Source: AP
By REBECCA SANTANA and KEVIN McGILL
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Residents across Louisiana’s coast Saturday were taking one last day to prepare for what is being described as a “life-altering” Hurricane Ida which is expected to bring winds as high as 140 mph (225 kph) when it slams ashore.
A combination of voluntary and mandatory evacuations have been called for cities and communities across the region including New Orleans, where the mayor ordered a mandatory evacuation for areas outside the city’s levee system and a voluntary evacuation for residents inside the levee system. But since the storm quickly escalated in intensity, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said it wasn’t possible to order a mandatory evacuation for the entire city, which would require using all lanes of some highways to leave the city.
The storm is expected to make landfall on the exact date Hurricane Katrina devastated a large swath of the Gulf Coast 16 years earlier. But whereas Katrina was a Category 3 when it made landfall southwest of New Orleans, Ida is expected to reach an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with top winds of 140 mph (225 kph) before making landfall likely west of New Orleans late Sunday.
“This will be a life-altering storm for those who aren’t prepared,” National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Schott said during a Friday news conference with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Ray Guenther, 55, bottom right, helps his brother, John, 56, unload about 400 crab traps that he had to pull out of the water and move via flatbed trailer to dry land near his home in eastern St. Bernard Parish as the Louisiana coast prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Ida on Friday, Aug. 27, 2021 in New Orleans. Hurricane Ida struck Cuba on Friday and threatened to slam into Louisiana with devastating force over the weekend, prompting New Orleans’ mayor to order everyone outside the protection of the city’s levees to evacuate.(Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
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