New Orleans’ historic jazz shop collapses during Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida, which hit the American gulf coast on Sunday, has left two people dead and a million others without power.
Another person is feared to have died in Louisiana after he was attacked by an alligator swimming in floodwater near his home. Two more people died after a highway collapsed in the state of Mississippi as a result of the storm.
Widespread flooding has seen homes evacuated, businesses shut down, and almost all buildings in Louisiana left without power.
Hurricane Ida was the fifth-strongest storm to ever hit mainland United States. It was downgraded to a tropical storm on Monday after 16 hours.
However, the National Hurricane Centre also warned that dangerous storm surges, damaging winds, and flash flooding would continue over portions of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi.
President Joe Biden declared the storm – which is heading towards Tennessee and Ohio – a “major disaster.”
Louisiana’s governor John Bel Edwards said that, “if you had to draw up the worst possible path for a hurricane in Louisiana, it would be something very, very close to what we’re seeing”.
He warned that the death toll is expected to rise “considerably” and said recovery from the storm could take months.
The storm also came on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the region in 2005.
