Ida pummels Louisiana

None of Louisiana’s levees failed during Hurricane Ida, Gov. John Bel Edwards said on Monday, calling it “good news.”

He said specifically the federal levee systems and hurricane risk reduction systems performed “magnificently.”

The governor said the situation in the state would have been much worse if any of those levee systems failed, “having said that, the damage is still catastrophic,” he said.

He said the damage from the storm was primarily caused by high winds and some areas saw a lot of rain as well.

“We’re going to be dealing with this damage for quite a while and you mentioned the power outage. That is critical for us,” Edwards said. Millions of people in Louisiana are still without power.

President Biden is speaking on Hurricane Ida relief efforts as he meets virtually with a host of leaders involved in the response to the massive storm that has rocked the Gulf Coast.

Biden will meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell and governors and mayors from states and cities affected by Ida after the storm made landfall on Sunday in Louisiana and caused catastrophic damage.

A White House official told CNN that Biden would speak on the relief efforts this afternoon.

Where things stand now: At least one person is dead and nearly half of the state is without power, including the entire city of New Orleans. State officials have begun search and rescue efforts. Ida has since weakened to a tropical storm, but life-threatening flash flooding has drawn on into Monday.

The US Coast Guard took video from a flight showing widespread destruction in Grand Isle, Louisiana, following Hurricane Ida.

Here’s a look at the damage:

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport “is currently conducting a thorough damage assessment,” after Hurricane Ida ripped through the area Sunday.

Over the weekend, CNN reported that the airport anticipated airlines to cancel flights due to Ida.

More than 25,000 workers from at least 32 states and the District of Columbia have been mobilized to support power restoration efforts across Louisiana, The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) said in a statement Monday. 

EEI is an association that represents all investor-owned electric and provides electricity for more than 220 million customers across the United States. 

The workers “will be following additional safety protocols required by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to keep customers and crews safe. When you see crews working to restore power, please keep them safe and healthy by practicing social distancing,” they say.

More than a million people across the state of Louisiana are still without power, poweroutage.us reports. including the entire city of New Orleans.

Shell's Norco refinery is seen during a power outage caused by Hurricane Ida in LaPlace, Louisiana, in the early hours of August 30.

At least nine Louisiana refineries have shut down or reduced their operations because of Hurricane Ida, and the oil-and-gas industry is assessing the damage from the storm.

As of Monday morning, the Energy Department estimates that at least nine refineries in Louisiana have reduced production or shut operations, taking offline about 2.3 million barrels per day of US refinery capacity, or approximately 13% of the nation’s total.

That is unchanged from the agency’s estimates Sunday afternoon.

ExxonMobil said Monday its Baton Rouge refinery did not suffer significant damage from the hurricane. However, Exxon is shutting units at the facility until it regains access to utilities and feedstocks.

Shell said Monday it is still assessing the impact of Hurricane Ida and can’t confirm when operations will be fully resumed. Shell began shutting down its Geismar chemical plant and Norco refining and chemicals facility in Louisiana on Friday.

Marathon Petroleum said Monday it is currently assessing a timeline to safely resume operations at its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery. The facility was shut down before Hurricane Ida arrived.

The Energy Department said the refinery and offshore production outages are not expected to cause any “immediate” supply problems. That’s because Gulf Coast stockpiles of gasoline and distillate (which includes heating oil and diesel) are slightly above seasonal averages.

However, the agency noted that there are likely to be “limited temporary localized” gas station disruptions because of higher demand caused by people evacuating the region.

Gasoline futures rose nearly 2% to $2.32 a gallon on Monday morning. When trading opened Sunday evening, gasoline futures soared more than 3% to the highest levels since October 2014. 

The key will be how much wind and flooding damage Hurricane Ida inflicted on America’s energy infrastructure – and when systems can get back online.

Analysts are more worried about the status of decades-old refineries in the path of Hurricane Ida than offshore production platforms, which typically resume operations within days of a storm.

“A lot of these refineries were built 50 years ago – when concern about hurricanes was much lower,” said Pavel Molchanov, energy analyst at Raymond James. “Companies along the coast need to become more resilient because climate change is making hurricanes more frequent and more severe.”

President Biden is set to speak later this afternoon on Hurricane Ida relief efforts as he meets virtually with a host of leaders involved in the response to the massive storm that has rocked the Gulf Coast.

Biden will meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell and governors and mayors from states and cities affected by Ida after the storm made landfall on Sunday in Louisiana and caused catastrophic damage.

The White House said the President would be receiving regular briefings throughout the day from his homeland security team on the effects of the hurricane. 

Ida made landfall in Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It has tied with 2020’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest on record to hit the state. 

Biden has approved the state of Louisiana’s request for a major federal disaster declaration and the state of Mississippi’s request for an emergency declaration. These declarations allow federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Ida. 

The President visited FEMA’s headquarters in Washington on Sunday to receive a briefing on the storm. He warned the hurricane was a “life-threatening storm” and said “its devastation is likely to be immense.”

“As soon as the storm passes, we’re going to put this – we’re going to put the country’s full might behind the rescue recovery, and I mean that,” Biden added.

The President said he had been in touch with the governors of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and that his team had been in touch with other state, local and federal officials in the region. 

Biden said equipment and response teams had been positioned in the region, including 2.5 million meals, 3 million liters of water and generators. He said more than 100 ambulances and emergency medical teams had been activated and that his administration had been working with local partners to open “dozens and dozens” of shelters.

More than 80% of Entergy’s 1.1 million customers across Louisiana are without power, the energy company said in a statement Monday morning.

“At 7 a.m., we had 888,229 power outages in Louisiana due to Ida’s destruction. Power outages continue to increase today as the storm moves through Mississippi,” the company said.

In total, more than a million people across the state of Louisiana are still without power, poweroutage.us reports.

