach your nearest officer."
Sunday evening while reporting on location in New Orleans, AccuWeather's Bill Wadell reported that Hurricane Ida had, "sent debris flying all over downtown New Orleans" with "trees toppled over [and] windows shattered."
All flights from several major airlines flying out of Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport have been canceled for Monday, August 30. All Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines outbound flights have been canceled on Monday due to the anticipated impacts from Ida.
AccuWeather forecasters say the center of Ida is forecast to pass just west of Jackson, Mississippi, Monday afternoon into Monday evening. Ida will still be able to produce torrential rainfall, damaging wind gusts and even isolated tornadoes as it continues its journey inland Monday.
Another rare flash flood emergency was issued Sunday evening as torrential downpours continued across southeastern Louisiana. This flash flood emergency included Jean Lafitte and Lafitte, Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida has caused major issues. According to the mayor of Jean Lafitte Tim Kerner Jr., a bridge collapsed following floodwaters overtopping a levee in the city. Due to the dangerous conditions, emergency workers are reportedly unable to conduct rescues.
According to Kerner, "Rescue boats will be here as soon as the weather permits. However, we are putting together a small team to rescue those who are in immediate and/or imminent danger."
As of just after midnight CDT Monday, Ida is now a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Hurricane conditions continue to spread farther inland as Ida crawls over Louisiana. Despite the status change, Ida continues to produce life-threatening impacts for portions of the Gulf coast.
According to PowerOutage.us, just over 1 million customers are without power in Louisiana just after midnight Monday morning. According to PowerOutage.us, the power status of over 2.2 million customers is tracked across the state, meaning nearly 45% of Louisiana is without power. Nearly 100% of customers in the parishes of far southeastern Louisiana are without power. In Orleans Parish alone, 177,538 customers are without power.
In a tragic turn of events, the first fatality due to Hurricane Ida was confirmed Sunday night. According to the Louisiana Department of Health, a 60-year-old man was killed in Ascension Parish on Sunday after a tree struck his home. Trees down in other parts of the Parish also caused the closure of over 20 miles of Interstate 10 on Sunday evening.
As Hurricane Ida continued to bring disastrous effects to Louisiana, President Biden approved a disaster declaration for the state on Sunday evening. The White House press release states that a "major disaster exists in the State of Louisiana." This declaration allows federal aid to be used to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts for areas affected by Hurricane Ida.
Residents and business owners who sustained losses in the parishes designated in the disaster declaration can begin applying for assistance on Monday. More information can be found here: http://www.DisasterAssistance.gov.
As of 9 p.m. CDT, Ida is a strong Category 2 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Torrential downpours from Ida continue to produce life-threatening flash flooding across eastern Louisiana. In addition, catastrophic storm surge is also still ongoing across the area. AccuWeather forecasters say Ida will continue to lose wind intensity overnight, but the storm's dangerous, perhaps deadly, impacts will continue regardless of Ida's official designation.
In this radar image, Hurricane Ida continues to move inland over Louisiana on Sunday night, August 29, 2021. (AccuWeather)
Officials with the National Weather Service in New Orleans issued a rare flash flood emergency Sunday night for the south shore area of metro New Orleans. Between 4 and 7 inches of rain have fallen. Additional rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches are possible in the warned area and flash flooding was already occurring, the NWS said.
"This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for South shore area of metro New Orleans. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!"
A flash flood emergency is the highest type of alert issued for flooding. These rare warnings are only issued when heavy rain is "leading to a severe threat to human life and catastrophic damage is happening or will happen soon," according to the NWS.
Eastern Louisiana was largely without power Sunday night as Hurricane Ida continued to wreak havoc as it moved inland. In Terrebonne Parish, 98% of all 27,753 tracked customers had no power on Sunday night, according to PowerOutage.us. Orleans Parish was 90% without power, leaving well over 100,000 customers with no power. Nearly 95% of customers in St. Charles Parish were also without power. Many other parishes in the state were also experiencing massive outages, including St. Bernard, St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines, Jefferson and Lafourche. Louisiana’s largest energy provider, Entergy, had over 600,000 customers without power on Sunday evening, making up 47.5% of all its customers statewide.
As a whole, the state had over 800,000 customers with no power. Officials with Entergy New Orleans confirmed that all of New Orleans was without power due to "catastrophic transmission damage." The only power coming within the city is from generators, officials said.
"Hurricane Ida’s intensity has caused catastrophic damage in its path, including a load imbalance to the company’s transmission and generation. We’re making every effort to learn more and rectify," Entergy New Orleans said in an update later Sunday night.
"Think about all the people who have been getting hit with all of these destructive winds for hours on end in New Orleans," AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. "Now it is night, no power, dark, all kinds of debris blowing around -- scary."
Security footage released by officials in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, showed just how rapidly storm surge overwhelmed a fire station in Delacroix. Around 10:21 a.m. local time Sunday, the ground was wet, but flooding was not evident. Flash forward to 11:42 a.m. and the video shows turbulent seas overwhelming the property and even inundating the firehouse.
