Hurricane Ida has reached the coast – in memory of Hurricane Katrina

On Sunday, Hurricane Ida was upgraded to Category 4 – with winds exceeding 67 meters per second. According to CNN, it’s now ranked number one for Louisiana’s worst storms ever—along with Laura from last year and the last island hurricane from 1856.

In the afternoon, Ida gathered her strength off the northern coast of North America, before hitting the coast of Louisiana on Sunday evening Sweden time.

“Stay indoors,” Governor John Bel Edwards wrote on Twitter.

According to the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, this means that “catastrophic damage will occur.” For example, it has been stated that most trees in the path of a hurricane will be “cut or torn at the roots” and large areas can become uninhabitable for “weeks or months”.

‘Very dangerous’

US authorities described Hurricane Ida as “extremely dangerous” and several days ago advised New Orleans residents to leave the city.

He writes that due to the traffic situation and time constraints, no mandatory evacuation was carried out CNN.

Those who remained in the area were urged to stockpile food and water for at least three days.

A tornado warning was also issued for Mississippi and Alabama.

“Time to take cover tonight.”

If a hurricane hits New Orleans on Sunday, it would be on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked havoc in the area in 2005. More than 1,800 people were killed in the area in that time.

August 29 is an important date in our history. Many remember what happened 16 years ago. “It’s time to hunker down tonight and be where you want to be,” Colin Arnold of the New Orleans Department of Homeland Security told CNN.

After Hurricane Katrina, improvements were made in the city’s defense against extreme weather events. Among other things, the pumps have generators and backup gates built into many of the city’s canals to protect the city when the water level rises, according to CNN.

“New Orleans is a different city than it was in August 2005 in terms of infrastructure and security,” a city official told the TV channel Saturday.

Shortly after 11 p.m. on Sunday Swedish time, more than 400,000 people in Louisiana experienced a power outage, according to the Washington Post. After the hurricane made landfall, there were reports that winds tore rooftops off.

Ida is moving northwest over southeast Louisiana. “Catastrophic storms, high winds, and flash floods continue in parts of southeastern Louisiana,” the National Hurricane Center wrote on Twitter.

And US media reported that the storm was at the time about 70 km southwest of New Orleans.