As of 12:56 p.m. ET, at least 1,042,908 customers were without power, a small drop from 1,045,000 earlier in the hour.

The site aggregates live power outage data from across the US and tracks more than two million customers across Louisiana.

Paul Middendorf, a volunteer with Crowdsource Rescue, has spent hours rescuing people in his canoe after driving through the storm to LaPlace, Louisiana.

Middendorf said he spent the night in a parking garage in Baton Rouge when he got the call. After the storm had died down enough to drive the Crowdsource Rescue team said it had reports pouring in of people in LaPlace in dire need of rescue.

He got on I-10, and was able to make it to LaPlace despite the major thoroughfare being littered with downed trees and power lines.

Middendorf says he was supposed to meet up with others, but when he arrived in LaPlace cell service was out. He drove as far as he could until floodwaters prevented him from going further.

He paddled into a neighborhood and went to several of houses, rescuing dozens of people, he said. 

“Most of [the rescues] were in the attic,” he said. “The water in the back of that neighborhood was about ten feet deep or higher.”

As the hours ticked away, Middendorf said the water did begin to recede. Although it was only knee deep in some parts, it continues to be chest deep with a strong current, in many areas that are still flooded in LaPlace.

Children’s Hospital New Orleans is running on back-up power after being impacted by Hurricane Ida, said Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief and chief academic officer of the hospital.

“We’ve been on back-up power for about 12 hours now. And that provides adequate power to all of the patient care areas, the nonessential areas of the hospital are dark,” Kline told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kline added that while the hospital building didn’t “suffer any major structural damage,” the building did have some “water intrusion” on the ground floor, including in a new, $300 million addition to the hospital which just opened two days before the hurricane hit.

“We also had water coming in through the roof in several locations. We lost some flashing off the roof. We didn’t suffer any major structural damage at all. So we’ve got some repairs to make. But, the good news is that all of the children were safe and sound inside of the hospital through the hurricane. We had a team of professionals locked in the building with them taking care of them and everyone came through in good shape,” Kline said.

Kline said the hospital is concerned about “power situation” in New Orleans.

Kline also expressed how the hurricane added more of a toll to the hospital after summer dealing with Covid-19 cases.

“The hurricane hit New Orleans following a ‘tough’” summer for the hospital, Kline said.

“We’ve had a tough stretch here. We’ve had a summer of virus infections. First RSV and then Covid-19 and our nurse and doctors are exhausted, frankly. July was the busiest month in the history of the hospital… in terms of number of patients admitted to the hospital and to our intensive care units and through our emergency department. And so everyone already was really tested physically and emotionally. And the last thing in the world that we needed was a Category 4 hurricane,” he said.

Hurricane Ida’s direct hit on the nation’s oil and gasoline industry could send gas prices higher, exacerbating inflation that’s already hurting American consumers.

But how much prices will increase, and for how long, will depend on the extent of the damage. The storm hit Louisiana and the Gulf Coast on Sunday, killing at least one person and knocking out power for more than 1 million customers. 

The price of a gallon of regular gas stood at $3.15 Monday, according AAA, up only a fraction of a penny from the previous day’s average, and down 1 cent from a week ago. But wholesale gasoline futures were about 5 cents higher in early trading Monday. They were up as much as 10 cents a gallon in Sunday night trading, suggesting retail prices could soon follow suit. 

More than 95% of US oil production at offshore platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were shut down ahead of Hurricane Ida, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the federal regulator overseeing those facilities. They will remain shut until further notice, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service, which tracks prices for AAA. 

Louisiana is home to three of the nation’s seven largest refineries, and accounts for 17.5% of the nation’s overall refining capacity at its 15 refineries, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Another concern is that major pipelines carrying gas, diesel and jet fuel from the Gulf Coast to other states were also shut as a precaution ahead of the storm. The shutdown of one of those, the Colonial Pipeline, after a computer hack earlier this year, caused price spikes and gasoline shortages along parts of the East Coast.

Although the flow of oil from offshore platforms and rigs was expected to return to normal within a few days, flooding or prolonged power outages could keep the refineries and pipelines offline, which could also push gasoline prices up, Kloza said. 

Louisiana State Police told residents stranded in the wake of Hurricane Ida, “it may be difficult to get help to you for quite some time.”

“If you are stranded, it may be difficult to get help to you for quite some time,” state police said in a Facebook post Monday noting that communication is very limited in certain impacted areas.

While troopers continue assisting in clearing roadways, “the full extent of damage is yet to be seen.” 

Search and rescue workers are still not able to access certain impacted areas, the post said.

Louisiana State Police requested residents refrain from traveling “as it is these dangerous conditions that can create additional emergencies that could be prevented.”

Highway 51 is flooded after Hurricane Ida struck LaPlace, Louisiana.

It’s almost noon in New Orleans and Ida remains a tropical storm, dumping rain as it heads inland.

Right now, one person is confirmed dead, but Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said that as search and rescue efforts get underway, he “fully expects the death count will go up considerably throughout the day.”

Here’s what you need to know this afternoon.

Damage:

Rescue efforts:

Federal help:

Coming up: President Biden is poised to speak later this afternoon on Ida relief efforts, a White House official tells CNN.

How you can help: Aid workers are on the ground helping with recovery. You can make a difference through the organizations listed here.

AT&T says Hurricane Ida had a significant impact on its wireless networks in Louisiana, with only 60% of it operating normally.

The company says that power outages and storm damage are the cause of the decreased service.

The company says their Network Disaster Recovery teams are currently, “working to gain access to these locations as soon as possible to restore services.”

CNN is owned by AT&T.

A CNN analysis of every official forecast for Hurricane Ida from the National Hurricane Center shows that the center’s forecasts for the storm were significantly better than average.

All forecasts showed the storm making a landfall in south-central to southeastern Louisiana. 

Forecast tracks for the storm began on Thursday morning, more than 72 hours in advance of the eventual landfall of the storm. 

