On the night before Sunday local time, the storm had been upgraded to a category 4 hurricane with winds of at least 58 meters per second.
According to the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes, this means that "catastrophic damage will occur".
As an example, it is mentioned that most trees in the hurricane's path will be "broken off or torn up by the roots" and that large areas can become uninhabitable "for weeks or months".
"If you live in New Orleans and the surrounding area, time is running out to evacuate," the weather agency warned NWS 'local office on Twitter.
"It will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana since at least the 1850s," said state Gov. John Bel Edwards, according to U.S. media.
President Joe Biden has sent 500 federal rescue workers to Texas and Louisiana.
16 years ago Katrina
The devastating hurricane Katrina that struck the same area 16 years ago was a Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall in Louisiana.
At that time, more than 1,800 people lost their lives and 80 percent of the city of New Orleans was flooded.
The ditches and dams proved to be completely inadequate, when for decades the areas required for the land to be able to take care of sudden bodies of water have been built on and exploited.
- There are of course some similarities, such as the date and that it comes on a fairly similar trajectory, but it is still not the same.
Hurricane Ida is smaller, Katrina was bigger, says SVT's meteorologist Nitzan Cohen.
"Human life is at stake"
This time, the water level is expected to rise between 3 and 4.5 meters around the mouth of the Mississippi River.
- As for New Orleans, the largest city in Louisiana that was hit hardest by Katrina, protective barriers have been strengthened.
This, combined with the fact that Ida seems to be going a little further west, means that there are hopes that the barriers will not collapse.
Then you can cope with extreme floods.
But regardless, human lives will be at stake, and in addition, a lot of material damage will occur.