Ida — a Category 4 storm — hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier, coming ashore about 72 kilometres west of where Category 3 Katrina first struck land.
Ida's 230 km/h winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland U.S.
Significant flooding was reported late Sunday night in LaPlace, a community adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain, meteorologists in New Orleans said.
The rising ocean swamped the barrier island of Grand Isle as landfall came just to the west at Port Fourchon.
Montegut and Bourg firefighters cut through trees on the road in Bourg, La., as Hurricane Ida passes on Sunday.
A news crew reports on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain ahead of approaching Hurricane Ida in New Orleans on Sunday.
Louisiana is also home to two nuclear power plants, one near New Orleans and another about 43 kilometres northwest of Baton Rouge. »
