Commercial flights resumed in New Orleans and power returned to parts of the business district Thursday, four days after Hurricane Ida slammed into the Gulf Coast, but electricity, drinking water and fuel remained scarce across much of a sweltering Louisiana.
Meanwhile, the remnants of the system walloped parts of the Northeast, dumping record-breaking rain in a region that had not expected a serious blow and killing at least 46 people from Maryland to Connecticut. Eleven people in New York City drowned in basement apartments.
New Orleans fared better than many other places because it was protected from catastrophic flooding by the levee system that was revamped after Hurricane Katrina. The power was back on before dawn in some downtown neighborhoods. Utility crews also restored electricity to several hospitals in Jefferson Parish and near Baton Rouge. Some streets were cleared of fallen trees and debris, and a few corner stores reopened.
The city’s main airport reopened to commercial flights for the first time since the hurricane. Delta was the first airline to return, to be followed Friday by United Airlines and later by other carriers, officials said.
Louisiana officials also reported a big drop late Thursday in the number of customers with no running water: 185,000 compared to more than 600,000 the day before.
Still, the overwhelming majority of homes remained dark, and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said efforts to drain flooded parishes continued.
In seven parishes, at least 95% of customers remained without power Thursday. Only 35,000 of the 405,000 homes and businesses in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish had power Thursday, according to the poweroutage.us website. Statewide, about 900,000 customers were without electricity, down from about 1.1 million at the height of the seventh named storm to hit Louisiana since the summer of 2020.
“This isn’t our first rodeo, but it’s our worst rodeo,” Kirt LeBouef said, wiping away tears as he looked at damage to the Little Eagle restaurant in Golden Meadow, a 75-mile (120 kilometer) drive down a narrow highway from New Orleans toward the Gulf.
LeBouef’s family has owned the crawfish restaurant since 1920.
Edwards said more than 220,000 people already have registered for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and 22,000 have applied for a federal program to place tarps on damaged roofs.
“It really pains me to see that people are hurting and their lives are upside down, and we’re going to do everything we can every single day to make things better,” the governor said at a stop in Tangipahoa Parish.
Power should be restored to most customers around the Baton Rouge area by Sept. 8 after workers finish assessing damage, Entergy Louisiana President Philip May said Thursday. Damage assessments are not as far along in the harder-hit regions, so Entergy said it has no timetable for getting service to those areas, which include New Orleans.
Gasoline shortages were also a problem for people trying to run generators and waiting in drive-thru lines for food and water. The lines for gas stretched for blocks in many places from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