In a second video shared by the parish, ferocious ocean waters tossed by Ida made their way over a levee and through the Delacroix Yacht Club. The video footage also captured the sound of Ida's devastating winds that were lashing the region.
According to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office, 911 and phone lines in the parish are currently down amid Hurricane Ida's impacts. The sheriff’s office asks that residents facing an emergency call (985) 772-4810 or (985) 772-4824 instead, and those that are not in an emergency situation refrain from calling. A parish-wide curfew is currently in effect for Lafourche as the eye of the hurricane passes by, and the curfew will remain in effect until further notice. Parts of the area are also now under a boil water advisory, meaning residents included under the advisory will not have water pressure until the water district reopens valves that were closed in an effort to preserve the system.
After making two landfalls in Louisiana as a Category 4 storm, Ida was downgraded to Category 3 hurricane at 6 p.m. CDT when the storm’s maximum sustained wind speeds lowered to 125 mph. On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a Category 3 hurricane has maximum sustained winds between 111-129 mph. The hurricane was able to maintain its Category 4 landfall strength for at least seven hours after it moved onto the coast. Ida is now continuing to move north-northwest at 10 mph.
Residents in the Braithwaite area between the Parish Line and White Ditch are being told to evacuate and seek higher ground immediately due to reports of the levee overtopping, meaning the flood water is pouring over the top, at White Ditch. The reports come from the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office, according to the National Weather Service in New Orleans.
The number of customers without power topped the 500,000 mark shortly before 5 p.m. CDT, figures from PowerOutage.us show, with nearly 300,000 of those customers coming from the counties of Jefferson and Orleans. Officials from Entergy, the state’s largest power provider, said some customers could be without power for three weeks or more, based on historical data regarding the impacts from Category 4 hurricanes.
A combination of strong winds and storm surge from Hurricane Ida caused the flow of the Mississippi River near New Orleans to stop before flowing again in reverse, according to CNN. Scott Perrien, a supervising hydrologist with the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told the news outlet that the phenomenon is “extremely uncommon,” but has happened as a result of a major hurricane before. “I remember, offhand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon,” Perrien said.
The storm surge reportedly caused the river’s water levels to rise 7 feet on Sunday in Belle Chasse, 20 miles south of New Orleans, which resulted in the flow of the river slowing from 2 feet per second to approximately half a foot per second in the opposite direction. “The river is feeling the effects of the storm over a large area,” Perrien said.
Ida has made landfall and the storm's devastating impacts are ongoing. Ida's widespread impacts will be felt for days, and the most significant impact will be the storm's flood threat, forecasters say. AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno has a Sunday evening update of AccuWeather's Weather Insider podcast where he discusses the locations at greatest risk for flooding. Listen to Rayno's forecast below.
Over four hours after first making landfall, Hurricane Ida is still clinging on to Category 4 strength, packing maximum sustained winds of 130 mph as of 4 p.m. CDT. The threshold for a Category 4 storm is a hurricane with sustained winds between 130 and 156 mph. According to the National Hurricane Center, the system is moving to the northwest at 10 mph as it sits about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans and 70 miles south-southeast of Baton Rouge.
President Joe Biden met with officials from FEMA this afternoon and delivered remarks from the agency's headquarters shortly after, promising the impacted residents of Louisiana that the U.S. would use its "full might" for rescue and recovery efforts as Ida passes. Biden added that he's been around for plenty of hurricanes and he can't recall another storm that has been met with as much preparation.
“The most important thing I can say right now is that everyone should listen to the instructions from local and state officials, just how dangerous this is and take it seriously," Biden said. "It's not just the coast, it’s not just New Orleans, it’s the north as well. The rainfall is expected to be exceedingly high.”
For more of Biden's comments, watch the video below:
As if a major hurricane wasn’t bad enough, residents in New Orleans may also face the hardship of sewage backups due to power outages at pump stations. According to the city’s Sewage & Water Board, the outages are at stations on both the East and West Bank, leading officials to ask residents to reduce their wastewater.
“This increases the potential for sewer backups in homes. We urge those residents who still have power to minimize wastewater leaving their homes by not running your dishwasher or washing clothes,” the S&WB said. According to Fox8, the stations will remain powerless until after Ida passes.
A massive roof was "launched" by Hurricane Ida in Houma, Louisiana, shortly after landfall. As footage captured by Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer showed on Facebook, the huge roof crashed into a nearby utility pole, scattering debris and showcasing just a glimpse of the widespread damage in the southern portion of the Bayou State.
"This shows you the dangers, these giant roofs getting lofted," Timmer can be heard exclaiming in the video. "It looks like the power is out in Houma and a lot worse is here to come. A lot worse is on its way as the inner eyeball is about to arrive here in Houma!”
