Ida’s sweltering aftermath: No power, no water, no gasoline

By KEVIN MCGILL, CHEVEL JOHNSON and MELINDA DESLATTE
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana communities battered by Hurricane Ida are now dealing with the possibility of weeks without power in the stifling, late-summer heat. Ida ravaged the region’s power grid, leaving 1 million people and businesses in Louisiana without power. The entire city of New Orleans is dark and officials say they don’t know when power would return. The New Orleans airport remained closed to commercial flights for a third day. At least four deaths were blamed on the storm, including two people killed when Ida’s torrential rains washed out a highway in Mississippi and seven vehicles plunged into the 20-foot hole.