Sixteen Years After Katrina, Louisiana Prepares For Another Major Hurricane
On Highway 46, Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida is about to make landfall, August 28, 2021. AP - Matthew Hinton
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Sixteen years after Katrina, Hurricane Ida is heading towards the American coasts and should touch Louisiana this Sunday at the end of the day.
It should pass in category 4 (out of 5) a few hours before touchdown, in the New Orleans area.
So the authorities asked residents to be extra vigilant.
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In central New Orleans, stores have barricaded themselves, while long lines of cars stretch out of major cities. This late Saturday Saturday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards warned, “
When it comes time to go to bed this Saturday night, you have to be where you intend to weather the storm. And you need to be as prepared as possible. It will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana since at least the 1850s.
”
Winds equivalent to those of a tropical storm, that is to say between 60 and 120 km / h, will blow on Saturday evening on the coasts of Louisiana, warned the National Weather Service (NWS).
And the gusts could reach 200 km / h Sunday, Ida risking by then to have become a "
major hurricane
" and "
extremely dangerous
".
Without forgetting the risks of floods and floods.
The reassuring authorities
The memory of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, exactly 16 years ago, is still painful in Louisiana, where more than 1,800 people were killed and bad weather caused tens of billions. dollars in damage. However, the local authorities are reassuring. "
We are not the same state as 16 years ago,
" said Governor John Bel Edwards.
Same story on the side of New Orleans, partially destroyed after the passage of Katrina in 2005. Millions of dollars have been invested in new infrastructures, indicates our correspondent in New York,
Alexis Guilleux
.
Dikes and pumps to protect the city, built below sea level. While showing its great confidence in this defense system, the town hall recognizes that floods are inevitable if heavy rains fall on the region in a few hours.
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