Category 4 Hurricane Ida made a second landfall southwest of Galliano, Louisiana, on Saturday afternoon around 2 p.m. CDT. At the time of the second landfall, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 145 mph. Ida continues to move northwest at 12 mph.
After Ida made landfall in the state, approximately 300,000 customers in Louisiana were without power on Sunday afternoon. According to poweroutage.us, the majority of outages in the state were focused in the southeastern part of the state, where Ida made landfall earlier in the day. In Jefferson Parish, over 200,000 customers were without power, and in Orleans Parish, where the city of New Orleans is located, over 190,000 customers were without power.
On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall and devastating Louisiana, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Port Fourchon, located less than 50 miles away from where Katrina made landfall in Buras-Triumph. While Katrina notably crashed into the state from the south, Ida arrived from the southeast, meaning the impacts are expected to differ. Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami, told ABC7 that the angle of Ida’s arrival could potentially make it even more dangerous.
"This has the potential to be more of a natural disaster whereas the big issue in Katrina was more of a man-made one," McNoldy said, alluding to the levee failures in New Orleans that pushed Katrina’s death toll to over 1,800. McNoldy added that Ida’s angle of arrival could be potentially worse, as “it's not going to as easily create a huge storm surge ... but the angle that this is coming in, I think is more conducive to pushing water into the Lake (Pontchartrain)."
Satellite views of Hurricane Ida 2021 (top) and Hurricane Katrina 2005 (bottom) near landfall. (NOAA)
Correction: This post previously misstated the death toll for Hurricane Katrina. The death toll was more than 1,800, not 18,000.
As Hurricane Ida works its way inward through Louisiana, millions are being affected by the major hurricane’s impacts. One way you can help is by donating to the American Red Cross, which has mobilized hundreds of trained disaster workers and supplies to support thousands of people in evacuation shelters across the Gulf Coast. According to the organization, about 600 volunteers are either on the ground or prepared to assist relief efforts.
“Across Louisiana and Mississippi, the Red Cross and other organizations have opened dozens of evacuation shelters offering safe refuge for hundreds of people. The number of open shelters and people staying in them is changing hourly,” the Red Cross said in a statement. “In addition to our pre-positioned supplies, the Red Cross has moved truckloads of additional cots, blankets and comfort kits, along with tens of thousands of ready-to-eat meals into Louisiana and Mississippi this weekend.”
Video shared by Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer showed American flags in Houma, Louisiana, being torn apart as they billowed in the storm’s winds. Timmer said wind gust reports reached 148 mph in Grand Isle, Louisiana, before the anemometer, a tool to measure wind speeds, broke. “It's very likely that those winds are probably pushing 200 mph in gusts,” Timmer said, predicting that sheet metal will get picked up by the wind gusts soon and power lines will be brought down by the force of the winds.
The eye of Hurricane Ida has made landfall and it is getting closer to New Orleans. The area of the hurricane just outside of the eye is where the harshest winds are typically found. Tropical storm-force winds have been blowing across the city continuously for the past five hours and are expected to reach hurricane-force later this afternoon. AccuWeather National News Reporter Kim Leoffler is in New Orleans and said that the “wind gusts are starting to get very strong.” Many people that remain in the city are staying inside bracing for what is to come, but a few people can be spotted braving the elements and traveling.
A water plant at Grand Isle, Louisiana, gusted to 136 mph as Hurricane Ida moved onshore early Sunday afternoon. Grand Isle is located just a few miles east of where Ida made landfall. Winds also had gusted to 128 mph on an oil rig and NOAA's Southwest Pass station, 119 mph on a dredge.
Meanwhile, storm surge has been rising all day and is now 7.2 feet at Shell Beach, Louisiana, and 6.3 feet at Waveland, Mississippi. Grand Isle, Louisiana, was also on its way up at 5.24 feet.
Hurricane Ida's storm surge at Shell Beach, Louisiana reached 7.2 feet on the afternoon of August 29, 2021 (NOAA)
Chef José Andrés reported that World Central Kitchen is on the ground in New Orleans to help provide relief after the extremely dangerous Hurricane Ida. He noted winds were getting bad as Hurricane Ida made landfall. Three kitchens are ready with enough supplies to provide more than 100,000 meals, Andrés said as he and the team prepared to shelter in place until Ida passed. The team will mobilize and spread out into other cities after the hurricane moves on.
At 11:55 a.m. CDT Sunday, the eye of Hurricane Ida plowed into the coast of Louisiana over Port Fourchon. It was rated as a powerful Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, just 7 mph shy of Category 5 status. However, winds gusts were estimated to be over 180 mph in the worst part of the monstrous storm. The worst of the storm is far from over despite landfall with dangerous, tornado-like winds and substantial rainfall expected.
