Kickoff for Saturday’s preseason game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Saints at the Superdome was moved up seven hours to avoid the weather, to a noon Central Time start after consultation with city and federal officials and the National Weather Service. “This is my first time being home in 34 years of service,” he added. “I know what that looks like,” Smith said, referring to the potential devastation. He loaded water, bread and sandwich meat into his SUV. Retired police officer Wondell Smith, who worked on the police force 16 years ago when Katrina hit, said he and his family were planning to stay, but were also getting ready to head farther inland if the forecasts worsened. 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. Memories of Katrina still haunt many who scrambled to prepare for Ida on Friday, lining up for groceries, gas and ice, and the city was offering sandbags. The Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center became scenes of sweltering misery as tens of thousands were stranded without power or running water. Water covered 80% of the city and many homes were swamped to the rooftops. In New Orleans, failures of federal levees led to catastrophic flooding. A massive storm surge scoured the shores and wiped houses off the map.
Katrina is blamed for an estimated 1,800 deaths from the central Louisiana coast to around the Mississippi-Alabama state line. If that forecast holds true, Ida would hit 16 years to the day since Hurricane Katrina landed as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph (201 kph) winds near the riverside community of Buras in Plaquemines Parish, just down the Mississippi from New Orleans. The Cuban government issued a hurricane warning for its westernmost provinces, where forecasters said as much as 20 inches of rain could fall in places, possibly unleashing deadly flash floods and mudslides.Īn even greater danger will then begin over the Gulf, where forecasts were aligned in predicting Ida will strengthen very quickly into a major hurricane, reaching 120 mph (193 kph) before landfall in the Mississippi River delta late Sunday, the hurricane center said. Ida became a hurricane with maximum winds of 75 mph (120 kph) Friday afternoon right before making its first landfall on the island off Cuba’s southern coast.
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