Ida, the powerful hurricane that was downgraded to a tropical storm early Monday, continued to lash Louisiana after leaving more than a million customers without power, the entire city of New Orleans in the dark and at least one person dead. As of 7 a.m. local time, Ida was located about 65 miles south-southwest of Jackson, Mississippi, with maximum sustained winds near 45 mph – down from 105 mph late Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm was moving north near 8 mph. A hurricane warning has been replaced with a tropical storm warning from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida state line, as well as Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and metropolitan New Orleans. Tropical storm conditions and dangerous storm surge, damaging winds and flash flooding are still continuing over portions of Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern Alabama, according to the hurricane center. The agency noted that a few tornadoes are also possible, mainly across southeast Mississippi, southwest Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle through Monday night. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards had said that Ida could be the most powerful hurricane to hit the state in more than 160 years. On Sunday evening, all of New Orleans was without power, according to city officials. Entergy New Orleans, the city’s power supplier, said Ida’s intensity has caused catastrophic damage, including a “load imbalance to the company’s transmission and generation.” The city relies on Entergy for backup power for the pumps that remove stormwater from city streets. Entergy said the only power in the city was coming from generators. “We’re making every effort to learn more and rectify,” Entergy tweeted. As of early Monday, more than one million customers were without power in Louisiana, according to PowerOutage.US, which tracks nationwide outages. More than 113,000 customers also didn’t have power in Mississippi. The first death related to Ida was reported in Prairieville, Louisiana, according to the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office. The unidentified person was found dead following reports of a fallen tree on a home. “Tonight, we have confirmed at least one death and sadly, we know there will be others. Thousands of our people are without power and there is untold damage to property across the impacted parishes,” Edwards wrote in a statement late Sunday. Edwards, a Democrat, had requested President Biden declare a major disaster for Louisiana. Biden did so on Sunday, ordering federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas impacted by Hurricane Ida. (AP)

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