Michelle and I are thinking of everyone affected by Hurricane Ida, and we're grateful to the first responders doing heroic work. Here are some ways to support those in need: https://t.co/YZU1xlRN1i
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 31, 2021
Please add your own suggestions in the comments!
Hurricane Ida flooded homes across Louisiana and destroyed the region’s power grid. Now those communities face another challenge: the potential of weeks without power in the heat.@AP photos document the damage, and the people left in the storm’s wake. https://t.co/0CN9bHgJoo
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 31, 2021
Cynthia Lee Sheng: Officials began assessment down in Grand Isle. Says island is uninhabitable, 40% of structures are completely destroyed. No means of communication there
— Jade Cunningham (@Cunningham_JL) September 1, 2021
In the wake of Hurricane Ida, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, residents in southern Louisiana could be without power for a month https://t.co/RcJqNHG9UX pic.twitter.com/bmKFnRljiY
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 1, 2021
Southeast Louisiana residents desperate for food, power, water and help in Ida’s aftermath https://t.co/Sq2rdzv9eN
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 1, 2021
… Two days after Ida came ashore in Louisiana, hundreds of thousands of people remained without power. With temperatures in the 80s and the heat index projected to make it feel like more than 100 degrees for the next several days, officials were concerned that heat-related illnesses could lead to more deaths across the state. There were reports that power would not be restored to some communities for 30 days…
It wasn’t only the heat and humidity and lack of power that had officials worried Tuesday. Water and sewage systems in several parishes were severely damaged during the storm. The state had set up more than 30 shelters to take evacuees without access to basic infrastructure. Edwards said his greatest concern was how long hospitals, which were already full of coronavirus patients before Ida, could operate effectively on generator power.
In the devastated community of Raceland, in Lafourche Parish, residents in the Bayou Country community were struggling to live in homes with ruined roofs, broken windows and leaky ceilings. Houses and trailers were destroyed, flipped off their foundations, or shredded by Ida’s intense winds.
But residents said the most heartbreaking impact of the storm hasn’t been the damage to their homes. It is living without electricity and running water. They wondered on Tuesday who, if anyone, would be coming to help.
Many residents, who sat outside on streets cluttered with debris and sought relief from the stifling heat, said they were looking for food and fuel. Without access to cellphones or televisions, they worried that all the help was “going to New Orleans,” as one woman put it…
Supreme Court Shadow Docket: Horrifying
cain
Ugh – how about the hospitals? This can’t be good for those who are affected by COVID and other sundry diseases. I hope antivaxxers are smart and stay indoors as much as possible. I can imagine COVID spreading even more now.
Villago Delenda Est
Meanwhile, TFG is showing his post term presidential demeanor by bawling about how the networks are spending so much time on Ida and not talking about how Joe Biden is mishandling TFG’s pandemic.
Professor Bigfoot
Worrying that all the help “was going to New Orleans.”
I hear a faint dog whistle in there.
Sloane Ranger
@Professor Bigfoot:
Only faint? It sounds like a bullhorn to me!
As for the Governor, he encourages the spread of antivaxxer and COVID misinformation AND now he’s worried about how hospitals will cope? Horse, stable door anyone?
Mart
With climate change need to reimagine how we build infrastructure, homes, and commercial business. Lot of work has gone into hardening wood frame homes, but even hardened homes fail in these crazy high winds. Maybe concrete on steel egg shaped homes that can float…
Yarrow
@Sloane Ranger: What Governor are you talking about? The Governor of Louisiana is a Democrat – John Bel Edwards. He reinstated a statewide mask mandate in Louisiana about a month ago.
pajaro
@Sloane Ranger:
Are you sure you haven’t confused the Governor of Louisiana (Edwards) with the Governor of Mississippi?
scav
@Professor Bigfoot: & @Sloane Ranger: Could also be the rural grumpiness that the photogenic city always gets the attention and the fundraisers — Save the Panda! is the big winner, not Save the Ground Squirrel. Just as we’re always inundated with news of every thing that hits NYC (home of all the media!), but less about what’s just happened in Neversink.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mart: I think there is lot to be said for not building those homes on a tidal marsh. Go look at a sat image of Grand Island.
