NEW ORLEANS —

Residents at an apartment building in New Orleans say they were abandoned after Hurricane Ida knocked out electricity, and the property manager offered little to no assistance to the 40 or so low-income residents. Many are elderly and have acute health conditions that were exacerbated by the oppressive heat after the storm.

Electricity was restored Thursday, but people who suffered through the heat are demanding answers.

"We went through a lot of pain and suffering, couldn't sleep, never got sleep or nothing, man," said Tyrone Webber, a resident at Boyd Manor.

Residents depended on local community volunteers who brought them food, water and ice. Some of the volunteers had been inside the building's apartments and shared videos that showed water on the floor and leaks around window sills.

The volunteers made patchwork repairs, but residents say they have not heard from the property manager about long-term solutions.

"The landlord didn't come here, not one day. We was without lights and everything for 10 days, and she's going to come here today talking about she want rent," resident Yolanda Lewis said.

National Baptist Housing and Economic Development own the property. Its chairman, who is also a local pastor, said he had evacuated from New Orleans for the hurricane and had not been to the residence since the storm.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development financed the property and pays 70% of the rent for tenants, who must qualify as low-income. This means residents did not have the means to evacuate on their own.

However, a representative for the company that manages the building told sister station WDSU that the residents were given information to arrange their evacuation through the city's 311 service. Only one resident chose that option.

The on-site manager has been to the building every day since Hurricane Ida and brought residents food and water, the representative said. Residents dispute that claim, saying volunteers and a council member have been their only sources of aid. One resident said the manager "snuck in through the backdoor."

A community member said conditions were substandard before the hurricane. He, too, said property management has been absent in the storm's aftermath.

Personnel is expected to be sent to complete an assessment of building damage. That process was hindered by the lack of electricity. There was no timeline given for when repairs would be made, but contractors are reportedly expected to be hired if the damages are extensive.

Residents should not be expected to pay their portion of the rent in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, a representative for the company said, adding that she was not aware that the onsite property manager had pressed tenants for payments. She also said she was not aware of residents' claims that problems such as mold, mildew and leaks were present before the storm.

NEW ORLEANS —

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Louisiana, most of them outside New Orleans, still didn't have power Tuesday and more than half of the gas stations in two major cities were without fuel nine days after Hurricane Ida slammed into the state, splintering homes and toppling electric lines.

There were also persistent signs of recovery, however, as the total number of people without electricity has fallen from more than a million at its peak, while hundreds of thousands of people have had their water restored. AT&T, which suffered widespread cellphone outages after the storm, reported that its wireless network now is operating normally in Louisiana.

As residents struggled to recover, state organizations, church groups and volunteers labored for a ninth day to hand out food, water and other necessary supplies to those left without resources when their homes were destroyed or left uninhabitable.

The disparity in power restoration between New Orleans, where nearly three-fourths of the city had electricity again, and other communities where almost all residents were still in the dark prompted frustration and finger-pointing.

State Rep. Tanner Magee, the House's second-ranking Republican who lives in the devastated city of Houma in Terrebonne Parish, said he's convinced his region is being shortchanged in favor of New Orleans.

"It's very infuriating to me," Magee said.

Though water was running again in his area, most hospitals in the region remained shuttered and the parish was in desperate need of temporary shelter for first responders and others vital to the rebuilding effort, he said.

Warner Thomas, president and CEO of the state's largest hospital system — Ochsner Health — warned that it would be "some time" before hospitals in Terrebonne and Lafourche parish fully reopen. Emergency rooms at the two hospitals, however, were open.

Carnival Cruise Line announced Tuesday that it will keep one of its ships, Carnival Glory, docked in New Orleans through Sept. 18 to serve as housing for first responders.

Kim Bass said the Louisiana heat was the hardest thing to cope with without power at her home in St. John the Baptist Parish. She said she and her husband were using a generator to keep food refrigerated but had no air conditioning. Water service was intermittent.

"So you may have water one minute, then you may not have water for the next two days," she said.

Fuel shortages also persisted across hard-hit areas of the state. More than 50% of gas stations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge remained without gasoline Tuesday morning, according to GasBuddy.com.

