02:55
The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans is asking residents to “limit water usage” at home, to decrease the amount of wastewater that needs to be removed – and help prevent sewage backups.
Due to the power cuts, the board is currently using “self-generated sources of power” to drain stormwater and pump drinking water into the city. However, there is no backup power to operate sewer pumping stations. “We are assessing how many of the 84 stations are impacted but the number may be very significant,” SWB New Orleans said.
SWB New Orleans
(@SWBNewOrleans)Although we have lost all Entergy power, our teams are working quickly and decisively to make up for this with our self-generated power sources, including Turbines 4, 5, and 6 and EMD, as well as backup generators located at our drainage pumping stations.
02:42
The hospital that lost some power is Thibodaux Regional Health System in Lafourche Parish. Andrea Gallo at the New Orleans Advertiser reports that a back-up generator failed, meaning staff had to manually ventilate some patients. It is unclear how many patients were affected but power generators appear to be working again.
Andrea Gallo
(@aegallo)Update on our story about Thibodaux Regional losing generator power in ICU: hospital says via social media that the generator is back on-line. Awaiting updates from other Louisiana hospitals about how they’ve fared today, Ochsner will brief us at 9 pm CSThttps://t.co/44PVoRZo2e
02:38
Power cut across entire city of New Orleans
Hello, Rebecca Ratcliffe here taking over from my colleague, Martin Farrer.
The energy company Entergy has confirmed that power has been cut off across the entire city, according to an update posted on Twitter by the New Orleans’ Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
The message describes “catastrophic transmission damage”.
NOLA Ready
(@nolaready)@EntergyNOLA has confirmed that New Orleans has no power. The only power in the city is coming from generators. #Ida pic.twitter.com/9clSeFcz3T
Updated
02:36
The storm surge and winds from Hurricane Ida was so strong it reversed the flow of the mighty Mississippi River. The same phenomenon happened during Hurricane Katrina but is “extremely uncommon”, USGS hydrologist Scott Perrien told CNN.
He said the river level rose about seven feet due to the surge, shifting the flow from 2 feet per second to about half a foot per second in the opposite direction.
02:30
Metairie is in metropolitan New Orleans:
Susan Roesgen
(@SusanRoesgen)@WGNOtv producers and directors forced to leave control room during our live coverage- the ceiling has peeled away— we are in the Galleria in Metairie
02:29
The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, is reporting from New Orleans whenever communications allow. The city has just issued a flash flood warning until midnight. It is 8.30pm there at time of writing.
There are reports that one of the hospitals in a coastal area of Louisiana had lost all power in its Covid intensive care unit and stall are manually ventilating a number patients. We will bring you more details as they confirmed.
02:22
Welcome to our rolling coverage of Hurricane Ida after it made landfall on the coast of Louisiana.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Hurricane Ida has knocked out all power in the city of New Orleans after making landfall late on Sunday morning at Port Fourchon. The only power in the city is coming from generators.
- Ida is one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US and has wreaked havoc, ripping roofs off buildings, downing trees and reversing the flow of the Mississippi river.
- It is 16 years exactly since Hurricane Katrina, the catastrophic hurricane that killed more than 1,800 on the Gulf coast in 2005.