At least 700,000 people have been left without power after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, with 150mph winds battering some parts of the state.
Described as an "extremely dangerous" category four storm, it hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier.
The Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards said: "This is going to be much stronger than we usually see and, quite frankly, if you had to draw up the worst possible path for a hurricane in Louisiana, it would be something very, very close to what we're seeing."
Hurricane Ida makes landfall - follow live updates
All of New Orleans was left without power following "catastrophic transmission failure" near the city as darkness fell.
Arriving with a barometric pressure of 930 millibars, Ida preliminarily goes down as tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the US based on wind speed.
Based on central pressure, it is tied for ninth strongest US landfall.
It was strong enough to reverse the flow of the mighty Mississippi river too.
President Joe Biden was warned that the storm is "life-threatening" and that the devastation is "likely to be immense", with his government "planning for the worst".
Ida rapidly intensified overnight as it moved through some of the warmest ocean water in the world in the northern Gulf of Mexico, its top winds grew by 45mph to 150mph in five hours.
It was later downgraded to category three - with winds between 111mph and 125mph - as it moved over land. Katrina followed a similar trajectory.
Hurricane force winds started to strike Grand Isle on Sunday morning.
Before power was lost on the Louisiana barrier island, a beachfront web camera showed the ocean steadily rising as growing waves churned and palm trees whipped.
Almost 700,000 customers had lost power in Louisiana within hours of landfall, according to outages being tracked by Entergy Louisiana.
Mr Biden said it could take weeks for some places to get power back.
Officials said Ida's swift intensification from a few thunderstorms to a massive hurricane over three days left no time to organise a mandatory evacuation of its 390,000 residents.
Mayor of New Orleans LaToya Cantrell has urged everyone in the city to "stay here from this point forward".
She said the public should see signs that "we're moving out of this" on Monday morning, but warned people "not to come out" until they are told to do so.
"My message to the community at this time, all of our residents, even visitors who are here, this is the time to stay inside, do not venture out," she said.
She called the hurricane a "very dangerous" and "very serious" situation.
In Port Fourchon, boats and helicopters gathered to take workers and supplies to oil platforms in the ocean and the oil extracted starts it journey toward refineries.
The port handles about a fifth of the nation's domestic oil and gas, officials said.
Along with the oil industry, Ida threatened a region already reeling from a resurgence of COVID-19 infections, due to low vaccination rates and the highly contagious Delta variant.
More than two million people live around New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the wetlands to the south.
New Orleans hospitals planned to ride out the storm with their beds nearly full, as similarly stressed hospitals elsewhere had little room for evacuated patients.
And shelters for those fleeing their homes carried an added risk of becoming flashpoints for new infections.
Forecasters warned winds stronger than 115mph were expected soon in Houma, a city of 33,000 that supports oil platforms in the Gulf, while Gulfport, Mississippi, to the east of New Orleans, was seeing the ocean rise.
Mr Biden approved emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi ahead of Ida's arrival.
Comparisons to the landfall of Katrina on 29 August 2005 weighed heavily on residents bracing for Ida.
"Ida will most definitely be stronger than Katrina, and by a pretty big margin,"' said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.
"And, the worst of the storm will pass over New Orleans and Baton Rouge, which got the weaker side of Katrina."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMieGh0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2h1cnJpY2FuZS1pZGEtbWFrZXMtbGFuZGZhbGwtaW4tbG91aXNpYW5hLWFzLWV4dHJlbWVseS1kYW5nZXJvdXMtY2F0ZWdvcnktZm91ci1zdG9ybS0xMjM5NDcwM9IBfGh0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2FtcC9odXJyaWNhbmUtaWRhLW1ha2VzLWxhbmRmYWxsLWluLWxvdWlzaWFuYS1hcy1leHRyZW1lbHktZGFuZ2Vyb3VzLWNhdGVnb3J5LWZvdXItc3Rvcm0tMTIzOTQ3MDM?oc=5
2021-08-30 01:30:00Z
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