Hurricane Ida, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, roared ashore Sunday in southern Louisiana in an area dominated by the oil industry that’s also home to many Native communities. The storm brought a seven-foot storm surge, 150-mile-per-hour winds and up to two feet of rain to parts of the Gulf Coast. It was so powerful, it completely knocked out power to a million people, including the entire city of New Orleans, and reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. The Category 4 storm hit on the same day Hurricane Katrina devastated the area 16 years ago. It’s been blamed for at least one death, and more are expected.
A system of dikes and levees that protects the New Orleans region from rising waters is reportedly holding, for now, much of it built since Katrina. But still, it is underfunded, and officials say they could be overwhelmed by a forecasted 20 inches of rain.
Louisiana’s Gulf Coast is a major oil and gas hub, with 17 oil refineries, two liquefied natural gas export terminals, a nuclear power plant and many Superfund sites. Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, the oilfield service hub for almost all of the Gulf of Mexico and not far from the city of Houma.
— source democracynow.org | Aug 30, 2021