Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at 11:55 a.m. CT. As a Category 4 with winds of 150 mph, the storm tied Hurricane Laura (2020) and the Last Island Hurricane (1856) as the strongest to ever hit Louisiana. Overall, it brought days of misery and destruction, moving with catastrophic winds and heavy rainfall, along with flash flooding and life-threatening storm surge along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The storm knocked out the power grids in Mississippi and Louisiana, blocking electricity to more than 1 million customers. Even states as far as New York was affected as torrential rains from the storm pummeled the Northeast (WorldVision). The cyclone weakened to a tropical storm and eventually a tropical depression on September 1, 2021, before ultimately becoming a trough on September 4 (NOAA).
Date of event: August 29, 2021
Impact:
- As of April 4, 2022–107 fatalities: 87 in the United States and 20 in Venezuela (NHC)
- The hurricane is estimated to have caused a total of $75 billion in damage, making it the fifth-costliest hurricane in the United States (NOAA)
Related Resources:
- Hurricane Ida and Beyond: Readiness, Recovery, and Resilience, Hearing Before the Committee on Oversight and Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventeenth Congress, First Session, October 5, 2021
- Hurricane Ida Preparation and Response
- 2022 Hurricane Outlooks and 2021 Hurricane Season Review [Updated August 9, 2022]
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Photo Credit: National Weather Service