Magee said lines to get gasoline to power up generators and vehicles in his parish involve hourslong waits.

The power situation has improved greatly since Ida first hit. In the first hours after the storm, nearly 1.1 million customers were in the dark — including all of New Orleans. With the help of tens of thousands of workers from power companies in numerous states, the state's biggest energy provider, Entergy, has been able to slowly bring electricity back, leaving only 19% of its customers in the region without power as of Tuesday.

For residents in the state's four hardest-hit parishes in southeastern Louisiana, however, that number is little comfort. Fully 98% of those residents are still without power more than a week after Ida slammed onshore with 150 mph winds (240 kph) on Aug. 29.

Power probably won't be widely restored to St. John the Baptist Parish until Sept. 17 and until Sept. 29 to Lafourche, St. Charles and Terrebonne parishes, Entergy said Monday. The parishes are home to about 300,000 people.

In St. John the Baptist, power has been restored to "a small pocket" of customers in the hard-hit town of LaPlace, Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May said in a Tuesday conference call. He didn't say how many now have power there, but promised the number will rise as crews work their way into the community.

A parade of utility trucks on Tuesday passed by a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in LaPlace that serves as a clearinghouse for donated water, ice and other supplies still desperately needed in the area. One truck was in the parking lot of the hall working to restore electricity.

In contrast, nearly all power has been restored in the capital of Baton Rouge, and only 27% of homes and businesses are still suffering outages in New Orleans. Entergy said it expected to have the vast majority of New Orleans brought online by Wednesday. Once areas such as New Orleans have their power restored, Entergy is moving its crews into communities south and west of the city that saw more widespread damage, May said.

As Entergy worked to get the lights turned on everywhere, the Louisiana Department of Health reported that the number of people without water had fallen from a peak of 850,000 to 58,000, though about 850,000 people were being advised to boil their water for safety. And grocery stores reopened in some places.

Ida's death toll in Louisiana rose to 15 people Tuesday after the state Department of Health reported two additional storm-related fatalities: a 68-year-old man who fell off of a roof while making repairs to damage caused by Hurricane Ida and a 71-year-old man who died of a lack of oxygen during an extended power outage. The storm's remnants also brought historic flooding, record rains and tornados from Virginia to Massachusetts, killing at least 50 more people.

Seven nursing home residents in Louisiana died after being evacuated during Hurricane Ida to a warehouse in the town of Independence where conditions were later determined to be unhealthy and unsafe, according to state health officials who said they've launched an investigation into the facility.

In New Orleans, hundreds of seniors were evacuated from apartments after the electricity went out and some were trapped in wheelchairs on the top floors of their multi-story apartment complexes. The managers of some of the homes for seniors evacuated out of state without making sure the residents would be safe after the storm, New Orleans City Council member Kristin Palmer said Monday.

The Louisiana Department of Health has revoked the license of seven nursing home facilities after seven residents died after being evacuated and housed in an "inhumane" warehouse during Hurricane Ida.

According to NBC News, five of those deaths were classified as storm-related.

CNN reported that more than 800 residents were brought to the warehouse in the town of Independence ahead of the storm.

Stephen Russo, the department's attorney, announced the move during a press conference on Tuesday.

“Let’s be clear. There is no emergency-preparedness plan that allows for residents to be kept in such an unsafe, unsanitary, and unhealthy condition," Russo said. "The lack of adequate care for these residents is inhumane and goes against the rules, regulations, and applicable statutes.”

According to Scripps sister station KATC, the facilities losing their license are:

• River Palms Nursing and Rehab, Orleans Parish
• South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab, Lafourche Parish
• Maison Orleans Healthcare Center, Orleans Parish
• Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home, Jefferson Parish
• West Jefferson Health Care Center, Jefferson Parish
• Maison De Ville Nursing Home, Terrebonne Parish
• Maison Deville Nursing Home of Harvey, Jefferson Parish

According to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, all the facilities are owned by Baton Rouge businessman Bob Dean.