Ida is on its final approach to making landfall in Louisiana and the Hurricane Hunters are flying through the heart of the hurricane to gather meteorological data. During a Sunday morning flight, the crew on a mission captured stunning views from inside the eye of the storm. This perspective reveals a phenomenon some meteorologists call the “stadium effect” when the towering eyewall looks similar to a large stadium around a football field. This is something that can only be seen from inside the middle of the eye of a potent, well-organized hurricane, like Ida. The stadium effect was well documented by the Hurricane Hunters on Oct. 21, 2020, when they flew through the eye of Hurricane Epsilon.
At 11:00 a.m. CDT, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Category 4 Hurricane Ida was maintaining its 150-mph maximum sustained winds as its northern eyewall was moving onshore along the coast of southeastern Louisiana. The storm's center was located about 25 miles south-southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and about 60 miles southeast of Houma, Louisiana. In the update, the NHC said that an elevated NOAA weather station at Southwest Pass, Louisiana, recorded a sustained wind of 89 mph and a wind gust of 104 mph.
At 11:00 a.m. CDT, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Category 4 Hurricane Ida was maintaining its 150-mph maximum sustained winds as its northern eyewall was moving onshore along the coast of southeastern Louisiana. The storm's center was located about 25 miles south-southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and about 60 miles southeast of Houma, Louisiana. In the update, the NHC said that an elevated NOAA weather station at Southwest Pass, Louisiana, recorded a sustained wind of 89 mph and a wind gust of 104 mph.
An extreme wind warning is in effect for Houma, Louisiana, down to Leeville, Louisiana, where the National Weather Service was warning residents to "Treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to an interior room or shelter NOW!"
AccuWeather National Reporter Kim Leoffler is stationed in New Orleans covering Hurricane Ida and on Sunday morning got an up-close look at the city's floodgates, which were closed a day earlier. In the video Leoffler posted on Twitter, rain was falling and Ida's winds were howling and shaking palm trees. The center of Hurricane Ida was just about 85 miles south of New Orleans at that point. Watch below.
Power outages topped 56,000 on Sunday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, and were rising quickly as Hurricane Ida's powerful winds and heavy rains blasted the region. The majority of the customers who had lost power by this point were located in Plaquemines Parish, which is just to the southeast of New Orleans.
AccuWeather RealVue™ Satellite imagery on Sunday morning showed a very well-defined, if not menacing-looking, eye of Hurricane Ida nearing the edges of the Louisiana coast. As of 10 a.m., local time, Hurricane Ida was a strong Category 4 storm with 150 mph sustained winds. It's been rated a 4 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes, due to the widespread damage forecasters expect it to cause across the central Gulf Coast. The storm was within 85 miles of New Orleans as of 10 a.m., the NHC reported. AccuWeather forecasters expected landfall to occur at about noon local time.
AccuWeather's RealVue™ Satellite image showed Hurricane Ida's eye as it was nearing landfall late in the morning on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021.
AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell is reporting outside the New Orleans Convention Center this morning where winds are starting to ramp up and the streets are deserted. Wadell said police are beginning to patrol the streets and several volunteer rescue groups have arrived in the city to assist with search and rescue operations. As of 10 a.m., local time, Ida was 85 miles south of New Orleans and moving northwest at 13 mph. Watch the video below for more.
Hurricane Ida has brought extreme wind gusts to coastal Louisiana Sunday morning. Two different weather stations owned by NOAA at Southwest Pass reported wind gusts of 128 mph and 121 mph, while two oil rigs nearby gusted to 117 and 112 mph. The highest sustained winds measured by those NOAA stations were 105 mph, equal to a strong Category 2 hurricane An amateur station atop a dredge in the mouth of the Mississippi river recorded a 108-mph gust.
Extreme meteorologist Reed Timmer is stationed in Houma, Louisiana, a small city about 60 miles to the southwest of New Orleans. Timmer reported that the streets are largely empty there -- a curfew is in effect -- though a few last-minute evacuees could be seen fleeing. In a video post on Twitter, Timmer explained how Ida's powerful winds will impact storm surge amid the complex terrain and bayous of southern Louisiana. Watch below for more.
Hurricane Ida was on the verge of making landfall at about 9 a.m. local time, according to the NHC. The northern portion of Ida's eyewall was approaching the southeastern Louisiana, coast. The storm was moving to the northwest at 14 mph and maximum sustained winds remained at 150 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 50 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles, meaning many on land were experiencing tropical storm conditions, and some were enduring hurricane conditions. Ida's well-defined eye could be seen on AccuWeather radar as the storm threatened landfall.
AccuWeather radar shows Hurricane Ida's eye as it approached the Louisiana coastline on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021.
Residents of New Orleans were told to begin sheltering in place as of midnight as the time for evacuation has passed and even being outdoors was becoming downright dangerous. "Listen to your radio, television, or phone for updates," the city advised residents in a message posted on Twitter. Thousands evacuated southern Louisiana on Saturday as Ida charged across the Gulf Of Mexico, strengthening along the way. Drone footage showed cars lined for miles on Highway 90 as people fled the storm zone.
