Hurricane Ida has battered Cuba with roof-ripping force as it churns toward a weekend US landfall along the Louisiana coast, prompting evacuations of flood-prone New Orleans neighbourhoods and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
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By late on Friday, Ida was packing sustained winds of up to 130km/h, according to the National Weather Service, which expected the storm to intensify significantly before coming ashore as a major hurricane in southeastern Louisiana on Sunday afternoon or evening.
Forecasters said Ida would likely make US landfall as a robust Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, generating steady winds nearing 225km/h, heavy downpours and a tidal surge expected to plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water.
Inundation from Ida's storm surge - high surf driven by the hurricane's winds - will likely reach between 3 to 4.5 metres around the mouth of the Mississippi River, with lower levels extending east along the adjacent coastlines of Mississippi and Alabama, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Scattered tornadoes, widespread power outages and inland flooding from torrential rain across the region were also expected.
New Orleans officials ordered residents to evacuate communities outside the city's levee system, and posted voluntary evacuation notices for the rest of the parish.
Soon after being upgraded from tropical storm to hurricane status, Ida smashed into Cuba's small Isle of Youth, off the southwestern end of the Caribbean island nation, toppling trees and tearing roofs from dwellings.
The streets of Havana, the capital, were empty as residents shuttered themselves at home ahead of Ida's arrival, which government forecasters warned could bring storm surges to Cuba's western coastline.
Jamaica was flooded by heavy rains, and there were landslides after the passage of the storm. Many roads were impassable, forcing some residents to abandon their homes.
Ida, the ninth named storm and fourth hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, may well exceed the strength of Hurricane Laura, the last Category 4 storm to strike Louisiana, by the time it makes landfall, forecasters said.
But it pales in comparison to Katrina, the monster Category 5 storm that devastated the region in August 2005, claiming more than 1800 lives.
Officials in US coastal areas preparing for the storm urged residents to move boats out of harbours and encouraged early evacuations.
Australian Associated Press