Hurricane Ida threatens to hit Louisiana this weekend

Hurricane Ida struck Cuba on Fridayand threatened to slam into Louisianawith devastating force over the weekend,prompting evacuations in New Orleans and across the coastal region.

Ida intensified rapidly Friday from a tropical storm to a hurricane with top winds of 128 km/has it crossed western Cuba.

The U.S.National Hurricane Center predicted it would strengthen into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with top winds of 225 km/hbefore making landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast late Sunday.

"This will be a life-altering storm for those who aren't prepared," National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Schott said during a Friday news conference with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

The governor urged residents to quickly prepare, saying: "By nightfall tomorrow night, you need to be where you intend to be to ride out the storm."

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell called for voluntary evacuations. With the storm intensifying so much over a short period of time, she said it wasn't possible to order a mandatory evacuation which generally calls for using both lanes of highway traffic to evacuate people from the city.

"The city cannot order a mandatory evacuation because we don't have the time." Cantrell said.

City officials said residents need to be prepared for prolonged power outages, and asked elderly residents to consider leaving. Collin Arnold, the city's emergency management director, said the city could be under high winds for about ten hours. Earlier Friday, Cantrell called for a mandatory evacuation for residents outside the city's levee protections a relatively small sliver of the city's population.

Other areas across the coastal region were under a mix of voluntary and mandatory evacuations.The storm is expected to make landfallon the exact date Hurricane Katrina devastated a large swath of the Gulf Coast exactly 16 years earlier. Capt. Ross Eichorn, a fishing guide on the coast about 112 kilometressouthwest of New Orleans, said he fears warm Gulf waters will "make a monster" out of Ida.

"With a direct hit, ain't no telling what's going to be left if anything," Eichorn said. He added: "Anybody that isn't concerned has got something wrong with them."

Warning for much of Louisiana coast

A hurricane warning was issued for most of the Louisiana coast from Intracoastal City to the mouth of the Pearl River. A tropical storm warning was extended to the Mississippi-Alabama line.

Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals. There's little room for their patients elsewhere, with hospitals from Texas to Florida already reeling from a spike in coronavirus patients, said Dr. Jennifer Avengo, the city's health director.

At the state's largest hospital system, Ochsner Health System, officials ordered 10 days worth of fuel, food, drugs and other supplies and have backup fuel contracts for its generators. One positive was that the number of COVID-19 patients had dropped from 988 to 836 over the past week a 15 per centdecline.

U.S. President Joe Biden approved a federal emergency declaration for Louisiana ahead of the storm.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said FEMA plans to send nearly 150 medical personnel and almost 50 ambulances to the Gulf Coast to assist strained hospitals.

Ida made its first landfall Friday afternoon on Cuba's southern Isle of Youth. TheCuban government issued a hurricane warningfor its westernmost province. Enough rain could fall in places to makedeadly flash floods and mudslides possible, forecasters said.

An even greaterdangerwill then begin over the Gulf, where forecasts were aligned in predicting Ida will strengthen very quickly into a major hurricane before making landfall in theMississippi River delta late Sunday,the hurricane center said.

Ida could hit 16 years to the day Katrina landed

If that forecast holds true, Ida would hit 16 years to the day when Hurricane Katrina landed as a Category 3 storm near the riverside community of Buras, just down the Mississippi from New Orleans.

Katrina is blamed for an estimated 1,800 deaths from the central Louisiana coast to around the Mississippi-Alabama state line. A massive storm surge scoured the shores and wiped houses off the map. In New Orleans, failures of federal levees led to catastrophic flooding. Water covered 80 per centof the city and many homes were swamped to the rooftops. Some victims drowned in their attics. The Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center became scenes of sweltering misery as tens of thousands were stranded without power or running water.

Memories of Katrina still haunt many who scrambled to prepare for Ida on Friday, lining up for groceries, gas and ice, as well as sandbags that the city was offering.

Traffic snarled at entrances to a New Orleans Costco, where dozens of cars were backed up at the gas pumps and shoppers wheeled out carts stacked with cases of bottled water and other essentials.

Saturday's preseason NFL game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Saints at the Superdome was first moved up seven hours to avoid the weather, and then cancelled altogether.

The hurricane center predicted the peak storm surge could reach threeto 4.5 metres along the Louisiana coast, with a possible surge of 2.1 to 3.4 metresin the New Orleans area. The storm's track put New Orleans on the eastern side, which generally sees much more significant effects than the western side.

"Being east of this storm's track is not ideal," said Arnold.