NEW ORLEANS, La. — All of New Orleans is without power as Hurricane Ida continues to hit Louisiana with high winds, heavy rain, and storm surge.
Entergy New Orleans said Sunday evening that all of Orleans Parish was without power due to “catastrophic damage” to its transmission system.
Entergy’s outage tracker on its website showed more than 640,000 of its Louisiana customers were without power shortly before 9 p.m. ET.
NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness campaign, confirmed that the only power in the city was coming from generators.
Sunday evening, Ida was continuing to churn north through the state as a Category 3 storm after making landfall as a Category 4. An 8 p.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center said maximum sustained winds were at 120 mph.
Along with power outages, Ida has also damaged structures, including blowing roofs off and flooding buildings along the Gulf Coast.
Officials say the storm has significantly slowed down as it has moved inland, so the residents of New Orleans can expect strong winds and heavy rain throughout the night. People in the area should remain sheltered.
“Hurricane-force winds and damaging wind gusts are expected through tonight within the hurricane warning area in southeastern Louisiana, including metropolitan New Orleans,” wrote the NHC.
The NHC says damaging winds, especially in gusts, will spread inland near the track of the center of Ida into southwestern Mississippi Sunday night and early Monday.
“These winds will likely lead to widespread tree damage and power outages,” wrote the NHC.