A total of 14 forecasts tracks were put out by the NHC between Thursday and Sunday morning. All of them showed landfall less than 50 miles from the actual landfall location of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.  

The first track issued showed the greatest error in distance, showing landfall about 45 miles west of Port Fourchon. The average track error from the NHC at 72-hours lead-time is 96 miles, meaning the forecast showed less than half of the average error for a three-day tropical cyclone forecast. The 48-hour forecast was also nearly half the average error, showing a landfall roughly 35 miles from Port Fourchon (the average error at 48-hours is 65 miles).

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state is sending 132 firefighters, 30 fire engines, 14 crew members, and a helicopter to Louisiana in order to assist with response and recovery efforts.

Texas A&M Task Force One is also providing urban search and rescue capabilities in Louisiana, the governor said in a statement.

“We will never forget the kindness, generosity, and support offered by the people of Louisiana during Hurricane Harvey four years ago, and we are eager to support them in their own time of need,” the statement continued.

One official in New Orleans says people should prepare for power to be out for weeks, something he called the “worst case scenario.”

Joe Giarrusso, a city council member, said power companies have been telling city officials that it could be as soon as few days, but he thinks that estimate is “optimistic.”

“I think we have to be realistic at the same time and prepare people for a worst case scenario just like Hurricane Laura and Lake Charles where it took weeks,” Giarrusso told CNN on Monday.

He said long-term power outages are not just inconvenient, but dangerous. Giarrusso said the area is in the middle of summer weather, and while the storm cooled down temperatures, the humidity is still very high.

Giarrusso said it also means there are a lot of things that people might want to do that they can’t – like cleaning out their refrigerator, going to the grocery store to get food, or just getting a cup of coffee.

“Being without power is not just a slight inconvenience, but it is a major fact in quality of life and how we deal with it to improve it as quickly as possible,” he said.

Ida remains a tropical storm as it heads inland, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers reports.

The storm should be offshore by Thursday into Friday, Myers says.

St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper provided an update today on conditions overnight, which he described as “horrendous.”

“We’ve just been through a horrendous night with winds, rain, gusts, water coming up, rivers rising, power outages,” Cooper said. “It’s incredible.” 

The parish, which is located north of New Orleans, is still under a curfew Monday, he said in a Facebook update. 

Local crews and officials, the Louisiana National Guard, and good Samaritans are assessing damage, clearing roads, and looking for residents who need help this morning, Cooper said. 

Rivers across the area are “swollen” and will crest over the coming days. 

Local hospitals are “at capacity,” he said, but emergency rooms and urgent care facilities are open and accepting patients if an emergency warrants. 

“As of now, we have over 110,000 customers” without power, Cooper said, adding that “it’s probably going to be days if not weeks for some, if not all, to have their power restored.” 

Gov. John Bel Edwards told the residents of Louisiana Monday that clean up from Hurricane Ida “is going to be a fairly long ordeal.”

“This is going to be a fairly long ordeal in terms of getting everything cleaned up and certainly getting everything repaired,” Edwards said in a statement posted to social media.

The state’s efforts remain focused on saving lives, Edwards said.

“Obviously Hurricane Ida packed a very powerful punch. She came in and did everything that was advertised unfortunately,” he said.

Edwards said he knows there are people waiting to be rescued and said the state has deployed “thousands of people” to help with search and rescue efforts.

The governor urged residents to do their best to take care of themselves and their neighbors while they wait for additional assistance.

Edwards said the levee system “performed extremely well, especially the federal levees.”

“But at the end of the day, the storm surge, the rain, the wind all had devastating impacts across southeast Louisiana,” the governor said.

A New Orleans resident said her house suffered some damage with broken windows and water that came in from under the doors after Hurricane Ida moved through on Sunday.

Carolyn Angela Johnson Williams said a tree which was blowing towards her house narrowly missed hitting her house. 

Williams said she has lived in the house for 75 years and has survived many hurricanes, but this was the worst she’s ever seen. 

“They say it was 185 mile an hour winds, and I believe it,” she told CNN’s Nadia Romero. 

Video from near her house shows massive trees fallen onto power lines and vehicles.  

Watch:

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As the National Guard, Tennessee Department of Transportation, and volunteer agencies continue cleanup efforts after a devastating and deadly flood earlier this month, the city of Waverly is bracing for potential impacts from Tropical Storm Ida. 

Humphreys County experienced catastrophic flooding on Aug. 21, an event that claimed 20 lives. The extent of the damage is still being assessed, Collier said. 

Collier said at least 838 loads of debris have been hauled away so far. 

The county is distributing tarps so residents can cover openings in damaged structures. The Waverly Department of Public Safety is prepared to deploy should evacuations become necessary, the release says. 

The US Coast Guard conducted overflights near Galliano, Louisiana, to identify hazards and asses damage in the area following Hurricane Ida’s landfall.

The images posted on Twitter show the scale of damage from above:

Tropical storm and surge warnings have been discontinued for the Louisiana coast west of the Pearl River, including Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, and metropolitan New Orleans.

A tropical storm and surge warning remain in effect from the mouth of the Pearl River to the Alabama/Florida border.

Tropical Storm Ida was located 40 miles southwest of Jackson, Mississippi, with winds of 40 mph, according to the 11 a.m. ET National Hurricane Center update. Heavy rainfall and flash flood threats continue over much of Mississippi, Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle.

Two neighbors in New Orleans who chose to shelter and place through Hurricane Ida say their homes are damaged, but people in the community are pulling together and helping each other.

Tron Gilpin and Judy Arabie, who live next to each other in a duplex, said they didn’t sleep last night because they were so worried.

At around 6:00 am “the power pole broke and we could hear the glass break from inside of the house and we looked out and that is when the power went out – and a lot of wind,” Gilpin said.

“The gust of winds was the worst part of it all,” Arabie said, adding that she has water damage from rain inside her house and Gilpin has a hole in his roof where water was coming in.

