Hurricane Ida intensifying ahead of landfall on Sunday

NEW ORLEANS, La. — Hurricane Ida intensified into a Category 2 tempest Saturday up of its expected landfall successful Louisiana connected Sunday, which is besides the 16-year day of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans.

The National Weather Service said soon earlier 2:30 p.m. ET, that Ida’s maximum sustained winds had accrued to 100 mph with higher gusts. Hurricanes with winds speeds betwixt 96 and 110 mph are considered Category 2 storms based connected the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The NWS says Ida is expected to rapidly fortify Saturday and it’s expected to beryllium an “extremely unsafe large hurricane” erstwhile it approaches the bluish Gulf Coast connected Sunday.

The National Hurricane Center successful Miami says determination is simply a information of life-threatening tempest surge inundation Sunday on the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi,

“Extremely life-threatening inundation of 9 feet oregon greater supra crushed level is imaginable determination wrong the country from Morgan City, Louisiana, to the seashore of Mississippi,” wrote the NHC successful an advisory, adding that levees could beryllium overtopped.

The NHC says hurricane-force winds are expected Sunday on the Louisiana coast, including successful New Orleans, with “potentially catastrophic upwind harm imaginable wherever the halfway of Isa moves onshore.”

Officials accidental Ida is apt to nutrient dense rainfall Sunday and Monday crossed the cardinal Gulf Coast from southeast Louisiana to coastal Mississippi, resulting successful life-threatening flash and municipality flooding and important stream flooding impacts.

“As Ida moves inland, important flooding impacts are apt crossed portions of the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys Monday and Tuesday,” the NHC wrote.

As the Ida approaches Louisiana’s coast, residents of the authorities are rushing to prepare. A operation of voluntary and mandatory evacuations person been issued for cities and communities successful the area, including New Orleans.

The politician of The Big Easy, LaToya Cantrell, ordered a mandatory evacuation for areas extracurricular the city’s levee strategy and a voluntary evacuation for residents wrong the levee system. Cantrell said the tempest was strengthening truthful rapidly determination was nary clip to bid a mandatory evacuation of the full city, The Associated Press reports.