Highway 90 near Morgan City, Louisiana, was backed up bumper to bumper on Aug. 28 as thousands left the city due to a mandatory evacuation.
On the latest edition of AccuWeather's Weather Insider podcast, AccuWeather Chief Broadcast Meteorologist Bernie Rayno provides an update on Ida. Rayno discusses the storm's life-threatening impacts and where the storm will make landfall on Sunday. Rayno says the storm will be "devastating" for New Orleans. Bernie also analyzes where the storm will head after landfall and the widespread flooding it will unleash across the South. Listen to Rayno's forecast analysis below.
Satellite images from Sunday morning showed numerous lightning strikes erupting within Hurricane Ida's cloud structure. This is an ominous sign, forecasters say, because it could indicate further strengthening prior to landfall. Already, Ida was nearing Category 5 strength as sustained winds were at 150 mph and hurricane conditions were being felt across southern Louisiana.
Lightning in hurricane Ida is shown as purple on this GOES-16 satellite loop on the morning of Aug. 29, 2021. (NOAA/CIRA)
Water flooding in from storm surge brought on by the approach of Hurricane Ida could be seen inundating Route 1 at Leeville, Louisiana, which is about a 90-minute drive south of New Orleans. The below gif shows floodwaters rushing across the roadway on Sunday morning as well as what things looked like there on Saturday, well ahead of the arrival of the storm. Elsewhere, storm surge in Waveland, Mississippi, rose to 4.89 feet Sunday morning by 9 a.m., with 4.55 feet at Shell Beach, Louisiana. Both readings are well above normal. Storm surge will be a major threat as Ida hits, AccuWeather forecasters have warned. A storm surge of 10-15 feet is forecast along portions of the central Louisiana coast, with 6 to 10 feet likely to extend from across the eastern Louisiana coast to the barrier islands south of mainland Mississippi. A storm surge of 3-6 feet is forecast to extend as far inland as Lake Pontchartrain and coastal areas of the Alabama Panhandle.
Storm surge flooding in Leeville, Louisiana, Sunday morning Aug. 29, 2021, compared to the previous afternoon. (LADOT)
As Ida eyes the Louisiana Gulf Coast, AccuWeather meteorologists warn that the hurricane's impacts will extend well inland across the eastern United States this week. Heavy, tropical rainfall is forecast to deluge locations from Louisiana and Mississippi through the Tennessee Valley and into the Northeast with widespread rainfall amounts of 2-4 inches. Heavy rain is expected to fall across Waverly, Tennessee, and Hartford, Connecticut, both of which were still recovering from devastating flooding events just a week ago.
Only two hurricanes in recorded history have ever hit Louisiana with sustained winds of 150 mph: the hurricane that hit Last Island in 1856 and Hurricane Laura, which hammered Louisiana last year, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. As Ida made its final approach Sunday morning, sustained winds were right at the 150-mph mark, 7 mph shy of Category 5 force. Should the winds increase at all prior to and when Ida makes landfall, Ida will become the strongest hurricane to ever hit Louisiana. Record-keeping began in 1851.
As of Saturday morning, Hurricane Ida's wind field had expanded. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 50 miles out from the storm's center, according to the NHC, up from 40 miles earlier. And tropical-storm-force winds extended outward up to 140 miles. On an elevated oil rig in Mississippi Canyon a wind gust of 117 mph was recorded and near Southwest Pass, Louisiana, a gust of 115 mph was recorded. The gif below, made using AccuWeather's windflow tool, visualizes the wind contours near the Gulf Coast as Ida bears down.
Overnight, Ida continued rapidly strengthening, with top sustained winds reaching 150 mph by early Sunday morning, making it a very strong Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Sustained winds of 157 mph or higher would qualify as Category 5 force. The NHC said winds are gusting even higher than 150 mph. Satellite imagery showed Ida's eye was bearing down on the Louisiana coast, within just 60 miles of the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the NHC. AccuWeather forecasters have warned that Local StormMaxTM of 180 mph wind gusts are expected near where the center of Ida makes landfall, likely on Grand Island, Louisiana.
A satellite image showing Hurricane Ida bearing down on the U.S. Gulf Coast early on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021.
Heavy rain from Hurricane Ida has begun across the southeastern Louisiana coast on Sunday morning, and heavy precipitation is expected to spread across Louisiana and Mississippi throughout the day Sunday as the hurricane's eye moves closer to shore. Showers and thunderstorms associated with Ida are also impacting the Florida Panhandle on Sunday morning, though higher rainfall totals from Ida are anticipated to remain to the west.
Wind gusts of at least 40 mph will also arrive on Sunday across southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and the coastal Panhandle. Then, Ida's most powerful winds will arrive. Higher gusts of up to 160 mph are forecast across parts of southeastern Louisiana and can be destructive. Tornadoes and waterspouts are also possible. Residents are urged to be careful and listen to public officials during this life-threatening event.