In a statement, State Attorney General Jeff Landry said his office would launch a full investigation into the "tragedy."

About 14,000 people in one Louisiana parish are without homes after Hurricane Ida damaged or destroyed 75% of the structures there, Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said Monday.

"We are working feverishly, as hard as we can to get all people what they need to keep their lives going and to rebuild our community," Chaisson told CNN's Aliysn Camerota.

The parish remains under a curfew, and power likely won't be restored until around Sept. 29, according to regional energy provider Entergy.

Chaisson also addressed the deaths of seven people after being evacuated from seven nursing homes to a warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish. One of those nursing homes is in Lafourche Parish.

"These nursing homes have an emergency plan so that when we call mandatory evacuation and they know they have to leave, they have a safe place to put their residents," Chaisson told CNN. "In this case, that didn't happen."

State Sen. Kirk Talbot told sister station WDSU he wants to require backup generators at nursing homes and said it will be the first bill he will file next year.

Louisiana State Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter on Saturday ordered the immediate closure of the nursing homes pending further regulatory action.

Parts of Louisiana are under flash flood watch

Louisiana residents who have been without power since Hurricane Ida hit last week could see more severe weather.

Parts of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, including Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Gulfport, are under a heat advisory, as high temperatures will be in the upper 80s and lower 90s, with a heat index between 100 and 105 degrees.

In addition, a flash flood watch is in effect in the region through the evening Monday as slow-moving thunderstorms are expected to develop. These storms are expected to produce widespread heavy rain of 2 to 3 inches in a short period of time, which will likely lead to flash flooding due to soils already saturated with water.

Meanwhile, about 486,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana still do not have electricity, according to PowerOutage.US. The lack of power, excess heat and issues with water and fuel have made the ongoing conditions dangerous.

"We have seen a lot of folks getting heatstroke and other illnesses from not having access to medicine," St. Charles Parish President Matthew Jewell told CNN on Monday. "That's why we worked real hard this week to get a lot of our pharmacies opened up. That's why we've been working with the Sheriff's Office to make sure we do wellness checks on our elderly population because you just can't sit in this type of heat for extended periods of time."

In Tangipahoa Parish, residents in need of shelter are being taken to facilities in other parishes because of the ongoing outages.

"There is no facilities available, with the damage to the schools and the lack of power for those facilities," said Dawson Primes, Tangipahoa Parish homeland security and emergency management director.

Communities all along Ida's path -- from Louisiana to New York -- are still working to recover more than a week after the storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. Though it weakened into a tropical depression as it reached the Northeast, its heavy rains still brought devastation to the region.

In both regions, roadways turned to rivers, lives were lost and structures were destroyed by strong winds and rising waters. The recovery and repair could last weeks in some places, officials said.

President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration for five counties in New York and six counties in New Jersey, a designation that allows for federal assistance, state officials said.

In the New York borough of Queens those impacted by the storm were seeking resources Sunday to help in the recovery. Some needed help getting their utilities back, some needed help with the water damage and others needed assistance with the emotional traumas.

"If you drive around Queens, it looks like a bomb went off. Everybody's personal belongings are out on the street and we've seen what it looks like down south after a hurricane. This is what Queens looks like today. It's horrible," Queens resident Barbara Amarantinis told CNN.

Due to climate change, destruction like that seen in both the Gulf and East Coast from extreme weather will be "our new normal," Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell warned Sunday.

"This is the crisis of our generation, these impacts that we are seeing from climate change, and we have to act now to try to protect against the future risks that we are going to face," Criswell said during an interview on Fox Sunday morning.

Hundreds of thousands without electricity in Louisiana

In Louisiana, not only was the damage from the storm severe, but the impact on utilities has made it even harder for many parts of the state to recover. The biggest challenge is the lack of electricity.

Portions of Jefferson Parish experienced "more busted power poles (and) down utility lines than we've had in history" due to Hurricane Ida, said a Saturday update from Parish Councilman Dominick Impastato.

"There's not a neighborhood that's been spared, there's not a street that's been spared, there's not a neighborhood that doesn't have a massive amount of split power poles," Impastato said.

