Ten days after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, thousands of residents are still rummaging through ruins and what is left of their homes.
Debbie Greco, whose house was flooded with four feet of muddy water, says she is just grateful for God’s protection during the storm.
“God blessed us that we all survived,” she said. “I can rebuild, you know, I can rebuild. I can put a new house up.”
After retreating to the second floor of her home, Greco and four other family members were rescued by boat.
Almost 600,000 people in Louisiana are still without power one week after Hurricane Ida. Some outages may last 3 more weeks.
20,000+ power poles were damaged and residents lined up for fuel for hours. Critics blame aging infrastructure and poor planning for the climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/X6oSRAgk2K
— AJ+ (@ajplus) September 6, 2021
The powerful category 4 hurricane slammed into the state with 150 mile-per-hour winds blowing off roofs and even reversing the flow of the Mississippi River.
And it hit on the exact date that Hurricane Katrina barreled through New Orleans 16 years ago.
Hurricane Ida may have been smaller than Katrina but she was stronger. Ida’s winds brought devastating storm surges and high winds to coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving millions of people without power.
Officials advised that it could take weeks before power is restored in some of the harder-hit areas.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) warned his state to brace for potentially a month of recovery. He said many will be tested in ways that we can only imagine.
As of Wednesday, Ida’s death toll in Louisiana alone rose to 26 people. Nine of those deaths hit the elderly around New Orleans due to “excessive heat during an extended power outage.”
And many families in Louisiana are feeling another type of stress as more than a quarter of a million children have been unable to return to school.
Meanwhile, team members with CBN’s Operation Blessing Hunger Strike Force have been on the ground in Houma, Louisiana, offering meals and ice to first responders and emergency management personnel.
Operation Blessing is on the ground in Louisiana providing disaster relief assistance to those affected by #HurricaneIda. Essentials like bottled water, disaster relief kits and generators have been distributed to those most impacted. Send urgent help https://t.co/NWNtOK5ZVg pic.twitter.com/LIGg1YsDhV
— Operation Blessing (@operationbless) September 8, 2021
Please pray for those affected by Hurricane Ida as relief efforts are ongoing.
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