Hurricane Ida slammed into southeast Louisiana with 150 mile per hour winds causing massive damage to the coastal parishes, the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metro areas and the Northshore. According to Power-outage-dot-us, one million customers are without power in Louisiana. State Climatologist Barry Keim…
cut 5 (11) “…back up”
Governor Edwards says the restoration effort will take some time…
cut 11 (15) “…fail”
Ochsner will evacuate patients from hospitals in Houma and Raceland because of roof damage to those facilities.

There are still strong thunderstorms south of New Orleans, which will impede recovery efforts in the coastal parishes. Jean Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner says Hurricane Ida left the area in total devastation and people need to be rescued from their flooded homes. Water rescues will also be needed in the LaPlace area.

The levee system that protects New Orleans withstood Hurricane Ida’s life-threatening storm surge. U-S Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Matt Roe says after Katrina the federal government spent 14.5 billion dollars on a system designed to reduce the damage from powerful hurricanes
Cut 13 (17) “…second line of defense.”
Roe says inside the ring of levees, they have a system of canals and pumps to remove water.