Hurricane “Ida” wreaked havoc in southern Louisiana. Hundreds of thousands still have no electricity – and that in the middle of the summer heat. Many people were rescued from the flood areas, but the number of victims could rise.
New Orleans – After the passage of Hurricane Ida, aid workers rescued hundreds of people from flooded areas in the southern US state of Louisiana. More than a million households were still without electricity, as local authorities announced on Monday evening (local time).
“Ida” has now weakened to a tropical storm and, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), reached the neighboring state of Mississippi with wind speeds of up to 55 kilometers per hour. So far there have been two confirmed deaths as a result of the storm. In view of the destruction, however, it is feared that the number of victims will increase.
In the district of St. John the Baptist alone, almost 800 residents were brought to safety from flooded or damaged houses, said community chief Jaclyn Hotard, according to media reports. The water in the place was about 1.5 meters high. “This is one of the worst natural disasters I’ve ever seen,” she said.
According to Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards, dozens of boats, helicopters and special vehicles are deployed to rescue people in the disaster area. Around 40 residents on the island of Grand Isle, which was hit directly by the hurricane on Sunday, were also brought to safety with helicopters.
Around 5000 soldiers of the National Guard were also assigned to clean-up and rescue work. In the coming days they should get reinforcements from other states. Thousands of workers and experts are also busy repairing the electricity networks. New Orleans, with around 400,000 inhabitants, is still without electricity – and that is during the summer heat of all times, when most residents depend on their electrical air conditioning systems.
The governor could not give the people much hope in this regard: “I cannot tell you when the power supply will be restored, I cannot tell you by when all the debris will be cleared,” he said. “That was a catastrophic storm.”
The White House warned that restoring supplies completely could take “weeks”. The damage reported by the electricity suppliers was “catastrophic,” said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Governor Edwards said the US military would bring additional generators to hospitals.
Initially, there were two confirmed fatalities as a result of the storm. A man was killed by a falling tree, another tried to drive his car on a flooded street and drowned, the authorities said.
In view of the widespread damage, there is no “miracle” fear that the number of victims will rise in the coming days, Edwards warned. Because of the floods, many areas are currently difficult to access. In addition, power outages and problems in the cellular network make communication more difficult. Even the emergency number could not be reached at times, according to media reports.
Edwards and the Mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, urged everyone who had found safety elsewhere in time for the storm not to return home until further notice. There are problems with the water supply in many places, there is no electricity, hardly any open shops, and too many streets are still flooded or full of rubble.
“This is not the time to go back,” said Edwards. People should wait for local authorities to explicitly welcome a return.
Videos of the coastguard’s first flights over coastal areas showed a picture of the devastation – many houses appeared to be badly damaged, towns were like a field of rubble. In most places, citizens had been asked to go to safety inland before the storm.
The head of the disaster control agency Fema, Deanne Criswell, and home security minister Alejandro Mayorkas wanted to get an idea of the situation together with the local governor on Tuesday.
“Ida” hit the coast southwest of New Orleans on Sunday as a force four out of five hurricane. The storm hit New Orleans on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This caused devastating damage and floods in 2005, killing around 1,800 people.
Then billions of dollars were invested in flood protection. Edwards and Mayor Cantrell said the system had now passed its acid test by “Ida”. If dams were broken, disaster would have been inevitable, Edwards said.
The situation was different with the power supply: All eight high-voltage lines leading to New Orleans were damaged or destroyed by “Ida”. The head of the utility Entergy, Phillip May, said a massive high-voltage line across the Mississippi River, which had once survived even “Katrina”, was badly damaged and no longer functional. dpa
