Louisiana braces for powerful hurricane as COVID-19 taxes hospitals By Reuters

By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Devika Krishna Kumar

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Hurricane Ida was anticipated to make landfall within the U.S. on Sunday as an “extraordinarily harmful” Class 4 storm that might plunge a lot of the Louisiana shoreline below water because the state grapples with a COVID-19 surge already taxing hospitals.

The storm intensified sooner than officers had predicted on Saturday, as residents of the Gulf Coast evacuated and companies shut down.

Southern Louisiana remains to be reeling from the results of Hurricane Laura from a yr in the past. The state additionally has the third-highest incidence of COVID-19 circumstances per 100,000 individuals in the united statesover the previous seven days.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards mentioned on Saturday that Ida’s winds can be fierce and unfold throughout a 300-mile space, and might be the state’s worst direct hit because the 1850s.

Louisiana was additionally devastated 16 years in the past this week by Hurricane Katrina, which killed greater than 1,800 individuals.

The state shouldn’t be planning to evacuate hospitals now strained by an inflow of COVID-19 sufferers, Edwards mentioned.

“The implications of getting a Class 4 storm whereas hospitals are full are past what we usually ponder,” Edwards mentioned at a information convention Saturday afternoon.

There have been greater than 3,400 new infections reported on Friday, and about 2,700 persons are hospitalized with the virus.

“Now we have been speaking to hospitals to be sure that their turbines are working, that they’ve far more water available than regular, that they’ve PPE available,” Edwards mentioned.

Officers ordered widespread evacuations of low-lying and coastal areas, jamming highways and main some gasoline stations to run dry as residents and vacationers fled the seashore.

“It is a highly effective and harmful storm – it’s shifting sooner than we had thought it might be, so we’ve got rather less time to organize,” mentioned Dr. Joseph Kanter, Louisiana’s chief medical official. “There’s quite a lot of COVID on the market – there are quite a lot of dangers on the market.”

POWER OUTAGES EXPECTED

Utilities have been bringing in further crews and gear to take care of anticipated energy losses. President Joe Biden mentioned he has coordinated with electrical utilities and 500 federal emergency response staff have been in Texas and Louisiana to reply to the storm.

U.S. vitality corporations diminished offshore oil manufacturing by 91% and gasoline refiners lower operations at Louisiana vegetation within the path of the storm. Regional gas costs rose in anticipation of manufacturing losses and on elevated demand as a result of evacuations.

Coastal and inland oil refineries started to chop manufacturing because of the storm. Phillips 66 (NYSE:) shut its Alliance plant on the coast in Belle Chasse, whereas Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:) lower manufacturing at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery on Saturday.

Jean Paul Bourg, 39, was planning to journey out the storm in Morgan Metropolis, about 70 miles west of New Orleans. His spouse’s brother was lately launched from the hospital after contracting COVID-19 and secured a generator to make sure entry to oxygen if wanted.

“You’ll be able to’t essentially pile in with members of the family throughout COVID,” Bourg mentioned, after trimming timber and placing up plywood on his home. “Extra individuals than you’d suppose are sticking round.”