At least 68 people are dead and many are still without power after Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast and remnants of the storm ravaged the Northeast last week. Making matters worse is a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 100 miles south of New Orleans, CBS News reports.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a recent press conference that his state cannot handle any more rainfall. “Even if it’s a tropical storm, we’re in no state to receive that much rainfall at this time,” said he said, CBS News notes.
Louisiana is closing seven nursing homes after learning that some residents were evacuated to a makeshift shelter at a warehouse where conditions are unhealthy and unsafe, according to state health officials. At least seven have died.
“To think that they would just put these people in a warehouse and leave them like that. I mean, like they’re not even human,” one family member, Carol Stovall, told CBS News.
Beyond a dearth in available supplies, hundreds of thousands of residents remain without power. Folks in the Bridge City neighborhood outside of New Orleans will be without power for several more weeks.
In the Northeast, at least 51 people died have died.
Here is more on that part of the country, per CBS News:
Donations have been non-stop in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Volunteers, many of them neighbors, are banding together. Kamuela Tillman helped organize one drop-off,
“To come today and be able to drop food off and get texts from these families saying they got vouchers, that’s relief,” Tillman said. “We are an amazing community that is extremely diverse and we celebrate that.”
Theresa Sidnauth and Renald Louisville were rescued by boat with their 2-year-old son. For them, the supplies couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Cleaning supplies mean so much to us. We don’t know where to start or end. Gives us a means to an end,” Sidnauth said.
On Sunday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that his state needs upgraded infrastructure and is counting on federal aid.
“We had rain in many communities in two or three hours that were equivalent to what they normally get in a month or two,” he said. “And this, sadly, we think is part of what we’re going to be facing. More frequency and more intensity.”
At least 27 people died in New Jersey as a result of the remnants of Ida. At least six are still missing, according to Murphy.
In New York, where at least 17 people died, police released footage of an attempted water rescue during the storm inside a flooded basement in Queens. Three people, one a toddler, drowned.
Clean up crews are also working to contain an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by Ida.
Here’s more from the New York Times:
It was unclear how much oil had spilled into the Gulf, according to a person with direct knowledge of the cleanup. The spill, possibly from an old pipeline no longer in use that was damaged by the storm, was first spotted on Monday from reconnaissance flights led by a number of Gulf Coast producers, and was reported to the Coast Guard, said the person who was not authorized to speak publicly about the cleanup effort.
By Saturday morning, two more boats appeared to join the cleanup. James Hanzalik, assistant executive director of Clean Gulf Associates, a nonprofit oil spill cooperative set up by the industry, confirmed Friday afternoon that a leak was ongoing and that a cleanup was underway.
Lt. John Edwards of the U.S. Coast Guard said that the spill was believed to be crude oil from an old pipeline owned by the Houston-based oil and gas exploration company, Talos Energy. A cleanup vessel hired by Talos was using skimmers to recover the oil and had placed a containment boom in the area to try to contain the spread, he said. Talos Energy declined to comment on the record.
President Joe Biden is set to arrive in the Northeast on Tuesday to review the damage, according to Reuters. He has pledged federal aid to support areas impacted by Ida.