HURRICANE IDA LEAVES NEW ORLEANS WITHOUT POWER, COASTAL COMMUNITIES INUNDATED:

Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, just before noon local time Sunday afternoon (August 29th) as a powerful Category 4 storm with winds of 150 miles per hour, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. As it moved through southeastern Louisiana before heading into Mississippi, Ida inundated coastal communities in Louisiana, with some residents of Jean Lafitte on their roofs waiting for rescue boats, and people from other flooded communities also  calling for help. At least one death in the town of Prairieville was blamed on the hurricane. Ida left all of the city of New Orleans and more than one million people in Louisiana overall without power as of early this morning. Power supplier Entergy said that the only power in New Orleans was coming from generators. Barges broke free due to Ida, with one that got loose hitting a bridge in the town of Lafitte, and the Mississippi River was experiencing the rare phenomenon of a reverse flow. Ida was so powerful that more than 12 hours after it made landfall, it was still a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 miles per hour early this morning in southwestern Mississippi.