Louisiana braces for 'life-altering' Hurricane Ida

Residents across Louisiana’s coast are taking one last day to prepare for what is being described as a “life-altering” Hurricane Ida

NEW ORLEANS -- Residents across Louisiana's coast Saturday were taking one last day to prepare for what is being described as a “life-altering” Hurricane Ida which is expected to bring winds as high as 140 mph (225 kph) when it slams ashore. A combination of voluntary and mandatory evacuations have been called for cities and communities across the region including New Orleans, where the mayor ordered a mandatory evacuation for areas outside the city's levee system and a voluntary evacuation for residents inside the levee system. But since the storm quickly escalated in intensity, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said it wasn't possible to order a mandatory evacuation for the entire city, which would require using all lanes of some highways to leave the city. The storm is expected to make landfall on the exact date Hurricane Katrina devastated a large swath of the Gulf Coast 16 years earlier. But whereas Katrina was a Category 3 when it made landfall southwest of New Orleans, Ida is expected to reach an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, with top winds of 140 mph (225 kph) before making landfall likely west of New Orleans 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.