Both neighbors said they came outside early Monday morning and saw the whole neighborhood starting to pick up debris. Some people had brooms, others were on their hands and knees cleaning up as much as they could, they said.

The neighborhood is a “tight knit family and we help each other,” Arabie said, adding, “we’re just going to pull together and do what we gotta do.”

Compared to other storms they have lived through, Arabie said Hurricane Ida was worse than Hurricane Zeta which hit the area in October 2020.

Natchez, Mississippi, mayor Dan Gibson said they were “grateful to report that everything is well,” in a news conference Monday.

While there are homes without power and trees downs Natchez was not as affected by other areas, Gibson said. 

Gibson reported that while trees are down and there are power outages, the roads “for the most part” are in good condition. He also said that work crews have been out “since early morning, sawing trees, making sure intersections are clear” and that the city is working to get the power restored. “I believe all services in the city…will be back to normal,” Gibson added 

Meteorologists had forecasted the eye of the hurricane would pass over Natchez, Gibson said. “It could have been a lot worse,” the mayor said.

East Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said the parish was “spared from a horrific impact” of Hurricane Ida in a video posted on twitter. 

She said “much” of East Baton Rouge is without power. Entergy Louisiana is reporting that at least 137,000 customers are without power and Demco is reporting more than 30,000 customers without power, Weston Broome said.  

Weston Broome asked residents to stay at home and off the roads since conditions are not safe.

Ida is no longer a hurricane, but it continues to leave a path of damage. The tropical storm is moving over southwestern Mississippi and a threat of flooding remains in some parts of Louisiana.

Ida slammed into Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, tying with 2020’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest ever to hit the state.

Here’s a look at what the scene is like in some parts of Louisiana:

Dartanian Stovall looks at the house that collapsed with him inside during the height of Hurricane Ida in New Orleans.

Highway 51 is flooded after Hurricane Ida struck LaPlace, Louisiana.

A tree lies on a house in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans on Monday, August 30.

An apartment building that burned overnight after Hurricane Ida struck in Kenner, Louisiana.

Traffic diverts around downed power lines in Metairie, Louisiana.

Flooded streets are seen in Kenner, Louisiana, on the morning of August 30.

A massive oak tree stretches across a street in New Orleans.

New Orleans Police detectives Adam Buckner, left, and Alexander Reiter, look through debris from a collapsed building in New Orleans on August 30.

Slidell, Louisiana, Mayor Greg Cromer said there is water in “every neighborhood in town” and local officials had to deploy boats to conduct water rescues early this morning.

“In about a three hour period, we had probably five to six foot rise in the bayou and the lake estuary system that pushed water into a number of people’s homes on the south side of our community,” Cromer said.

Slidell is located on the far east end of Lake Pontchartrain. 

The mayor said that the water seems to be receding in the bayou area, but they do not think they have seen the “height of it yet.” Cromer said officials are now using high-water vehicles to take people out of the neighborhood to the lower side of town.

Cromer warned the worst of the flooding could still be coming.

The mayor said that due to downed power lines and sporadic service, some people have been able to get through to officials on the 911 systems, while others flagged police officers after leaving their homes.

He added that some people waded out waist deep and flagged police officers down and told them what was going on, “and we were able to get in there and find these folks,” he said. “But it has been a pretty long morning for our first responders, our police officers and some of our firemen.

Cromer said he hopes to have their electric grid back up in three to five days, “which would be much, much quicker than the two weeks it took after Katrina.”

Thousands of National Guard personnel are going to the Gulf Coast to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, vice director for logistics of the Joint Staff, said on Monday.

Taylor said in coordination with the National Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), about 5,200 people will be activated in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.

Additionally, Taylor said the US Army Corp of Engineers is operational in New Orleans and is “assessing the storm’s impact.”

The Department of Defense also “stands ready” to assist as requested by FEMA, Taylor said.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday that as search and rescue efforts get underway in the wake of Hurricane Ida, he “fully expects the death count will go up considerably throughout the day.”

Over 900 search and rescue personnel from 16 different states, plus the Louisiana National Guard, are on the ground assisting with the effort, which began around 3:00 a.m. this morning, Edwards said.

The governor said the storm made landfall “very much as advertised” and brought catastrophic wind and rain.

The amount of surge and rain Ida pushed into the state caused severe flooding, Edwards said. The governor said there are people still sheltering on the second floor of their homes and in attics.

Edwards said the amount of debris and standing water is making it difficult for first responders to access the hardest hit areas.

He said almost all of southeast Louisiana is without power and that all eight major transmission lines that feed electricity into the greater New Orleans area have failed.

Edwards said the levee system “performed extremely well.”

“If we had to deal with a failed levee system this morning, it would be completely unimaginable and thank goodness that is not what we are dealing with today,” he said.

A trailing outer band from Tropical Storm Ida is bringing some locally heavy rain and gusty winds to portions of southeastern Louisiana, including in the hard-hit location of Grand Isle.

This could lead to some additional localized flooding, winds of 30 mph or more, and lightning.

These storms will continue on and off into the afternoon and could complicate relief efforts in the region.

Officials in Plaquemines Parish say a levee that failed as Hurricane Ida hit on Sunday has been sealed, but crews continue to work on it today and assess how badly it was damaged.

Kirk Lepine, the president of the parish, said they are dropping more sandbags and using boats, a helicopter and drones to get a better picture of the condition it is in.

Lepine said they have not received any 911 calls from people still in the area. He said the area where the water is is “pretty desolate,” adding they are “pretty confident there is not a lot of people there.”

Many people followed evacuation orders and left the area, he said.

A Monday post on the Plaquemines Parish Facebook page said, “Storm surge in the Myrtle Grove area reached Highway 23 last night (as expected) and moved in a northerly direction.” Highway 23 is where the levee is located. 

Crews made a temporary levee system using Hesco barriers, which PPSO described as bags. 

