Ida slams Cuba, steams toward Louisiana

Storm shutters are hammered closed on a 100-year-old house Friday as New Orleans prepared for Hurricane Ida. The mayor told residents outside the levees to flee. More photos at arkansasonline.com/828ida/.
(AP/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate/Chris Granger)
Storm shutters are hammered closed on a 100-year-old house Friday as New Orleans prepared for Hurricane Ida. The mayor told residents outside the levees to flee. More photos at arkansasonline.com/828ida/. (AP/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate/Chris Granger)

NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Ida struck Cuba on Friday and threatened to slam into Louisiana with far greater force over the weekend, prompting New Orleans' mayor to order everyone outside the protection of the city's levees to evacuate.

Ida intensified rapidly Friday from a tropical storm to a hurricane with top winds of 80 mph as it crossed western Cuba. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted it would strengthen into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with top winds of 140 mph before making landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast late Sunday.

Residents along Louisiana's coast expect Ida to carry in destructive wind and rain on the exact date Hurricane Katrina devastated a large area of the Gulf Coast 16 years ago. Ross Eichorn, a fishing guide on the coast about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans, said he fears warm Gulf waters will "make a monster" out of Ida.

"With a direct hit, ain't no telling what's going to be left -- if anything," Eichorn said. He added: "Anybody that isn't concerned has got something wrong with them."

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A hurricane warning was issued for most of the Louisiana coast, from Intracoastal City to the mouth of the Pearl River. A tropical-storm warning was extended to the Mississippi-Alabama line.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered the evacuation of everyone living outside the levee system that protects the area from flooding. She urged residents with medical conditions and other special needs to get out early.

Officials warned they plan to close floodgates this afternoon on two highways near New Orleans, increasing the sense of urgency for those planning to flee.

"Now is the time," Cantrell said.

Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals. There's little room for their patients elsewhere, with hospitals from Texas to Florida already reeling from a spike in coronavirus patients, said Dr. Jennifer Avengo, the city's health director.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell would discuss hurricane preparations Friday in a conference call with the governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said FEMA plans to send nearly 150 medical personnel and almost 50 ambulances to the Gulf Coast to assist strained hospitals.

Ida made its first landfall Friday afternoon on Cuba's southern Isle of Youth. The Cuban government issued a hurricane warning for its westernmost provinces, where forecasters said as much as 20 inches of rain could fall in places, possibly unleashing deadly flash floods and mudslides.

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An even-greater danger will then begin over the Gulf, where forecasts were aligned in predicting Ida will strengthen into a major hurricane very quickly, reaching 120 mph before landfall in the Mississippi River delta late Sunday, the hurricane center said.

If that forecast holds true, Ida would hit on the 16th anniversary of Katrina's landfall as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds near the riverside community of Buras in Plaquemines Parish, just down the Mississippi from New Orleans.

Information for this article was contributed by Melinda Deslatte, Jeff Martin, Darlene Superville and Seth Borenstein of The Associated Press.

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