Traffic diverts around downed power lines Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, in Metairie, La. A fearsome Hurricane Ida has left scores of coastal Louisiana residents trapped by floodwaters and pleading to be rescued, while making a shambles of the electrical grid across a wide swath of the state in the sweltering, late-summer heat. One of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland has now weakened into a tropical storm as it pushes inland over Mississippi with torrential rain and shrieking winds. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Hurricane Ida slammed into southeast Louisiana as a powerful Category 4 hurricane just before noon on Sunday. The storm made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at about 11:55 a.m. CDT with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.
It’s one of the strongest storms to ever make landfall along the Louisiana coast since records began in the mid-1800s.
After the storm came ashore, it caused widespread flooding and damage, not just to the coastline but also to areas dozens of miles inland. Catastrophic flooding occurred Sunday night in some areas west of New Orleans. In LaPlace, flooding entered homes and numerous residents were requesting water rescues.
(MORE: Live Updates on Hurricane Ida)
And in New Orleans, the entire city was among the 1 million Louisiana homes and businesses that lost power Sunday when all of the transmission lines that provide power to the city were damaged by the storm.
A levee overtopped in lower Jefferson Parish overnight, sending more than 7.5 feet of floodwaters into Jean Lafitte and Lafitte and trapping residents in attics and roofs.
The storm has been blamed for at least one death, and along the coast, there was little word Sunday about how the hardest-hit areas fared.
Click through the slideshow above for visual updates on the storm’s impacts on the Gulf Coast.
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