The mayor of New Orleans is urging residents to evacuate from unprotected remote areas of the city in connection with the approach of Hurricane Ida to the Louisiana coast.
Louisiana Gov. John Bell Edwards said the situation was very serious and that “it will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana, at least since the 1850s.”
“Now is the time,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell told a news conference, urging residents of remote areas to leave the city immediately.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Ida was likely to reach the strength of an extremely dangerous major hurricane by Sunday.
It has already brought torrential rains and hurricane-force winds to western Cuba.
Some Louisiana roads were virtually blocked, and gas stations “dried up” as tens of thousands of residents tried to leave the area, according to BGNES.
According to weather forecasters, the hurricane will be the 4th category by the time it reaches the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
“It will be a storm that will change the lives of those who are not prepared,” Reuters quoted National Meteorological Service meteorologist Benjamin Schott as saying.
More than 80 oil towers in the Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated, and half of the region’s oil and gas production has been halted through Ida.
According to the NCU, the hurricane is currently approximately 460 km southeast of the city of Haume, Louisiana.