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U.S. Gulf Coast braces for Category 4 landfall of Hurricane Ida after Cuba takes hit

US Materials 28 August 2021 08:25 (UTC +04:00)
U.S. Gulf Coast braces for Category 4 landfall of Hurricane Ida after Cuba takes hit

Hurricane Ida battered Cuba with roof-ripping force on Friday as it churned toward a weekend U.S. landfall along the Louisiana coast, prompting evacuations of flood-prone New Orleans neighborhoods and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, Trend reports citing Reuters.

By late on Friday, Ida was packing sustained winds of up to 80 miles per hour (129 kph), according to the National Weather Service, which expected the storm to intensify significantly before coming ashore as a major hurricane in southeastern Louisiana on Sunday afternoon or evening.

Forecasters said Ida would likely make U.S. landfall as a robust Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, generating steady winds nearing 140 mph, heavy downpours and a tidal surge expected to plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water.

Inundation from Ida's storm surge - high surf driven by the hurricane's winds - will likely reach between 10 and 15 feet around the mouth of the Mississippi River, with lower levels extending east along the adjacent coastlines of Mississippi and Alabama, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Scattered tornadoes, widespread power outages and inland flooding from torrential rain across the region were also expected.

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