Destruction from Hurricane Ida will be widespread
Today’s Image of the Day from NASA features Hurricane Ida as it charged through the Gulf of Mexico ahead of landfall. The photograph, which was captured by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station, shows the enormous extent of the storm.
ESA and Expedition 65 astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared the image on his Twitter account, saying “we think of those who will suffer it, hoping that they will be prepared and stay safe and sound.”
After making landfall in southeast Louisiana early Sunday afternoon, the monster category 4 storm slowed down to deliver hours of catastrophic winds and heavy rainfall.
More than half the state of Louisiana, including the entire city of New Orleans, is without power. The damage will be more clear when day breaks, and the destruction will be widespread.
Just south of New Orleans, a levee failure caused devastating flooding in Lafitte and Jean Lafitte. “We’ve suffered flooding before. We suffered storms before. But I’ve never seen water like this in my life,” Mayor Tim Kerner Jr. told CNN. “It just hit us in the worst way possible and it was such a massive storm that it just totally devastated us.”
Image Credit: European Space Agency
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