The lack of power has led to cascading infrastructure issues: a shortage of fuel, lack of water pressure and problems at water treatment plants. Hospitals and some homes and businesses have tried to rely on generators, but that poses its own challenges, said Joe Valiente, emergency management director of Jefferson Parish.

"Right now, our government and our response capabilities are on life support because we rely totally on generated power. And of course to have generators, you have to have fuel," Valiente told CNN. "So fuel has been short because two-thirds of our refinery capabilities were knocked out."

Those capabilities are coming back online, but for now, the parish has limited water pressure, non-functioning traffic lights and closed stores.

"This area simply is not ready to sustain everyday normal living," he said.

'Once-in-a-century storm' hits the East

After surveying the damage Friday in Louisiana, the president will travel to New Jersey and New York on Tuesday to assess the impact on the East Coast, where the storm claimed the lives of at least 50 people.

Paterson, New Jersey, Mayor André Sayegh lamented the destruction, telling CNN, "As if a once-in-a-century virus wasn't enough, we had a once-in-a-century storm."

In Paterson alone, about 300 people had been rescued, almost 100 cars were left abandoned throughout the city and 30 families were seeking refuge at emergency shelters Saturday, Sayegh said.

Many of the efforts at rescue have been strenuous, like helping a man on the banks of the Passaic River near a bridge. Paterson Fire Chief Brian McDermott described how Paterson's Metro Urban Strike Team drilled a hole in the concrete bridge, plowing through several layers of rebar and corrugated steel to see through to the bottom of the bridge and eventually pull the man out.

"All while the storm is raging, the winds are raging, and we're handling a third alarm fire. An ambulance trapped with people. A hundred fifty people calling for help and we're only 8.4 square miles -- that's a lot going on," McDermott said, commenting on his team's overall rescue operations.

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, a mother, father, and son died by drowning in their apartment building, officials said.

Rosa Espinal, 72, and her husband Jose Torres, 71, and their 38-year-old son Jose Torres died when more than 12 feet of water drenched their apartment in a residential complex, city spokesperson Kelly Martins told CNN on Friday. Their neighbor, 33-year-old Shakia Garrett, also drowned, Martins said

In New York, the initial assessment of the damage Ida left behind is estimated as at least $50 million, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.

Displaced New Yorkers will be eligible for temporary housing assistance funds, unemployment assistance, legal services, crisis counseling and home repairs, she said.

A dolphin that was pushed into a canal in Louisiana during Hurricane Ida was rescued Sunday morning.

It was a team effort Sunday as Chief Randy Fandal with the Slidell Police Department and many other organizations came out to the Schneider Canal to assist in the capture of the dolphin.

Nearly a dozen people got into the water to rescue the dolphin. You can watch video of that rescue in the video player above.

They were able to secure the dolphin onto an orange tarp and load it into a vehicle that had a tank of water.

The dolphin then received a police escort and was transported to a vet. Police said the dolphin will then go to The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies for rehabilitation.

Less than a week after Hurricane Ida ravaged the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden was in Louisiana on Friday to get an up-close view of the damage and offer assistance from the federal government.

The devastation was clear as Air Force One approached New Orleans, with uprooted trees and blue tarps covering shredded houses coming into focus ahead of landing. The path to nearby LaPlace, where Biden was to be briefed by local officials, was dotted with wood poles that held power lines jutting from the ground at odd angles.

"I promise we're going to have your back," Biden said at the outset of the briefing.

Such trips to natural disaster scenes have long been a feature of the U.S. presidency. It's a moment to demonstrate compassion and show the public that the president is leading during the crisis. It's also an opportunity to hit pause, however temporarily, from the political sniping that often dominates Washington.

In shirtsleeves and boots, Biden was welcomed at the airport by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat. Several Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy and Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, were also on hand.

Biden was meeting with with local officials and touring a neighborhood in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered catastrophic wind and water damage and was left with sheared-off roofs and flooded homes. He also planned a flyover tour of hard-hit communities including Lafitte, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, where Parish President Archie Chaisson said 25% of the homes in his community of 100,000 people were gone or had catastrophic damage.

