New Orleans residents await supplies, power restoration following Hurricane Ida

NEW ORLEANS — As cleanup efforts get underway in southeast Louisiana following Hurricane Ida, the hunt for supplies is becoming more and more difficult.

The strong storm caused catastrophic damage to the city of New Orleans’ power supply, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the summer heat.

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A curfew is in effect for city residents until 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning and most of the city sits in darkness. People are growing restless as they wait for power to come back on and crucial supplies to arrive.

A line of parked cars stretched for as far as you could see at one New Orleans gas station as people anxiously waited for fuel to arrive.

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“Right now, it’s just kind of … leaving New Orleans and heading to somewhere where there’s more supplies, more things like that. I’m trying to get to Galveston,” one person said.

People say the aftermath is just as bad, if not worse, than the actual storm. Some had been waiting for more than six hours and said they need things like ice and water.

Some groups, like Southern Solidarity, are on the ground giving to the less fortunate since Ida shut down most of the resources they depend on.

“When a crisis like this happens, the places where they’re normally getting meals and water and hygiene items and can use facilities are all shut down and they also don’t have access as easily to information,” a woman handing out food and water said.

Those fortunate enough to ride out the storm at home, like Margo Benson, said being without power the first night was a huge inconvenience.

“It was unbelievably uncomfortable,” Benson said. “It really was. You just are dripping.”

She and her husband, Dr. Ralph Benson, said part of the problem is not knowing when the power is going to come back on.

There are thousands of linemen working around the clock to make repairs sooner rather than later.

“A city this size … it’s hard for me to imagine that it could be paralyzed for more than two weeks,” Ralph Benson said.

Entergy has reportedly told city officials that some electricity could come back to the city as early as Wednesday, but that power will be reserved for critical infrastructures, like hospitals.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said it could take up to 30 days for power to be fully restored.