This radar image, captured early Sunday morning, shows one of Hurricane Ida's outer bands rolling across the New Orleans area, with a visible eye in the Gulf of Mexico. (AccuWeather)
With Hurricane Ida's rapid strengthening and its track moving slightly eastward, the threat to New Orleans has increased, and the "window for preparations has pretty much closed," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bill Deger. The Category 4 hurricane will bring impacts to coastal Louisiana through the morning hours and still has the potential to strengthen further before landfall early Sunday afternoon.
"Residents and interests from Louisiana through Alabama should be prepared for prolonged power outages, a devastating storm surge on the eastern side of the storm, destructive winds and flying debris and major, life-threatening flooding," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller said.
Travelers are stranded at the New Orleans International Airport early Sunday morning after all flights in and out were canceled due to Ida's approach. Marguerite Alexander of Philadelphia told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell that her original flight and rebooked flight were both canceled, and she has had no luck booking a hotel or a rental car. Roads out of town are packed with traffic from those trying to evacuate while forecasters warn that Ida can bring impacts in the next 6 hours, including flooding rains and destructive winds, ahead of a midday landfall. Alexander looked to be stranded at the airport as the storm closed in.
Shortly after intensifying into a major hurricane early Sunday morning, Ida has already become a "dangerous" Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, according to the National Hurricane Center. In only about an hour, Ida gained 15 mph of wind speed, giving it 130 mph sustained winds and a minimum central pressure of 949 mb as it continues to approach Louisiana. AccuWeather forecasters are watching the hurricane closely and anticipate flooding rainfall, storm surge, road closures and damaging winds.
Early on Sunday morning, Hurricane Ida has strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, according to the National Hurricane Center as it barrels northwestward toward Louisiana. Widespread power outages and several feet of storm surge is expected across the coast of Louisiana, and forecasters anticipate it will continue to strengthen before making landfall near New Orleans.
As evacuations were underway on Saturday night, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport announced that all arriving and departing flights scheduled for Sunday, August 29, have been canceled in anticipation of Hurricane Ida's landfall. AccuWeather meteorologists expect Ida to make landfall midday on Sunday just south of New Orleans as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. As of Saturday night, a hurricane warning is in effect for Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the mouth of the Pearl River, as well as Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and Metropolitan New Orleans.
Hundreds of people in jail were evacuated in Orleans Parish and Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana on Saturday ahead of Hurricane Ida making landfall. According to NBC reporter Christina Watkins, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office evacuated over 835 people from jail and released three under an emergency declaration. In Plaquemines Parish, the sheriff’s office evacuated over 600 people from jail.
The coasts of Texas and Louisiana have seen more than their fair share of hurricanes in recent years, and while residents in Lake Charles, Louisiana, are certainly keeping an eye on Hurricane Ida, much of their focus is still on the 2020 season. Almost exactly one year ago, the deadly Hurricane Laura slammed into the city at Category 4 strength, becoming the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Bayou State. Twelve months later, residents and state officials are still pleading for federal aid, having made requests both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for $3 billion in recovery aid that have gone unfulfilled.
Video taken from the usually lively Bourbon Street in New Orleans appeared bare on Saturday as residents in the area begin hurricane preparations. Only a few pedestrians and vehicles could be seen on the street on Saturday afternoon. According to AccuWeather Reporter Kim Leoffler, many businesses in the area had already closed their doors for the day and boarded up entrances and windows and set out sandbags in anticipation of the storm.
Flood gates in the federal levee system are being closed by the Flood Protection Authority to prevent a storm surge in New Orleans as Ida moves toward land. According to the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, this levee closure includes the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier, which is the largest design-built civil works project in Army Corps history and so large it can be seen from space.
As many residents of Louisiana race to the airports to evacuate ahead of Ida’s landfall, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning of long lines, and suggesting travelers plan accordingly to not miss their flights. According to a spokesperson to TSA Gulf, which encapsulates Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, traffic on the roads surrounding the airports in Louisiana are “severe,” and the lines for security and check-in within the airports are getting longer and longer due to evacuations throughout the state. TSA Gulf recommends travelers arrive at the airport three hours early in order to make their flights.
The entire Louisiana National Guard was activated on Saturday, according to a USA Today reporter. On Saturday afternoon, 4,013 members of the national guard were standing by with even more set to join them. In a press briefing on Friday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced that President Joe Biden approved a pre-landfall federal emergency declaration for the state as Hurricane Ida makes its way toward land. “This declaration is a key part of us being able to respond to Hurricane Ida and really to prepare in advance of landfall,” Edwards said. In addition to the federal declaration approved by Biden, Edwards said he issued an emergency declaration for the state as well the day prior.
Thousands took to the roads ahead of Hurricane Ida's approach to the Gulf Coast on Saturday. Residents hauled boats out of the water and stocked up on sand for their sandbags. Others used plywood to bolster their storefronts and homes.