Past presidents have been defined in part by how they handled such crises.

Donald Trump casually lobbed paper towels to people in Puerto Rico after a hurricane, generating scorn from critics but little damage to his political standing. Barack Obama hugged New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy, a brief respite from partisan tensions that had threatened the economy with a fiscal cliff. And George W. Bush fell out of public favor after a poor and unprepared response to Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans in 2005.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Biden is grappling with the persistent threat posed by climate change and the prospect that disaster zone visits may become a more regular feature of the presidency. Before he left Washington, Biden called for greater public resolve to confront climate change and help the nation deal with the fierce storms, flooding and wildfires that have beset the country.

Scientists say climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather events — such as large tropical storms, and the droughts and heatwaves that create conditions for vast wildfires. U.S. weather officials recently reported that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded in 142 years of record-keeping.

As for Friday's trip, Biden said his message to the Gulf Coast was: "We are here for you. And we're making sure the response and recovery is equitable so that those hit hardest get the resources they need and are not left behind."

Biden's nearly eight-month-old presidency has been shaped in part by perpetual crises. The president went to Texas in February after a cold winter storm caused its power grid to fail and he has repeatedly monitored the wildfires that have darkened skies in Western states.

Besides natural disasters, the president has had to contend with a multitude of other challenges. He is searching for ways to rescue the 100-200 Americans stuck in Afghanistan after the longest war in U.S. history ended only a matter of days ago. He is also confronting the delta variant of the coronavirus that has stuck the country in an autumn of uncertainty only months after Biden declared independence from the disease at a July 4 celebration on the White House lawn.

His call for resolve to help the country overcome the pandemic and forge a $1 trillion infrastructure deal is now being applied to the perilous task of withstanding the aftershocks of climate change.

"The past few days of Hurricane Ida and the wildfires in the West and the unprecedented flash floods in New York and New Jersey is yet another reminder that these extreme storms and the climate crisis are here," he said Thursday. "We need to be much better prepared. We need to act."

Biden pledged robust federal help for states dealing with natural disasters. And he said he will further press Congress to pass his nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill to improve roads, bridges, the electric grid and sewer systems.

The proposal intends to ensure that the vital networks connecting cities and states and the country as a whole can withstand the flooding, whirlwinds and damage caused by increasingly dangerous weather.

Ida was the fifth-most powerful storm to strike the U.S. when it hit Louisiana on Sunday with maximum winds of 150 mph (240 kph), likely causing tens of billions of dollars in flood, wind and other damage, including to the electrical grid. The storm's remnants dropped devastating rainfall across parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey on Wednesday, causing significant disruption to major population centers.

The storm has killed at least 48 people in the Northeastern U.S. and at least 13 in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

___

Associated Press writers Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La., and Christina Larson and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — While Louisiana and Mississippi continue to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, some steps were taken before the storm to keep hundreds of animals safe.

Merrick, Riley, and Geneva were among the dozens of dogs rescued from the storm zone and taken to Suncoast Animal League in Palm Harbor, Florida. Now, all three are hoping to find a new home.

"I can't even tell you what they've been through these past few days," said Rick Chaboudy, who runs Suncoast Animal League.

Suncoast Animal League took in 39 dogs from the storm zone ravaged by Hurricane Ida. Most are already in foster homes around Pinellas County.

"These dogs are so resilient. They've amazed us at everything they've gone through," Chaboudy said. "The trips, time spent in cages, things like that. To come out happy, wagging their tails — just glad to be here, basically."

While some dogs found and rescued after Ida could be heading to Pinellas in the days ahead, others didn't have owners and were already in shelters.

"By taking them, not only are we saving their lives, but we are also making room so they can take in the dogs that are found as strays and such during the aftermath of the event," Chaboudy said.

The dogs can't be adopted until after they've been spayed or neutered, but Suncoast Animal League said so many people have already said they want to help.

"They are watching the devastation that's going on. We are too. And then you look at these guys and think, 'Wow, 24-48 hours ago; they could have been in the middle of all that," Chaboudy said.