Cameron
Louisiana has had a horrible year. Pandemic and multiple hurricanes. It could use a break.
Yarrow
@scav: Yes, this is part of it. The people I’ve seen interviewed in the most affected parishes are of various races, not just white. Also, the improvements to the New Orleans levee system after Katrina may have left these people more vulnerable than before and they are understandably upset about that.
Kelly
Just ran across this:
https://twitter.com/ProfTags/status/1432097048623464451
Where we’re at with climate change, plague, bigotry, poverty…
trollhattan
Shouldn’t that be Blew Bayous?
kindness
What?!? People who live in outlying areas might have some racial insensitivity??? I am shocked!
rikyrah
@Professor Bigfoot:
Faint?
L85NJGT
There is a power plant online in New Orleans, and there is another they are working to bring online, once they get the distribution grid in N.O. repaired. That can’t power the whole city, but critical infrastructure will be covered.
The main long haul transmission lines will take longer to repair, and the pole lines out to bumblefuck bayou will take longest. Maybe they can use those trailer truck gensets.
lowtechcyclist
@Sloane Ranger:
I was under the impression that the folks running Louisiana back in 2005 had used the Katrina devastation as a lever to push a lot of black folks out of NOLA, and that since then, it had been a much whiter city than pre-Katrina. Am I misremembering?
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan: Phrasing
OzarkHillbilly
I doubt race has anything to do with this statement. It is just a simple acknowledgement that big urban areas get more attention than the “wide spot in the road” small towns. There are a lot of black faces in those small towns too.
Teoconut
Latest CA Recall Polls slowly edging out of panic territory. NO on Recall leading by 5.8%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/california-recall-polls/?cid=rrpromo
Capri
it’s a pet peeve, but who are these “Officials” the article is referring to – couldn’t the sources be named? It’s like saying “scientists” say blah blah or “congress” wants something. In this case it’s probably not misleading, unlike the use of congress when it’s actually only 1 party, but it’s sloppy.
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@OzarkHillbilly: this is going to be an issue with climate change everywhere though. When it comes to saving people and infrastructure either from fire or water, concentrated populations are going to be easier to save.
LosGatosCA
@Professor Bigfoot:
definitely sounded that way.
sab
This afternoon I saw a little convoy of Ohio Edison trucks heading off to the southbound highway.
Sam
I heard that in Mississippi the hurricane caused 2 billion dollars in property improvements.
RevRick
The devastation that Louisiana has suffered should have us beginning a hard conversation about what we need to do in the face of climate change. The oceans are going to rise and their warming will fuel more powerful storms. Does it make any sense to rebuild, denying the inexorable changes, or should we retreat to higher ground?
We have a lot of infrastructure that we’ll have to throw ever-increasing money at to hold back the rising tides. The stupidity that underlies all sunk-cost arguments, that we have to throw good money after bad (also Afghanistan until Tuesday) suggests that we follow the most futile path.
The future says that Baton Rouge will be beachfront within a century or so (sooner if the West Antarctic ice shelf collapses).
Wouldn’t it be smart to prepare?
Kosh III
@RevRick:
I’ve been saying since Katrina that NOLA and other coastal communities should be moved inland. No one cares.
We’d not be in this bad of a climate mess if President Gore had done something…..
jame
I am from a small town on the Gulf coast in Louisiana. I do get discouraged when hurricane coverage is focused on New Orleans or Houston. It should be easy to understand why people in those towns feel that everything goes to the place that’s the press magnet.
If the US government cared to take action about the people living in low-lying areas, it could look to the Netherlands as a guide. The bottom line is that now only the people with the personal financial resources to rebuild will be able to. So stop your fussing about coastal communities. They’re being eroded in a heartbreaking way already.