Raleigh North Carolina News

By REBECCA SANTANA, JAY REEVES and KEVIN McGILL, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Rescuers set out in hundreds of boats and helicopters to reach people trapped by floodwaters Monday, and utility repair crews rushed in, after a furious Hurricane Ida swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the stifling, late-summer heat. Residents living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated desperately to their attics or roofs…

RALEIGH (WTVD) — Ida thrashed the Gulf Coast, killing at least one person and knocking out power to more than 1 million. The storm is weakening but will still bring weather changes to North Carolina. Louisiana family sheltering in attic during Ida landfall was ‘the only thing’ they could do Beginning Wednesday, tropical rain could fall in parts of the state, including the Triangle. Most areas will see only .25 to 1 inch of rain….

By REBECCA SANTANA, KEVIN McGILL and JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida became a tropical storm as its top winds slowed over Mississippi on Monday, 16 hours after blowing ashore in Louisiana as one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. mainland. Ida pushed so much water into the mouth of the Mississippi that it reversed the flow of the mighty river and blacked out New Orleans, taking down…

By WRAL Severe Weather Center Ida was downgraded to a tropical storm Monday morning after making landfall along the Gulf Coast as a catastrophic Category 4 hurricane. Ida battered Louisiana on Sunday and overnight, ripping roofs off homes and threatening flooding, and the storm will move up the Mississippi valley on Monday. Now that Ida’s winds are weakening, the main threat will be heavy rain. WRAL meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner said the storm’s winds are still…

By Richard Fausset, Katy Reckdahl and Chelsea Brasted, New York Times NEW ORLEANS — As Hurricane Ida began violently tearing through South Louisiana on Sunday, Kelli Chandler was holed up in a windowless office, waiting and watching for the answer to a question that all of New Orleans was asking: Would the levees — the newer, stronger, more sophisticated levees — hold back the storm? Chandler, an official in the nerve center of the sprawling…

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) — A Durham couple remembers Hurricane Katrina like it was yesterday; Sunday, Aug. 29, marks 16 years since it first hit New Orleans as Hurricane Ida washes over the city. Victoria Olsen and Dale Bellard had their home stripped away from them as Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in Mississippi back in 2005. “The house came down on top of us while we were there… I mean it was a mess,” said…

As Hurricane Ida made landfall in the U.S., Colonial Pipeline says it will be closing two of its fuel lines from Texas to North Carolina as a “precautionary and routine safety measure.” Colonial expects the pipeline to return to full service as the storm moves out of the region but will first be subject to evaluations and “successful execution of the company’s start-up plan.” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, says shutting…

By WRAL Weather Team and KEVIN MCGILL and JAY REEVES, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida rapidly intensified to a strong Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, making landfall over Port Fourchon, LA with maximum sustained winds of 150mph. Ida is an immensely strong hurricane; if it were just 7mph stronger, it would have been a Category 5. Parts of the state, such as Grand Isle, are reportedly under water due to storm surge. The…

By WRAL Weather Team and KEVIN MCGILL and JAY REEVES, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. The 12 p.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center showed Ida was 25 miles south-southwest of…

NEW ORLEANS — August 29 marks the anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Waveland, Mississippi, not far from New Orleans. The powerful hurricane hit Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. It forced a storm surge that breached a system of levees built to protect New Orleans. The storm would go on to cause significant damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida. It would ravage New Orleans while displacing countless residents….

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans finds itself in the path of Hurricane Ida 16 years to the day after floodwalls collapsed and levees were overtopped by a storm surge driven by Hurricane Katrina. That flooding killed more than 1,000 people and caused billions in damage. But Ida arrives at the doorstep of a region transformed since 2005 by a giant civil works project and closer attention to flood control. The system already has been tested…

By WRAL Weather Team and KEVIN MCGILL and JAY REEVES, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. Ida quickly gained strength as it moved into the northern Gulf, with top winds of 150…

By WRAL Weather Team and KEVIN MCGILL and JAY REEVES, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. Ida quickly gained strength as it moved into the northern Gulf, with top winds of 150…

By KEVIN MCGILL and JAY REEVES, Associated Press and WRAL Severe Weather Center NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. Ida quickly gained strength as it moved into the northern Gulf, going from top winds…

Hurricane Ida is looking eerily like a dangerous sequel to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in American history. But there’s a few still-to-come twists that could make Ida nastier in some ways, but not quite as horrific in others. Ida is forecast to make landfall on the same calendar date, August 29, as Katrina did 16 years ago, striking the same general part of Louisiana with about the same wind speed, after rapidly strengthening…