JUST IN: #HurricaneIda Kills One, knocks Out Power Across #NewOrleans

JUST IN: #HurricaneIda Kills One, knocks Out Power Across #NewOrleans—The Category 4 Hurricane Ida has made landfall as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, lashing the coast with fierce winds, torrential downpours and pounding surf that submerged much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water, aljazeera reporting

The Genius Media Nigeria gathered that all of New Orleans, Louisiana’s most populous city, had power knocked out due to “catastrophic transmission damage,” the local utility reported on Sunday.

At least one person died after being injured by a fallen tree in the New Orleans suburb of Prairieville, according to the sheriff’s office.

Ida, a Category 4 storm, hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, ravaged the southern states of Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier.

The storm’s 150-mile-per-hour (230 kilometres per hour) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the US mainland It dropped hours later to a Category 2 storm with maximum winds of 105mph (165 km/h) as it crawled inland, its eye about 40 miles (65km) west-northwest of New Orleans.

Residents of the most vulnerable coastal areas were ordered to evacuate days in advance. But those riding out the storm in their homes in New Orleans, less than 100 miles (160km) inland to the north, braced for the toughest test yet of significant upgrades to a levee system constructed following devastating floods in 2005 from Katrina.

Credit: aljazeera