More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi, including all of New Orleans, were left without power on Monday, as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the US mainland, pushed through on Sunday, AP reported. The damage was so extensive that officials warned it could be weeks before the power grid was repaired.

As the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression Monday afternoon and continued to make its way inland with torrential rain, it was blamed for at least two deaths — a motorist who drowned in New Orleans and a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge.

The hurricane blew ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina, the 2005 storm that breached New Orleans' levees, devastated the city and was blamed for 1,800 deaths. This time, New Orleans appeared to escape the catastrophic flooding city officials had feared.

The city urged people who evacuated to stay away for at least a couple of days because of the lack of power and fuel.

Four Louisiana hospitals were damaged and 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. Officials said they were evacuating scores of patients to other cities. The weather disaster hit a state where hospitals are crowded with Covid patients, cases of the Delta variant were surging and nurses were in short supply./Europost

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