“Last night the storm surge breached the temporary Hesco barrier causing the surge to continue north. The temporary Hesco barrier has been repaired and we are currently assessing the situation to assure there wasn’t any breach to the permanent levee system,” the sheriff’s office said. 

“At this point, we are still monitoring the situation, but it appears the surge stopped just north of the Alliance Refinery near the Cypresswood Inn,” the post says. 

There are four flash flood emergencies in place for portions of southeastern Louisiana through late morning.

Flash flooding is already occurring and continues in these warned areas.

Emergency management reported flash flooding in Laplace in the 7 a.m. CDT hour (8 a.m. ET). Between 8 and 16 inches of rain have fallen there. Local law enforcement has also reported flash flooding in Lafitte and Jean Lafitte.

Heavy rain has ended in the area of Hammond, Tickfaw, and Ponchatoula. However, stream gauge reports continue to show rapid rises on area streams and flash flooding will continue for several more hours. Between 10 and 18 inches of rain have fallen there.

The flash flood emergency for Alliance continues due to the levee failure near highway 23.

The National Weather Service in New Orleans warns these are extremely dangerous and life-threatening situations. “Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order,” they warned.

Matthew Marchetti, the spokesperson for Crowdsource Rescue, tells CNN that they have rescued around 150 people — out of the 1,000 reports they received — in Louisiana. 

Crowdsource Rescue is a Houston-based non-profit and was created during Hurricane Harvey.

They currently have three teams operating in LaPlace, Louisiana. They are currently en route to Lafitte, Louisiana, in hopes of assisting rescue efforts there.

“Lafitte is a bit of a technical challenge,” Marchetti tells CNN. “Long boat ride because of road issues.”

More than 1 million customers in Louisiana were without power as of early Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.US. Officials say those who have electricity are getting it from generators, but it is important to use them safely to avoid carbon monoxide deaths.

Carbon monoxide is a gas that has no odor, color or taste. You wouldn’t be able to see or smell it, but it can be very dangerous to your health and even fatal.

If there is too much carbon monoxide in the air you are breathing, your ability to absorb oxygen can be diminished, resulting in serious tissue damage, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Generators and other gasoline powered equipment are common sources of carbon monoxide.

What to watch for: The initial symptoms are flu-like, but without a fever. They may include dull headache, weakness, dizziness and nausea. High-level poisoning can result in vomiting, shortness of breath, confusion, blurred vision and loss of consciousness.

How to stay safe: “These devices should never be used inside an enclosed space, home, basement, garage, or camper — or even outside near an open window or window air conditioner,” the CDC said.

If patients show such symptoms after a hurricane or another disaster, health care professionals should consider carbon monoxide poisoning, the CDC said. “Administer 100% oxygen until the patient is symptom-free or until a diagnosis of CO poisoning has been ruled out,” the CDC said.

Here are some more tips from the National Weather Service:

Louisiana State Troopers spokesperson Lt. Melissa Matey tells CNN that residents need to stay home while they work to clear roads across the state.

Matey says that troopers are seeing a lot of trees and power lines down across roads. They’ve also seen a number of damaged roofs and vehicles, in addition to received reports of flooded homes.

They, like many across Louisiana, are having trouble with communication because of downed power lines and communication towers being knocked offline. 

What does it feel like to be in the eye of Category 4 hurricane? Hours and hours of relentless wind is how CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam described it.

Hurricane Ida hit the shores of Louisiana as a strong Category 4 hurricane early Sunday afternoon. A few short hours later, Van Dam, his Producer Kay Jones and Photojournalist Jonathan Schaer, found themselves in the eye of the storm as it slowly moved over their location in Houma, Louisiana. 

“The eye wall, the strongest part of the storm went directly over us,” said Van Dam during a live CNN report. “It was a nightmare, it unfolded in front of our eyes. It was a relentless, never-ending fury of category 4 hurricane winds.” 

The extreme winds beat down on the team’s location for hours.

The eye of the storm is normally thought of as a calmness in the midst of the storm, but that wasn’t the case this time, this crew didn’t get that small bit of respite. 

Jones, a seasoned CNN producer who has covered many hurricanes for the network, said “by far, this is the strongest storm I’ve ever covered or been in.”

Jones hunkered down in her hotel – a heavily reinforced concrete structure that was built post-Hurricane Katrina and selected for its ability to withstand a powerful storm – but could still feel the building moving. 

“My room was on the 3rd floor,” said Jones, “it was shaking off and on for hours.” 

While the shaking did eventually stop, the forceful winds continued until around 10 p.m. CT. 

In addition to the wind, there was also a lot of rain associated with the storm, but luckily for the team their wind-battered hotel escaped much of the flooding experienced in other parts of the state. 

By 2 a.m. CT, the storm had cleared Houma leaving toppled trees and debris in its path. Despite having no electricity, the CNN team was back at it, live on the air relaying their harrowing experience inside the storm along with reports of damage all around them for the world to see. 

Neighborhoods near the French Quarter in New Orleans are waking up to damage that is trapping them in their homes Monday morning after Hurricane Ida swept through the area.

CNN’s Nadia Romero described the destruction – trees are down all over the street, blocking the road for people trying to get in and out of their house. Those trees are also preventing emergency crews from reaching people.

Power lines are down along with street lamps. More than a million people are without power this morning all across Louisiana and New Orleans is still completely in the dark, Romero reports.

Next, officials will have to access damage like this all over the city and start clearing the debris. That means the power will likely not be fixed any time soon, Romero reports.

Watch CNN’s Nadia Romero report from the scene:

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Lafourche Parish said Monday that re-entry into the area will be delayed for up to a week. 

The parish said first responders are “working around the clock to clear the roads for residents to return.” A curfew will remain in place until the roads area clear, the release said. 

The parish is currently under a boil water advisory with many residents completely without water, the release said. 

