Louisiana Residents Who Fled Before Ida Are Urged to Stay Away Indefinitely

New Orleans, which is introducing a curfew, remains without electricity. Hundreds of thousands have no water.

NEW ORLEANS — As hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana faced the prospect of punishingly hot weeks ahead without electricity, officials urged those who had fled before the onslaught of Hurricane Ida to stay away indefinitely as the long slog of recovery began. While search-and-rescue efforts wound down in the bayous and small towns of southern Louisiana, the ugly reality of the storm’s aftermath, even in places like New Orleans that were spared the worst, was becoming miserably clear. “Many of the life-supporting infrastructure elements are not present, they’re not operating right now,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference in the flood-wrecked city of LaPlace on Tuesday. “If you have already evacuated, do not return.”