To find out more about adopting a dog, visit the Suncoast Animal League's website.

This story was originally published by Erik Waxler on Scripps station WFTS in Tampa, Florida.

HOUMA, La. — It’s deceptively beautiful at the end of another hot Louisiana day. Perhaps it’s a sort of apology from Mother Nature following Hurricane Ida. However, it's come too late, as gas is in short supply and desperation is starting to set in.

“We need help,” said resident Brandy Jones.

You could see the desperation on Jones’ face and hear it in her voice.

“We got hit the hardest, so you’d think they would have something for us, but they don’t have anything,” she explained.

Sitting outside a makeshift shelter in Houma, Louisiana, this mother, her 4-year-old child and their family have no place to go. Their home was left uninhabitable by Ida.

It could be weeks before this city of 30,000 people has power again.

Even the shelter here has no running water or air conditioning. It’s as hot outside as it is inside.

“I feel really pissed off, angry, you think this is our Parish. This is bad,” Jones said. “We asked, and nobody knows what’s the plan. They said they wasn’t prepared for this. How?”

Things are not much better for Brinson Sangste, who is living inside his car with his cat. He’s parked his car in the parking lot of the shelter here.

Sangste filled an extra tank of gas and packed some coolers with cooking supplies

“In that suitcase, I’ve got eight pairs of blue jeans and about 25 shirts,” he shared.

This is all he has now.

“Ah, it humbles yourself. You learn what you need what you don’t need,” he said.

Sangste lives in Dulac, Louisiana, a small, unreachable town 30 miles south of the shelter he’s now at. His town took a direct hit.

“There’s nothing, nothing. I almost didn’t come back,” he said.

For those without the means to leave, this is it. They battled a Category 4 hurricane, only to now be baking in nearly 100-degree weather with no air conditioning.

Those who are lucky enough to have generators, like Mary Guidry, are doing what they can to occupy the time.

“We’ve been picking up stuff all over, but some stuff you can’t pick up,” she said.

It may not seem like much, amidst the devastation, but people here have to start somewhere.

Even utility crews are beginning the painstakingly complex process of somehow getting the power grid across Southeast Louisiana back online.

People across the Gulf Coast are trying not to lose sight of what’s important, even though Ida has taken so much away.

A video shared with sister station WDSU on Monday shows what appears to be a dolphin swimming in a body of water in a Slidell, Louisiana, neighborhood after Hurricane Ida moved across the area.Amanda Huling said while assessing the damage around her neighborhood in Slidell Monday morning, she came across a dolphin in a small body of water. Louisiana residents are now faced with immense recovery efforts after Hurricane Ida devastated the Southeast Louisiana Coast.A fearsome Hurricane Ida has left scores of coastal Louisiana residents trapped by floodwaters and pleading to be rescued while making a shambles of the electrical grid across a wide swath of the state in the sweltering, late-summer heat.

SLIDELL, La. — A 71-year-old man is missing after reportedly being attacked by an alligator while walking in the Louisiana floodwaters from Hurricane Ida.

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office says the man’s wife contacted them at about noon on Monday, saying her husband was apparently killed by an alligator.

The woman told deputies she was inside her Slidell home when she heard a commotion and went outside to see a large alligator attacking her husband.

The sheriff’s office says the woman immediately ran to her husband in an attempt to stop the attack and once the animal stopped, she pulled the man out of the floodwaters and returned to gather first aid supplies.

“When she returned and realized the severity of his injuries, she immediately got into her pirogue and went to higher ground, which was approximately a mile away, to get help. When she returned her husband was no longer lying on the steps,” said the sheriff’s office.

Deputies say they’ve used high water vehicles and flatboats in an attempt to locate the man, but they have yet to find him.

The incident is under investigation.

“Sheriff Randy Smith warns residents to be extra vigilant with walking in flooded areas as wildlife has been displaced as well during this storm and alligators and other animals may have moved closer into neighborhoods,” wrote the sheriff’s office.

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, exactly 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the state and became the deadliest and costliest hurricane to hit the U.S. in recorded history.