Baton Rouge Airport announced a series of flight cancelations on its Twitter account as the state of Louisiana prepares for Hurricane Ida. According to the airport, all flights through Delta Air Lines are canceled for Sunday, while all flights through American and United airlines are canceled on Sunday after 10 a.m. Prior to 10 a.m., local time, American and United flights are scheduled to operate as planned, but the airport suggests that travelers check with their airline for the status of their flight.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has declared a state of emergency for Alabama’s coastal and western counties effective at 2:00pm CDT in advance of Hurricane Ida’s expected landfall in the region. The order prohibits price gouging, activates the Alabama National Guard to respond, and facilitates the transportation of emergency supplies. “With a storm like this, we always want to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” Ivey said, noting that flooding and tornadoes are possible in Alabama even as the storm is forecast to landfall in Louisiana.
According to the New Orleans Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), 49.82% of all 560 human-operated oil production platforms in the Gulf Coast have been evacuated due to Hurricane Ida. In a statement, the BSEE announced it had activated its Hurricane Response Team and is monitoring the oil and gas operators in the Gulf as the hurricane intensifies. Personnel have also been evacuated from 11 rigs that do not move, meaning they are stuck to the sea flood. Of the rigs in the Gulf that are able to be moved around on the sea floor, 11 have been relocated, making up 73.3% of all rigs of this type in the Gulf. In total, 90.84% of the current oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut in, and 84.87% of gas production has been shut in. The facilities will be inspected after the hurricane passes before being brought back online.
On their Twitter account, NOAA's Hurricane Hunters, who fly into tropical systems to collect important data, shared a photo from inside the eye of Hurricane Ida. Conditions inside the eye of a hurricane are calm; a hurricanes strongest winds surround the eye. Hurricane Hunters collect invaluable hurricane data, such as measuring the storms central pressure and wind speeds, among other critical data. The Hurricane Hunters operate 10 Lockheed-Martin WC-130J airplanes, according to the group's website.
A photo taken from the NOAA hurricane hunters WP-3D Orion NOAA43 aircraft, nicknamed 'Miss Piggy,' as the team flew directly into the eye of Hurricane Ida over the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday August 28, 2021.
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is asking that people do not arrive at the airport unless they already have travel plans confirmed ahead of Hurricane Ida’s landfall. In addition, the airport asks travelers that plan to fly to reschedule travel with airlines over the phone before arriving at the airport. So far, only seven flights from the New Orleans airport have been canceled and six have been delayed, but 29 flights going into the New Orleans airport have been canceled and three have been delayed, according to Flight Aware.
According to the National Hurricane Center’s latest update, Hurricane Ida is now a Category 2 hurricane with wind speeds sustained at 100mph. Tropical-storm-force winds extend 125 miles from Ida’s center. Ida, which is moving northwest at 16mph, has a minimum central pressure of 976mb. AccuWeather forecasters expect Ida to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane with gusts of 140 to 160mph.
In addition to high winds and dangerous storm surge, Hurricane Ida is expected to be a prolific rainmaker, with AccuWeather meteorologists forecasting rainfall totals of 12 to 18 inches in parts of Louisiana with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of up to 24 inches. Potentially flooding rains are expected well-beyond Louisiana, though, with 4 to 8 inches of rain expected across parts of Tennessee and Kentucky and 1 to 2 inches of rain expected as far as Washington D.C. and New York City as Ida bends eastward after landfall.
In her latest press conference in advance of the arrival of Hurricane Ida, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell told those who are voluntarily evacuating the city that “now is the time to leave.” Cantrell urged those who have opted to stay in the city to hunker down and prepare for damaging winds, power outages, heavy rain and tornadoes. Leveed areas of the city are not under mandatory evacuations. “This storm in no way will be weakening … there are no signs this storm will weaken, and there is always an opportunity for the storm to strengthen,” Cantrell said. AccuWeather meteorologists expect Ida to strike Louisiana as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts of 140 to 160 miles per hour.
Satellite imagery shared by the National Weather Service shows Hurricane Ida beginning to develop an eye, a distinctive feature in the center of a hurricane that signals a strong storm. Conditions in the eye itself are calm, but the storms which surround the eye, the eyewall, are where the highest winds occur. "The greatest impacts of a northward-moving hurricane will be felt not only near the eye, but also on the storm's northern and eastern side in general," AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.
Ida is forecast to rapidly intensify into a dangerous Category 4 hurricane before making landfall in Louisiana. On the AccuWeather RealImpact™Scale for Hurricanes, which accounts for flooding rains, storm surge and economic damage in addition to wind speed, Ida is currently rated a 4.
According to AccuWeather forecasters, wind gusts from Hurricane Ida could peak at an extremely dangerous 180 mph. Ida is forecast to unleash gusts of 140-160mph with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™of 180mph. Wind gusts in Lafayette, Louisiana, could reach up to 120 mph, while wind gusts in New Orleans are expected to be between 60 to 80 miles per hour. Hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or greater are expected along much of the Louisiana coast and may extend as far inland as northern Mississippi and southeastern Arkansas.