With assessments set to begin Tuesday, local officials are asking residents to refrain from returning home until an all-clear is given. 

Damaged vehicles sit in front of a partially collapsed building in New Orleans on August 29.

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph, the National Hurricane Center says.

Ida’s arrival comes on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and was described by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards as “one of the strongest storms to make landfall in Louisiana in modern times.” It tied as the state’s most powerful storm ever with Hurricane Laura from last year and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856.

Witnesses describe “losing roofs” and more than one million are without power in the state.

Aid workers are on the ground helping with recovery. You can make a difference through the organizations listed here.

The Impact Your World team will continue to update this list as more ways to help become available.

Jefferson Parish “has called for a mandatory curfew for all of Jefferson Parish,” until 6 a.m. CT (9 a.m. ET) Tuesday after widespread damage from Hurricane Ida. 

In a Facebook post, President Cynthia Lee Sheng noted the curfew “will be in effect from 6 a.m. on Monday, August 30, 2021 until at least 6 a.m. on Tuesday, August 31, 2021.” 

Teams are out assessing the damage now, and until that is completed, “All residents are advised to stay off the roads as there are many hazards,” the post says. 

Councilman Dominick Impastato said “basically every major thoroughfare has power lines that are across the street.” 

“Please make plans to be somewhere else for the next week, two weeks, something significant,” Impastato said. 

Entergy Louisiana said “It will likely take days to determine the extent of damage to our power grid,” after Hurricane Ida slammed into the region on Sunday.

Beyond the days to assess the damage, Entergy tweeted that it will take “far longer to restore electrical transmission to the region.”  

A massive tower collapsed and power lines are in the Mississippi River, according to Jefferson County Emergency Management Director Joseph Valiente.

Much of the region is without power on Monday morning. According to PowerOutage.us, more than 857,000 Entergy customers are out of power across the state. 

Entergy added that “The most dangerous part of a storm is often just after it has passed,” because “downed power lines may still be energized.” The energy company is asking everyone to stay away from power lines as their crews assess the situation.

As daylight hit, authorities launched teams to conduct search and rescue operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. The credible reports paint a terrible picture on the ground, Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said.

“Unfortunately, the worst case scenario seems to have happened,” Lee Sheng said, adding that some houses are flooded with water that’s “beyond chest high. It’s up to the top of the roof.”

The weather conditions and power outages made it tough for teams to work overnight.

“This is an area that has a lot of swampland, alligators, very dangerous conditions. They had to wait for the sun to come up this morning. They had a strategy,” Lee Sheng explained. “We have people out there ready to clear roads. We’re going to have boats, high-water vehicles. Our first responders are ready to go. They just needed the daylight to be able to do their best work.”

Ida slammed Louisiana with devastating force as a Category 4 hurricane Sunday. Although Ida has now weakened to a tropical storm, it has the power to deliver damaging winds still.

Strong winds, especially in gusts, are expected to continue over southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi through this morning. 

Rainfall is the greatest concern right now. 

The threat of excessive rainfall will be over the Central Gulf Coast and Tennessee Valley on Monday into Tuesday says the Weather Prediction Center. And then up toward the Northeast. 

Over 50 million people are under flash flood watches from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast. 

You can follow Ida’s path here.

Watch:

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The Louisiana National Guard said Monday they have begun search and rescue efforts after Hurricane Ida left catastrophic damage throughout the state.

According to a tweet, Guard members set out early this morning in LaPlace with other local and state agencies.

LaPlace is located in St. John the Baptist Parish and is around 30 miles northwest of New Orleans.

The LANG said Sunday it has activated 4,900 Guardsmen and staged 195 high-water vehicles, 73 rescue boats, 34 helicopters to assist with the response to the storm.

Jefferson County Emergency Management Director Joseph Valiente told CNN affiliate WVUE that there are power lines in the Mississippi River after an electrical tower collapsed during Hurricane Ida. 

“We know there’s transmission lines in the river, we know it fell toward the river, but we don’t know whether or not a part of the structure is actually in the river itself,” Valiente said. 

“We just haven’t been able to get to that area because it’s difficult to reach, given the amount of wind and rain that’s been falling,” he said.  

The tower is at the Avondale transmission station, he said. There is “widespread” damage on both the east and west bank of the river at this substation. The tower which collapsed is on the west bank, Valiente said. 

Two photos were sent to Jefferson County by a resident who saw the collapse. 

The parish notified the Coast Guard immediately, as this will be a “salvage mission,” he said. “The lines have to be removed, of course the Coast Guard will oversee that process.” 

With the tower being down and the region being largely out of power, Valiente said “it’s going to slow the recovery process down,” adding that “time’s not on our side here.” 

“Hurricanes find a way to find weaknesses in the system,” adding that each storm presents its own set of “difficulties and hazards,” he said. 

But Valiente said, “I’m as shocked as you are that this transmission tower fell.”  

As Ida slowly drifts to the north, it will provide favorable atmospheric conditions for tornadoes to form. Those conditions will be most ideal on the right side of the storm, says CNN meteorologist Haley Brink.

The storm predictions center says there is a slight risk (level 2 of 5) of severe weather for tornado potential over the Central Gulf Coast parts through Tuesday morning.

A tornado watch has been issued for portions of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that is in effect through the afternoon Monday.

Tropical Storm Ida now has sustained winds of 45 mph and is moving northward over southwestern Mississippi, with the center about 65 miles south-southwest of Jackson, Mississippi, according to the 8 a.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center. 

Ida continues to pose a dangerous flash flood threat to portions of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern Alabama this morning.

Flash flood watches are posted for over 50 million people extending from Louisiana to West Virginia.

Where it may go next: Ida will move through central Mississippi this afternoon and is expected to pick up forward movement tonight as it tracks over northeastern Mississippi and then the Tennessee Valley on Tuesday.

Damage in Lafourche Parish on Aug. 29, 2021.

