Hurricane Ida (2021) made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday August 29th 2021, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It hit both New Orleans (August 29th) and New York City (September 1st).
Death toll: 77 in the US (53 in the north-east, 20 in Louisiana) and 20 in Venezuela. That counts both direct and indirect deaths – like people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning from their electric generators because Ida knocked out the power grid.
More powerful than Katrina: Ida made landfall as a Category 4. Katrina was “only” a Category 3. In fact, with wind speeds of 240 kph (150 mph), Ida is one of the three worst (best) in Louisiana history:
- 1865: Last Island: 240 kph
- 2020: Laura: 240 kph
- 2021: Ida: 240 kph
To compare, Katrina made landfall in Louisiana with winds of 200 kph (125 mph).
By midnight Ida was down to a Category 1, by the next morning on August 30th it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
Bourbon Street in New Orleans, August 30th 2021. The light is from a TV crew. Via 8News (David Grunfeld/The Advocate via AP)
New Orleans: Ida did not hit New Orleans directly – the eye passed 80 km (50 miles) to the west, but it knocked out the city’s electric power, leaving more than a million people without electricity. The city went mostly dark, though some of the skyline was still lit up because some buildings generate their own power. As of September 6th over 530,000 were still without power and the New Orleans skyline was still darkened.
Levees: The good news is that the city’s levees (flood walls) held. Half of New Orleans is below sea level. It was the failure of the levees in 2005 that made Katrina so horrifying. It wound up killing some 1,800 people. Since then billions of dollars have been poured into the levees to make them withstand a Category 3 hurricane (winds up to 208 kph). At least two levees outside the city failed, though.
Pandemic: Ida comes just as the Delta variant of the coronavirus has been surging in Louisiana, with hospitals nearly full. Some fear that evacuations will make the pandemic worse and wind up killing way more people than the hurricane itself. It already kills about 60 people a week. Only 40% of Louisiana is vaccinated, one of the lowest rates in the nation.
The north-east: By the time Ida reached the US north-east, some 3 days and 2,000 km later, it was just a huge rain storm – yet was far deadlier. It killed 53. And dumped 3.15 inches (8.00 cm) of rain on Central Park in just one hour, a record. Across the north-east, it set off flash flooding and tornadoes. One tornado touched down at Cape Cod. Another one killed a man in Pennsylvania. Tornadoes are unusual in that part of the country. Much of New York City’s subway and commuter trains were shut down. Ida interrupted the US Open.
The damage: Ida caused at least $50 billion in damage, which easily puts it in the top ten of the costliest Atlantic cyclones on record:
- Katrina, 2005: $175b (in 2021 dollars)
- Harvey, 2017: $139b
- Maria, 2017: $102b
- Irma, 2017: $86.0b
- Sandy, 2012: $81.7b
- Andrew, 1992: $53.1b
- Ida, 2021: $50.0b+
- Ike, 2008: $48.2b
- Wilma, 2005: $38.3b
- Ivan, 2004: $37.7b
So, roughly half as bad as Maria.
Climate change: No single hurricane can be blamed on global warming. But warmer waters in the tropics do mean stronger and more frequent hurricanes.
– Abagond, 2021.
See also:
540
Abagond 
‘not new york, not philadelphia,’
https://6abc.com/nj-tornado-mullica-hill-home-damaged-ida-storm-new-jersey-weather/10993250/
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Curious name “Ida”… reminds me of another cyclone that hit my corner of the world two years ago. And this one was named “Idai”. Strange similarities! In name and also in the scale of the disaster.
See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Idai
Maybe it is the way mother Earth is trying to warn us, “make a change in your behavior or briefly you are gone extinct”. Who knows?
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@ Munubantu
Ida is a feminine given name of Germanic/Scandinavian origin.
It was a very popular name in the U.S. during the 1800s and into the early 1900s, but it is considered rather old-fashioned today.
Right now in the Nordic countries, it is a trendy name for new babies. They pronounce it with a long e, but we use a long i.
One of the notable people in U.S. history with this name is the Black American activist Ida B. Wells:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/ida-b-wells/
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells
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I wonder where “Barney”, “Betty”, “Fred”, “Bamm Bamm” and “Pebbles” will rank once they show up?
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@ Solitaire
Thanks for your input.
Regarding the meaning of “Idai” it is said that it is a word from the bantu Shona language spoken in Zimbabwe and parts of Mozambique and means “love”.
Ironic isn’t it?
To note that not every impact of a cyclone is negative.
The Eloise cyclone that impacted the southern part of Mozambique early this year, had some negative impact in rural communities along its trajectory in Mozambique, but will be remembered mainly as having put an end to a long and painful period of drought in the region. After six years the dam that serves the urban area of Great Maputo (circa 3 million people) was suddenly full, thanks to the heavy rain produced by that meteorological event. That means that people of that urban area could finally enjoy full supply of water for their needs. The agriculture in the nearby region too. Some other dams in nearby countries also recovered from water scarcity that lasted also six years.
To put things in perspective, it must be said that cyclonic activity in Mozambique has not been common in the last twenty to thirty years. But in the last five years we have witnessed some rise in its frequency.
For more information see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Eloise (about the cyclone Eloise)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis (“day zero” scenario in Cape Town; the city of Maputo went through a similar although less severe scarcity of water during the last six years)
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@ Munubantu
That is a good perspective to have concerning the cyclones. Usually we only hear about the destruction they wreak and nothing about ending droughts.
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Why do we need a name for a temporary weather event
we don’t name tornado’s but a hurricane ,hey its going to last a few days lets give a name.
And the name we give it ,is its name cause we said so.
Meanwhile obvious and blatant sign of climate change
we will continue to ignore
same groups deny science ,the virus and climate change
and they hate females too or just think of them the same way they think of black and brown people
something here just for you to use and dispose of.
But everyone follows them and actually accept their vicious authority
But it looks like they are wrong
so wrong there is no way they can escape the consequences.
or Im wrong
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@ abagond
The last tornado (or should I say tornadoes?) hitting parts of the USA was powerful and killed not few people!
Are you going to write something about that?
Seen from outside it seems incredible such human toll, in a country like yours.
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Yes, I will be doing a post on the tornadoes.
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Now we got Freddy.
This cyclone was born close to Australia circa 5 weeks ago.
It crossed the whole Indian Ocean in the direction of the african continent, having hit Madagascar along the way and is about to die tomorrow after staying a few days in the mozambican coast.
It left a path of destruction in some places in Southern Africa and is considered the longest lived registered cyclone in the history of the region.
See the links below for more details.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/12/africa/cyclone-freddy-mozambique-intl/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Freddy
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