Power outages, flooded roads, dilapidated roofs are just some of the things that his catastrophic passage left behind. hurricane Aida from Louisiana, with residents counting their wounds and the governor of the state describing the damage as “catastrophic.”
The first consequence of strong winds: more than one million households are still without electricity, according to the specialized website PowerOutage.US that monitors power outages, as broadcast by APE-MPE. New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell warned that the 911 emergency number was still out of order.
With the gusts of wind reaching 240 kilometers per hour, Aida has been hitting the coast of Louisiana since Sunday.
“The damage is really catastrophic,” Governor John Bell Edwards told NBC. At least one person has been killed by a tree fall in the suburb of Preriville. But the governor said he expected the death toll to rise “significantly” as the hours passed. Many water supply systems have also been shut down.
The National Guard-backed Crisis Management Agency (FEMA) has mobilized more than 5,200 rescuers to help those affected, the Pentagon has said.
Hurricane Aida: Unceasing rain and flooded roads
The residents of New Orleans, a city with a population of 390,000 people, which is mainly dependent on tourism, woke up today with the rain falling incessantly and the winds sweeping everything in their path.
Some of them ignored the authorities’ calls to stay in their homes, as they could be in danger of sudden floods or being electrocuted by cut wires.
Craig Anderson, 67, went out to see his car: the windshield cracked when a large tile fell on it. “I was lucky, I was not inside,” he commented in relief.
Tree branches, broken windows and other debris have fallen on the streets in the city center.
In the suburbs, civil protection vehicles rush to the aid of the worst-hit communities. Residents of LaPlace, about 50 miles from New Orleans, have sought help through social networking sites, writing that they have been trapped by rising waters.
“I was there 16 years ago when Katrina struck,” said Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,800 people in Louisiana, said Derek Terry, 53. “It simply came to our notice then. “But I have the impression that the damage is smaller,” he added.
The hospitals endured
The hurricane hit Louisiana at a time when the state is trying to deal with a new wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 2,450 patients are being treated in hospitals, many of them in intensive care units.
The first signs, however, show that the health system has endured.
A generator was shut down at a hospital in LaFource Paris, southwest New Orleans, on Sunday, and paramedics were forced to manually deliver oxygen to intubated patients until they were transported to another floor, according to the Louvre Department of Health.
Ida is now in the throes of a tropical storm and is moving rapidly toward Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the United States, which is now threatened by flooding.
US President Joe Biden will discuss the situation later today with governors and mayors in the affected areas.
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