Hurricane Ida, which went from category 4 to category 1, arrived in Louisiana on Sunday and caused heavy damage, notably depriving the city of New Orleans of electricity.
Ida came in and swept it all away. The category 4 hurricane, now downgraded to category 1 , hit Louisiana (United States), the American Hurricane Center (NHC) announced on Sunday, August 29, at 11:55 a.m. local time (6:55 p.m. in France). Described as “extremely dangerous” by the NHC, it carried winds sometimes reaching 240 km / h.
Roofs blown up, lawns and trees torn off, Ida has caused impressive damage in her path. As of Monday, more than a million Americans in Louisiana were without electricity. A look back at this disaster that happened sixteen years after Katrina in pictures .
The roof of a hospital ripped off
The US Hurricane Center had warned of the “deadly risk” created by the hurricane and urged residents of affected areas to “take all necessary measures to protect their lives and property . ” At 7 p.m. Sunday, winds of 195 km / h were recorded. The violence of the gusts notably tore off the roofs of buildings in Houma or that of the Lady of the Sea hospital in Galliano, in the south of the state. These winds even tore up lawns, such as in Morgan City, west of New Orleans.
The town of Houma, southwest of New Orleans, was swept away by gusts. At the time of its arrival on the coasts of the state, the hurricane was causing winds at 160 km / h, raising walls of water.
The winds also made a deafening noise, “terrifying” , according to people who captured the footage and posted it on Twitter.
In total, nearly a million homes were without electricity Sunday night across Louisiana, according to the specialized site poweroutage.us . “We have no electricity now in the whole city! Now is the time to stay in your safe places. Now is not the time to go out !!” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Monday.
Images captured as close as possible to the hurricane
When these powerful weather phenomena occur, weather reporters are on the front lines and sometimes take a few risks to get footage of the hurricane. So, NBC’s Al Roker hit huge waves in New Orleans. Mike Theiss of National Geographic Channel was in Houma battling the elements.
In the eye of the storm
While Louisiana was swept by winds and rain, a passage in the eye of the cyclone, filmed Sunday morning by a research team, contrasts with the violence of the elements on earth. In the images relayed by the American Hurricane Center, the plane is surrounded by clouds on all sides. A relative tranquility which refers to the images captured from the ISS by Thomas Pesquet on Sunday which showed the importance of the hurricane which was heading towards the United States.
Hurricane Ida pounded Louisiana after sweeping ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, flooding wide areas under heavy surf and torrential rains as fierce winds toppled trees and power lines, plunging New Orleans into darkness after nightfall.
Ida weakened into a tropical storm over southwestern Mississippi early on Monday, the National Hurricane Center said, but it is expected to continue unleashing heavy downpours “likely to result in life-threatening” flooding.
Sunday night, the sheriff’s office in Ascension Parish reported the first known U.S. fatality from the storm, a 60-year-old man killed by a tree falling on his home near Baton Rouge, the state capital.
Ida, the first major hurricane to strike the United States this year, made landfall around noon on Sunday as a ferocious Category 4 storm over Port Fourchon, a hub of the Gulf’s offshore oil industry, packing sustained winds of up to 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour).
Its arrival came 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, one of the most catastrophic and deadly U.S. storms on record, struck the Gulf Coast, and about a year after the last Category 4 hurricane, Laura, battered Louisiana.