Hurricane Ida brings 'havoc' to huge swath of Louisiana, but levees prevent mass casualties

Hurricane Ida arrived in Louisiana Sunday every bit as ornery as advertised: 150 mph winds, some of the fiercest to ever hit American shores, bringing with them intense rainfall and storm surge that left a swath of carnage in its wake.

The massive storm, which arrived on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, sent rescuers scrambling to retrieve people from attics as flood waters poured into places like Lafitte, LaPlace and Braithwaite. The winds, matching the highest speeds ever recorded in Louisiana, tore roofs off homes, toppled transmission towers and left historic buildings in ruin. In Grand Isle, near where Ida made landfall, a helicopter airlifted several people who rode out the storm.

Two people were confirmed dead by state and local officials Monday, a toll that was expected to rise, especially as people hauled out generators to withstand suffocating August heat. The storm decimated infrastructure across southeast Louisiana, leaving hundreds of thousands with the prospect of being without power and water for days or even weeks.

A 400-foot transmission tower near Avondale, supporting a band of electricity cable nearly three-quarters of a mile long, withstood Katrina but came toppling down when Ida tore through. On Monday, it lay in a mangled pile of rusted metal next to the Mississippi River. That and other blows to Entergy’s transmission knocked out power to most of metro New Orleans, including the entirety of the city.