Raleigh North Carolina News

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana residents still reeling from flooding and damage caused by Hurricane Ida scrambled for food, gas, water and relief from the sweltering heat as thousands of line workers toiled to restore electricity and officials vowed to set up more sites where people could get free meals and cool off. There was a glimmer of hope early Wednesday when power company Entergy announced its crews had turned “power on for some customers in…

By Peta Sheerwood, WRAL meteorologist Flooding has been in the forefront of national news weather headlines. Flooding devastation struck Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois, North Carolina and New Jersey in the month of August alone. Torrential rains were sparked from tropical cyclones and blocking patterns with a warmer climate playing a big role. Notably, Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane with winds at 150 mph. This tropical cyclone…

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Ida, significantly weakened since making landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, is bringing a chance for severe weather to North Carolina on Wednesday. Most of central North Carolina is under a level two risk of severe weather. Damaging wind gusts are the main threat with Wednesday’s storms, but isolated tornadoes and flooding are also possible in some areas. TIMING The first effects of Ida arrived in the form of rain in the…

Help people affected by Hurricane Ida – Your donation enables the Red Cross to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from this disaster. You can make a difference in the lives of people impacted by Hurricane Ida. Your donation enables the Red Cross to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from this disaster and will provide people and communities affected by this devastating storm with food, shelter, relief supplies, recovery planning…

By JAY REEVES , Associated Press LAPLACE, La. — Debbie Greco and her family cowered on a stairway landing as Hurricane Ida sent 4 feet (1.2 meters) of muddy water rushing into her home in LaPlace along the west side of Lake Pontchartrain. She and her son had safely rescued her elderly parents from their home down the street Sunday. But now they prayed the roof would not collapse on all of them. “God blessed…

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Ida is now being blamed for three deaths as the storm pushes through Tennessee and into the Appalachian Mountains. By Wednesday, Ida will bring rain and storms to central North Carolina. The combination of Ida and frontal boundary have most of the region under a level two risk for severe weather Wednesday. The threats include isolated tornadoes and damaging winds. Louisiana family sheltering in attic during Ida landfall was ‘the only…

By SAM METZ and JANIE HAR, Associated Press/Report for America SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists was clogged with fleeing vehicles Monday after the entire resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to leave as a ferocious wildfire raced toward Lake Tahoe, a sparkling gem on the California-Nevada border. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock…

By Lora Lavigne, WRAL reporter With the power out for millions of customers in the Gulf region from Ida, many people living in the Triangle are worried about their family members in the pathway of the storm. A Durham woman says her family and friends are stuck in Louisiana after traveling to New Orleans last week.. Erica McKever’s mom, sister and friends, all from Durham, were on vacation in the French Quarter of New Orleans…

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Take a breath, there’s plenty of gasoline. For now. Managers from nearly a dozen North Carolina oil and gas companies told ABC11 they are not too concerned about potential fuel shortages or skyrocketing prices emanating from Hurricane Ida, which hammered the Gulf Coast and led to the Colonial Pipeline briefly pausing output. Last May, The Colonial Pipeline cyber attack exposed a critical vulnerability in how both crude oil and refined petroleum…

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business & Chris Lovingood, WRAL reporter CNN — Hurricane Ida’s direct hit on the nation’s oil and gasoline industry could send gas prices higher, exacerbating inflation that’s already hurting American consumers. Hurricane Ida forced pipelines carrying gas from the Gulf Coast to other states to shut as a precaution ahead of the storm. However, experts say there’s nothing to panic about – unless people start panic-buying. Although the Colonial Pipeline had to…

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…