- Hurricane Ida continues to rage through Louisiana, the state’s joint most powerful storm ever.
- A first death linked to the hurricane occurred Sunday after a tree fell onto a house in Baton Rouge.
- More than one million homes are expected to be damaged by the storm.
Hurricane Ida has caused its first death in the US after a tree fell onto a house in Prairieville, a suburb in Louisiana’s state capital Baton Rouge.
Late on Sunday night, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook to report that a person had died due to Hurricane Ida, which has been classed as a category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph.
The Sheriff’s Office posted: “APSO reports first death related to Hurricane Ida. Shortly after 8:30 p.m. deputies received reports of a citizen possibly injured from a fallen tree at a residence off of Highway 621 in Prairieville. Deputies arrived on scene and confirmed that the victim is now deceased.”
Little else is known of the victim, but the Sheriff’s Office has been regularly posting updates about Hurricane Ida including alerting followers to road closures and power outages.
—Blake Levine (@blake_levine) August 30, 2021
Over a million households have been left without power across the entire state of Louisiana, while the hurricane has also knocked out all power across the city of New Orleans, with the only power coming from generators.
Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans exactly 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina decimated the city and left it in ruins. Hurricane Katrina had 1,833 total fatalities.
—NOLA Ready (@nolaready) August 30, 2021
While Hurricane Ida is yet to claim the lives of multiple people, one million homes are expected to be damaged or destroyed by the storm along the Gulf Coast.
The storm is so powerful, in fact, that Hurricane Ida actually reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. Scott Perrien, a hydrologist, told CNN that while there was “some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina … it is extremely uncommon.”
The water level of the Mississippi River has risen by seven feet due to storm surge at the USGS gauge, located 20 miles south of New Orleans.
“The river is feeling the effects of the storm over a large area,” Perrien told CNN. “All the way up to Baton Rouge the river has risen 1.5 feet in the past 12 hours as the surge pushes up the river. And the water level will likely rise more in the coming hours here in Baton Rouge.”
Hurricane Ida has been classed as a category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph, making it Louisiana’s joint most powerful storm along with 2020’s Hurricane Laura and the 1856 Last Island hurricane.
By contrast, Hurricane Katrina was a category 3 hurricane with winds of 125 mph.