Because of the approaching dangerous Hurricane Ida, several counties in the US state of Louisiana have imposed a curfew.
For example, in the East Baton Rouge district, where around 440,000 people live, this applies from Sunday evening (local time) to Monday morning, said the mayor of Baton Rouge on Twitter.
The authorities have urged all residents who have not already fled to other parts of the country to stay in their homes in view of the impending extreme wind gusts and possible flooding.
The neighboring district of West Baton Rouge also imposed a night curfew for security reasons, as did the neighboring district of Livingston to the east.
The center of hurricane "Ida", which hit the coast at Port Fourchon on Sunday noon (local time), was supposed to move overland towards the city of Baton Rouge.
The cyclone with a strength of four out of five should weaken, but it should still be at least a level one hurricane over Baton Rouge.
Just over an hour after the hurricane hit land, the operations center in the city of New Orleans reported "widespread power outages".
The interactive map from the local energy supplier Entergy showed around 170,000 households without electricity.
According to the Poweroutage.us website, around 233,000 customers across the state were without power.
In New Orleans, the emergency services stopped working for the time being because of the dangerous winds.
Photos and videos from local media had already shown the first floods and violent gusts of wind on Sunday morning after the first foothills of the storm had arrived.
The NHC measured a water level two meters higher in a coastal wetland south of New Orleans.
At the city's airport there are gusts of wind at a speed of more than 100 kilometers per hour.
"Hurricane Ida poses a direct threat to the people of New Orleans," warned Mayor LaToya Cantrell in advance. Because of the rapidly approaching storm, there was no more time to order a compulsory evacuation of the entire city. She therefore only ordered the evacuation of particularly endangered areas that lie outside the dams. New Orleans is almost entirely surrounded by water - Lake Pontchartrain to the north, Lake Borgne to the east, and the wetlands along the Mississippi Estuary to the south.
On parts of the Louisiana coast, southwest of New Orleans, where the storm hit land, a "life-threatening" storm surge of almost five meters was to be expected, the NHC warned. At Lake Borgne, almost four meters can be expected, at Lake Pontchartrain a good two meters. Flood and tornado warnings were also issued in parts of the neighboring states to the east of Mississippi and Alabama because of the hurricane.
Governor Edwards said coastal hospitals could not be evacuated despite the hurricane because there were too many corona patients. Currently, 2,450 patients are being treated for Covid-19 in the state with 4.6 million inhabitants, he said. There is no longer any capacity in Louisiana and the neighboring states to accept additional patients. For the facilities, despite generators, long power outages as a result of the hurricane are a great danger. The state has mobilized around 10,000 workers to quickly restore the power supply, Edwards said. Louisiana and the neighboring states are in the midst of a dramatic corona wave.