Ida made landfall Sunday with devastating force as a Category 4 hurricane Sunday. As the sun comes up in Louisiana, the first images of damage are coming through.

The below video from Lafourche Parish shows the devastation in the town.

Although Ida has now weakened to a tropical storm, its impact continues to be widespread this morning with tropical storm force winds, storm surge, and very heavy rainfall. 

WATCH:

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As the sun comes up over hurricane-battered Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards is urging residents to “please remain where you are.” 

Edwards asked those impacted to follow the instructions of local officials and continue to be vigilant as search and rescue efforts and damage assessment continues.  

At the peak of Hurricane Ida on Sunday, a hospital under the Thibodaux Regional Health Systems experienced a scare. As the power went out, two of the hospital’s five generators, that served its critical care areas, automatically stopped working.

As teams began to troubleshoot, the hospital staff resorted to drastic measures to be able to provide critical care to the patients, which also included Covid-19 patients.

That was not the only hospital impacted in the region. Two hospitals under the Ochsner Health System, for example, had roof and water leaks and dozens of patients at those facilities had to be relocated.

Deputies in Jefferson Parish “have returned to the streets and are currently patrolling and trying to determine the accessibility of our roadways,” according to a post on Facebook.

As daylight breaks in the region, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office is asking “everyone to remain sheltered at this time as unnecessary travel is dangerous given the current roadway conditions.”

At least one bridge in Lafitte suffered damage from Ida and residents should not drive on it, the parish said.

“The Kerner Swing Bridge in Lafitte was hit by a barge,” the post says. “We do not believe it is structurally safe.”

The Sheriff’s Office says “multiple cellular service providers” are having a hard time routing 911 calls.

Late on Sunday, the Jefferson Parish Water Department announced a boil water advisory for the entire East Bank of Jefferson Parish, after a loss of pressure in the distribution system, their Facebook page said.

Storm surge and strong winds from Hurricane Ida stopped the flow of the Mississippi River near New Orleans on Sunday and actually caused it to reverse.

The US Geological Survey says that it is “extremely uncommon.”

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 (NHC) said. The hurricane arrived on the 16th anniversary of the historically devastating Hurricane Katrina.

“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 on Sunday rose about seven feet due to storm surge pushing up the river at the USGS gauge, located in Belle Chasse, about 20 miles south of New Orleans in southeastern Louisiana.

“During that time, the flow of the river slowed from about 2 feet per second down to about half a foot per second in the other direction,” Perrien said.

Perrien pointed out that the gauge does not measure the flow of the entire river, so it is possible that the deeper portions of the river did not reverse flow directions.

Read the full story here.

Assessment teams await daylight to go on the ground to inspect damages caused by Ida, but significant impact is already expected, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said.

“It remained a Category 4 for several hours over the southern parts of Louisiana. So they just got the impacts from the winds, from the significant and intense rainfall as well as that storm surge for several hours,” Criswell told CNN.

As Ida moves as a Category 1 storm into Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia, Criswell said there’s still going to be significant rainfall, and people need to remain aware of the risks.

Meanwhile, “widespread structural damage” has already been reported, with a number of buildings that may have collapsed, hospitals running on generator power, and some people stranded, she said Monday.

“My initial reports are the levees around New Orleans did what they were supposed to do, but that intense rainfall, that’s going to create a lot of urban flooding across many of the jurisdictions — New Orleans, Baton Rouge and all of the different localities in between. ” Criswell said. “It’s going to strain the drainage system. That with the debris, so it’s going to take a while for some of that to clear up.”

Officials in a parish badly affected by Hurricane Ida are warning people not to go out sight-seeing as the sun comes up.

Ida ripped through the area and the parish has “received numerous calls of fallen trees on homes and roadways,” reads a post on the St. Tammany Parish Facebook page.

Once the sun comes up teams will start “assessing and clearing the roadways,” the post says.

“If you are planning on sight-seeing, don’t. If you are on the roadways, you will be preventing us from clearing the roads safely and efficiently,” St. Tammany adds. 

And Slidell Police Department said their roof has been “compromised” due to Ida.

“You may have heard reports of the Slidell Police Department’s roof being compromised and water pouring into several offices. This is true, but has been temporarily repaired. We are OK,” reads a Facebook post from the force.

The department said overnight they received several reports of “downed trees and power lines, trees that have fallen on to houses, and people asking to be rescued from their homes,” and posted several photos showing large trees down across roadways.

Due to power outages across the parish, all of St. Tammany is under a boil water advisory.

The National Weather Service in New Orleans tweeted a long list of flooded street this morning, urging residents to “stay sheltered in place unless you absolutely have to travel.”

Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana with devastating force as a Category 4 hurricane Sunday. The entire city of New Orleans is currently without power after it was hit with “catastrophic transmission damage,” the city office said in a Tweet Sunday night. 

Entergy Louisiana said some of its customers could be without power for weeks. And the storm surge of up to 15 feet and winds as strong as 150 mph could leave parts of southeast Louisiana “uninhabitable for weeks or months,” according to a local hurricane statement from the NWS New Orleans.

In the wake of Hurricane Ida, the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office (LPSO) said it has deployed its deputies “in full force” to find people in need of help.

According to LPSO, cell phone service and phone lines remain out of service, including 911 and the Sheriff’s Office.

“Thousands of you have not heard from loved ones in many hours and are concerned about the welfare. We are spread out throughout the parish seeking to find anyone in need of help,” LPSO said.

The tweet acknowledged those who evacuated are likely anxious to get home to survey the damage and assist other impacted residents.

“Today is not that day. Parish officials will be making an announcement about reentry in the near future, but it will not be today,” LPSO said.

A curfew remains in effect “and will be strictly enforced,” the sheriff’s office added.

Montegut and Bourg firefighters inspect downed trees on a road in Bourg, Louisiana as Hurricane Ida passes on Aug. 29, 2021.

Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana with devastating force as a Category 4 hurricane Sunday. Although Ida has now weakened to a tropical storm, resources to help those affected have been impacted.

Hospital staff are relying on generators to keep life-saving machines running and sleeping on air mattresses in their workplaces. New Orleans 9-1-1 reported technical difficulties amid power outages as of Monday morning, encouraging anyone experiencing an emergency to find their nearest fire station or approach the nearest officer.

Two of the three hospitals in Lafourche Parish sustained damage in Sunday’s epic storm, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre told CNN.

A portion of the roof of The Lady of the Sea General Hospital in Galliano was ripped off as Ida came ashore, Webre told CNN’s Pamela Brown. The county was also forced to relocate its emergency operations center to a different building after the first building’s roof began to leak Sunday, Webre told CNN.

Hospitals dealing with storm damage and attending to victims of the hurricane were largely already stretched by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Before going into this storm, our hospital was already almost at capacity,” Ochsner Health System’s Dr. Derek Smith told CNN. “We know the coming hours are going to be even more of a test.”

The hospital, which is near New Orleans, is running on generators, and staff there have been locked in – sleeping on air mattresses and working around the clock to care for patients, Smith said.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, hadn’t yet felt the worst of Ida when Mayor Toby Barker spoke to CNN Sunday night, but officials there were bracing for damage from the storm and stress on their hospitals.

The storm has also impacted access for rescuers to get in and residents to get out.

The Kerner Swing Bridge in Jefferson Parish was hit by a barge Sunday as Ida beat down on Louisiana, according to the parish government, prompting officials to warn residents it may not be safe to drive across.

“Any residents that may still be in Lafitte are advised to not attempt to drive on this bridge. We do not believe it is structurally safe,” Jefferson Parish tweeted.

And due to fallen trees on the roadway, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development shut down about 22 miles of Interstate 10, a major thoroughfare that transits the state east to west.

In Lafourche Parish, every road was impassible Sunday night, Webre told CNN.

Hurricane Ida has now weakened to become Tropical Storm Ida, but it has wrecked havoc in parts of Louisiana already.

CNN’s Chad Myers put the wind damage in perspective.

“A Category 1, we’re going to call it one times multiplier. It’s a … 75-mph storm. You get to a Category 3, it’s 30 times more powerful and potential for damage than a Category 1,” he said.

Ida was still a big storm “as it was moving on shore because it was running over water. It was running over the swamps and the ditches,” he said. “It’s not any cooler than the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. That’s why the storm did not slow down like a typical landfalling hurricane that does hit land.”

As Ida moves northward as a Category 1 storm, it has “switched from a damage surge maker, a wind-damage maker, now to a rainmaker and a flood event.” Myers said as he outlined what to expect next.

Watch:

Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana with devastating force as a Category 4 hurricane Sunday, leaving at least one person dead and more than one million customers without power as it flooded homes, ripped off roofs and trapped residents in dangerous rising waters.

While the scope of the damage won’t be clear until day breaks Monday and teams can assess the chaos, initial reports indicate the situation for many residents who stayed behind is dire.

The storm slowed after it made landfall around 1 p.m. ET Sunday near Port Fourchon, delivering catastrophic winds and torrential rains for hours.

Ida weakened to a tropical storm early Monday with sustained winds of 60 mph and the continued threat of life-threatening flash flooding.

“We’ve suffered flooding before. We suffered storms before. But I’ve never seen water like this in my life. It just hit us in the worst way possible and it was such a massive storm that it just totally devastated us,” said Tim Kerner Jr, mayor of Jean Lafitte, south of New Orleans.

Levees were overtopped in his city and residents were forced to their roofs, waiting for rescue boats to arrive, Kerner said.

Ida slammed into Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, tying with 2020’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest ever to hit the state.

More than one million customers in Louisiana were without power as of early Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.US. Among them is all of Orleans Parish, which was hit with “catastrophic transmission damage,” the city office said in a Tweet Sunday night. More than 105,000 customers were without power in Mississippi, PowerOutage.US reported.

Entergy Louisiana said some of its customers could be without power for weeks. And the storm surge of up to 15 feet and winds as strong as 150 mph could leave parts of southeast Louisiana “uninhabitable for weeks or months,” according to a local hurricane statement from the National Weather Service in New Orleans

Nearly half the customers in the state of Louisiana are without power this morning after Tropical Storm Ida rammed into the state’s coast as a powerful category 4 hurricane on Sunday. 

As of 5:30 a.m. ET, Poweroutage.us reports 1,017,535 outages across Louisiana. Most of the outages are concentrated in the southeastern part of the state. 

In neighboring Mississippi, 103,023 customers in the southwest part of the state are waking up without any power, according to Poweroutage.us. 

Top Areas by Outages

Louisiana    1,017,535

Mississippi    103,023

New Orleans and southern Louisiana have had more rain so far this year than they normally do on average.

This means the soil is saturated to the point that it essentially acts like the Gulf of Mexico, said CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

Moisture fuels the storm and the wet soils helped Ida to maintain hurricane strength for several hours after landfall, he said.

This is known as the “brown ocean effect,” a phenomenon that affects around 20% of tropical storm systems, explained Javaheri.

“Still maintaining hurricane strength really speaks volumes as far as how intense of a storm we’re dealing with,” he said.

“This is among the strongest storms you’ll ever see make landfall across the US.”

Ida has weakened to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 60 mph.

The primary hazard throughout Monday will be life-threatening flash flooding, but dangerous storm surges, damaging winds and tornadoes continue to be threats. 

The storm surge warning has been discontinued from Morgan City to Grand Isle, Louisiana. The hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued west of Grand Isle, Louisiana. 

All remaining areas under a hurricane warning have been replaced with a tropical storm warning and stretch from Grand Isle to the mouth of the Pearl River. 

This includes Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and the New Orleans metro.