Video above: Economic damage from Ida not as bad as feared

The two storms share some key similarities in terms of their date, strength, location and their destructive impact on the region's power grid and water systems. But the major hurricanes also have clear differences in their paths — and New Orleans and its rebuilt levees are different, too, from that fateful day 16 years ago that left over 1,800 people dead.

A day after Ida hit the state, here's an early look at how the two storms compare.

Their strength and path

Though both major hurricanes hit Louisiana, the two storms differ in clear meteorological ways and in their paths through the state.

Katrina first made landfall early on Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm with maximum winds of about 125 mph near Buras, Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said. It had been a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico and weakened significantly before making landfall, but that prior strength meant that it created a very high storm surge.

Katrina was also huge in geographic size, and hurricane-force winds stretched up to 110 miles from its center.

The storm brought hurricane conditions to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and dumped 8 to 12 inches of rain along its track. Importantly, Katrina caused major storm surge flooding 25 to 28 feet above normal tide levels along parts of the Mississippi coast, and storm surge flooding of 10 to 20 feet above normal tide levels along the southeastern Louisiana coast, according to the National Weather Service.

Ida, meanwhile, made landfall around midday Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph near Port Fourchon, the NHC said. Ida had rapidly strengthened in the 24 hours leading up to landfall but was smaller in size than Katrina, and hurricane-force winds stretched only up to 45 miles from its center.

Ida also moved slower than Katrina. Ida traveled about 100 miles inland in the first 12 hours after landfall Sunday, while Katrina moved about 240 miles inland in its first 12 hours after landfall.

The two storms also differ in the path they took through Louisiana. Ida first made landfall at Port Fourchon, about 40 miles west-southwest of Buras, where Katrina first hit. Ida then moved into Louisiana west of New Orleans, while Katrina pushed east of the city in 2005.

Hurricanes spin in a counter-clockwise direction, and the eastern side of a hurricane has the strongest winds, so New Orleans experienced each storm differently. In 2005, Katrina passed east of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, so its winds pushed water from the lake south into the city, causing more flooding.

This weekend, Ida passed to the west of the city, bringing stronger winds to New Orleans but also pushing the lake's water away from the city.

"I think that we're going to see the wind damage (with Ida) could be worse than Katrina," CNN meteorologist Judson Jones said.

The levees

The biggest difference between these two storms is that New Orleans and its vital levee system have been remade in the intervening years.

New Orleans sits partly below sea level south of Lake Pontchartrain and is already vulnerable to flooding. A complex system of levees, pumps, canals and floodwalls run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers protects it from regular flooding.

Katrina was so catastrophic primarily because the very high storm surge overtopped the levee system in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, leading to levee failures and breaches. Most of the breaches were due to erosion from overtopping, but a few breaches occurred before the waters even reached the top of the floodwalls, the NHC said in a post-storm analysis.

The failure of the levee system created extensive flooding and destroyed much of the city.

"Overall, about 80% of the city of New Orleans flooded, to varying depths up to about 20 ft, within a day or so after landfall of the eye," the NHC said.

Since then, the levee and pump system has been revamped to protect against another such failure.

It remains early, but as of midday Monday, the rebuilt levees have largely worked as designed. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East said that its levees held and were not overtopped during Hurricane Ida. "There have been no issues with our pumps," the authority said. The New Orleans Flood Protection Authority also said the levee system functioned as designed.

Jefferson Parish assessor Tom Capella, who was chairman of the Jefferson Parish council in 2005 and remembers Katrina's devastation, said he had not heard of any such widespread flooding in the parish on Monday.

"As we sit here, if you're looking for the good news, the levees held," he said. "I'm looking out my window and there are shingles down, but I don't see the complete and utter devastation of 6 feet of water in people's houses like we had for Katrina."

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told MSNBC on Monday that clean-up from Hurricane Ida will take a while, but the levee "performed extremely well."

"If we had to deal with a failed levee system this morning, it would be completely unimaginable and thank goodness that is not what we are dealing with today," he said.

Ramsey Green, New Orleans deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, emphasized the upgraded levee system on Saturday ahead of the storm.