Louisiana is facing its first hurricane landfall this weekend for the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season following four landfalls from last year — two of which were major hurricanes. Tropical Storm Cristobal, Hurricane Laura (Category 4), Hurricane Delta (Category 2) and Hurricane Zeta (Category 3) had all made landfall along the Louisiana’s coastline in 2020 with two striking the western shore and the other striking the east. Hurricane Laura, which made landfall in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane, made history as the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the southwestern portion of the state since records began in 1851, according to the National Weather Service.
While Ida’s forecast landfall may change depending on how quickly it strengthens, here’s a list of cities that the storm may impact:
Impacted Cities
Tropical rain and wind will impact the following cities; select a city for more details.
IdaMyrtle Beach
South Carolina
Richmond
Virginia
Augusta
Georgia
Manchester
New Hampshire
Portland
Maine
Traffic at portions of I-10, the southernmost cross-country highway in the U.S., crawled along at a snail's pace Saturday morning as residents evacuated from Hurricane Ida’s the path. However, since Ida strengthened too quickly to call for contraflow, according to New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell, images from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) show packed traffic in lanes heading away from central Louisiana next to nearly empty lanes.
Image of the I-10 and 1-110 split near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as traffic heading westward crawled along at a snail's pace late Saturday morning. (Louisiana DOTD)
As the sun rose on Saturday, Aug. 28, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-East satellite showed the massive size of Hurricane Ida, still a Category 1 hurricane, as it churned in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm’s outer bands swept across the Florida peninsula as barreled northeastward toward Louisiana. The imagery also showed Hurricane Nora, a Category 1 hurricane in the Pacific Ocean, churning off the southwestern coast of Mexico. There is the possibility that the system could produce flooding rainfall in the southwestern U.S. from the middle and end of next week, according to AccuWeather forecasters.
Satellite image of Hurricane Ida as it swirls in the Gulf Coast on Saturday morning, Aug. 28. In the lefthand corner, Hurricane Nora swirls in the eastern Pacific Ocean. (NOAA//NESDIS/STAR GOES-EAST)
Hurricane Ida shown barreling toward Louisiana as a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday morning. (AccuWeather Enahnced RealVue™ Satellite)
The Atlantic basin has been teeming with tropical activity, but through the final week of August the United States had yet to be hit by a hurricane. Four tropical storms -- Danny, Elsa, Fred, and Henri -- have made landfall on U.S. soil, though Elsa skirted by Tampa, about 65 miles to the west as a hurricane, and Henri weakened to a tropical storm in the hours before landfall in Rhode Island. Also, back in early June, Tropical Storm Claudette impacted the U.S., but in an unusual meteorological twist, it was named a tropical storm by the NHC while it was over Louisiana, so it never made a traditional landfall.
In the history of retiring notable tropical storm system names, which dates back to 1954, storm names beginning with the letter 'I' have been retired more times than any other letter. There are 12 retired I-named storms, 11 of which were the ninth-named storm of a season and one, Iota, was the 30th named storm of the hyperactive 2020 season that exhausted the pre-established name set. The notability of I-named storms revolves around the peak of hurricane season, which falls in late August and early September, generally around the same time when a season sees its ninth named storm. The first I-named storm to be retired was Hurricane Ione in 1955.
Preparation is the key to success, and when it comes to hurricane preparation, setting and knowing your evacuation plan can be life-saving. When riding out a hurricane is too dangerous, officials declare evacuation orders not just for the resident’s safety, but also for the safety of first responders who may need to rescue those who stay behind. When developing an evacuation plan, planning a route to a safe destination, locating shelters and stocking up on supplies are essential. Officials recommend packing enough items to last multiple days or even a week away from home.
AccuWeather experts have been warning for weeks that the sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico could be favorable for tropical development, which is anything but favorable for those that may be affected by the strengthened storm. All week, those water temperatures along the coast of Texas and Louisiana were in the 80s and as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit in some spots, ripe for intensifying a storm ahead of landfall. According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, sea surface temperatures in the mid-80s are "significantly above normal for this time of year."
South of the Caribbean islands, those temperatures are around 83 degrees, which is still warm, but indicates that systems will find more favorable conditions for development the closer they get to land.
The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is just past the halfway point and about to enter the peak portion of the activity. With Ida becoming the ninth storm of the season to be given a name, and the fourth to reach hurricane strength, the season is right on pace for what AccuWeather meteorologists forecast back in March. Experts forecast at the time that the season would produce 16-20 named storms and 7-10 hurricanes, three to five of which would reach major strength stage.
However, AccuWeather veteran hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski's team said back then that three to five named storms were expected to make landfall on the U.S. Once Ida makes contact with the U.S., it will be the fifth named storm of the season to do so, making this season even more active for the U.S. than previously thought.
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