"This is a different city than it was August 28, 2005, in terms of infrastructure and safety," he said at a news conference.

Green called the city's levee system "an unprecedentedly powerful protection for the city," which has three lines of defense: the coast, the wetlands and the levee system.

"I think from that perspective, we need to be comfortable and we need to know that we'll be in a much better place than we were 16 years ago," Green said.

"That said, if we have 10 to 20 inches of rain over an abbreviated period of time, we will see flooding. We don't know at this moment -- we see 15 to 20 inches over 48 hours or less, and we can handle it, depending on the event."

The power grid and water systems

Ida has not caused a catastrophic levee failure, but like Katrina, it still has caused severe damage to the region's power grid and water systems.

In particular, Ida had knocked out electricity for more than a million customers as of midday Monday, according to Poweroutage.US, a site that tracks outages. New Orleans City Council Member Joe Giarrusso said there are eight transmission lines into New Orleans and Jefferson Parish and all eight have been knocked out.

Entergy Louisiana, the company that provides power to 1.1 million customers in Louisiana, said it will likely take days to determine the damage and "far longer" to restore electrical transmission.

"The most dangerous part of a storm is often just after it has passed," Entergy said, because "downed power lines may still be energized."

The outages have also led to water issues, the Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans said Sunday. The board asked residents to limit water usage and said it is "experiencing challenges" keeping up with demand.

Capella, the Jefferson County assessor, said he's concerned that Ida knocked out power and has impacted the water treatment system. "It is clearly significant damage to the power grids and more importantly to the water system right now," he said Monday.

Ida also arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding another variable to the recovery efforts.

Back in 2005, Katrina caused widespread power outages and left about three million people without electricity, including some for several weeks, according to the NHC. The storm also displaced more than a million people in the Gulf region.

The lack of power and water infamously created horrific conditions at a flooded Memorial Medical Center, where 45 bodies were eventually found. The total damage from Katrina was estimated to be $125 billion (or $176.3 billion in 2021 dollars), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In addition, cell service was down for a large swath of the region both during Katrina and in Ida.

"The communications here are similar to what it was after Katrina," Slidell Police Chief Randy Fandal said Monday. "The damages are not the same as Katrina but as far as the operations, communications, all cell phones, none of the cell phones are working, phone lines are not working, we have very limited communications ourselves."

Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans Sunday after cutting through the Gulf of Mexico, causing massive disruptions to U.S. oil production before making landfall.More than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production facilities have been shut down, regulators said Sunday, indicating the massive storm is having a significant impact on energy supply.Six refineries in the New Orleans area — including PBF, Phillips, Shell, Marathon and two Valero refineries — are shut down right now, Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, a Houston-based consulting firm, told CNN Business. "It's now a waiting game to assess whatever wind and flooding damage will be caused as the hurricane passes through the area."The location of Hurricane Ida's landfall is "one of the worst possible for the oil industry" and it could impact the major pipelines that carry fuel from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast markets, Lipow said. The shuttered six refineries "account for about 1.7 million barrels per day of refinery capacity, representing 9% of the nation's total," he said.The other three refineries in the area — Exxon, Placid and Kratz Springs — are in the Baton Rouge area. "They appear to be operating at reduced levels," Lipow said, adding that those three refineries account for about 700,000 barrels per day, roughly 3.5% of U.S. daily consumption.On Saturday, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) prepared for the storm by activating its Hurricane Response Team. The agency said it was monitoring offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf as they evacuated platforms and rigs. As of late Saturday morning, personnel were evacuated from 288 offshore platforms. That represents about 51% of the manned facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, according to operator reports that were submitted to the BSEE.To restart operations in the aftermath of the storm, producers will need to get personnel back on site, assess and repair damage and restore utilities, Lipow said. But these initiatives take time, especially under the current conditions.The widespread loss of oil supply from one of America's largest energy hubs is likely to lift prices. U.S. oil prices rose sharply last week ahead of Ida's arrival. Oil futures are set to begin trading at 5 p.m. ET Sunday.