Category Archives: Louisiana

Hurricane Ida barrels down on Louisiana amid warnings of ‘life-altering storm’

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Tens of thousands in US face evacuation orders as storm makes first landfall in Cuba, sparking fears of floods and mudslides

Hurricane Ida rapidly gained strength on Friday evening as communities in southern Louisiana braced for a major category 4 storm with sustained winds of about 140mph and tens of thousands of residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders.

The hurricane is due to make landfall in the US on Sunday, with officials warning of a “life-altering storm”. The cities of New Orleans and Lafayette, as well as the state capital, Baton Rouge, are under threat from Ida, which is forecast to reach the US somewhere between the parishes of Terrebone and St Mary, slightly west of New Orleans.

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Covid hospitalizations surge in US south as unvaccinated urged to get shots

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  • Louisiana now leads the nation in new Covid cases
  • Intensive care units near capacity in multiple locations

Covid-19 hospitalizations continued to surge among America’s deep south states on Monday as health officials urge unvaccinated residents to receive the shot and intensive care units near capacity in multiple locations, prompting fears of a surge close to the numbers of last winter.

The state of Louisiana now leads the nation in new Covid cases as the Delta variant rips through a region with some of the lowest vaccination rates in the US. Last Friday, the Louisiana department of health announced a daily increase of 6,116 positive Covid cases, with 2,421 people now hospitalized with the virus including 277 on ventilators. With just 37% of residents fully vaccinated, state data indicated that unvaccinated people accounted for 90% of hospitalizations in the state. 181 people died from the virus in Louisiana last week.

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Alarm as US Covid cases above 100,000 a day for first time since February

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  • Seven-day hospital admissions average up 40% from last week
  • Mississippi health official says Delta surging ‘like a tsunami’

Daily Covid-19 cases in the US moved above 100,000 a day for the first time since February, higher than the levels of last summer when vaccines were not available, and came as health officials sounded alarm over lagging rates of vaccination driving the surge of the infectious Delta variant.

The seven-day average of hospital admissions has also increased more than 40% from the week before, with health workers describing frustration and exhaustion as hospitals in Covid hotspots were again overwhelmed with patients, almost 20 months into the pandemic in the US.

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Tornado spurred by storm Claudette damages 50 homes in Alabama

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No deaths or serious injuries reported as tropical storm disrupts plans for Juneteenth and Father’s Day weekend

Authorities in Alabama say a suspected tornado spurred by Tropical Storm Claudette demolished or badly damaged at least 50 homes in a small town just north of the Florida border.

Sheriff Heath Jackson in Escambia County said a suspected tornado “pretty much leveled” a mobile home park, toppled trees on to houses and ripped the roof off of a high school gym.

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Ronald Greene punched and dragged by police before his death, video shows

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  • Greene, 49, died after confrontation with officers in 2019
  • Louisiana police initially refused to release bodycam footage

Two years after Ronald Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, died after a confrontation with white police officers in May 2019, the Louisiana police department released footage of the incident.

Louisiana state police had refused to publicly release footage from the incident, which they claimed culminated in Greene dying from crashing into a tree and injuring his head.

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Three dead after shoot-out in New Orleans gun store

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Customers and staff opened fire on a person who walked into the Metairie store and fatally shot two people

Three people are dead and two more in hospital after a person in a New Orleans gun store opened fire, killing two before dying when customers and staff shot back, police say.

The shooting happened at the Jefferson Gun Outlet in the suburb of Metairie around 2.50pm on Saturday, according to a release from the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s office.

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The scars of solitary: Albert Woodfox on freedom after 44 years in a concrete cell

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Woodfox was a member of the Angola 3, a group of men wrongfully accused of murder. Now he marks the fifth anniversary of his freedom

Every morning for almost 44 years, Albert Woodfox would awake in his 6ft by 9ft concrete cell and brace himself for the day ahead. He was America’s longest-serving solitary confinement prisoner, and each day stretched before him identical to the one before.

Did he have the strength, he would ask himself, to endure the torture of his prolonged isolation? Or might this be the day when he would finally lose his mind and, like so many others on the tier, suddenly start screaming and never stop?

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Fauci rebukes Trump Covid claims but offers ‘no excuses’ for vaccine delays

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The pedestrian pace of Covid-19 vaccinations in the US came under new scrutiny on Sunday, as the pandemic death toll passed 350,000 and experts warned of another surge in infections and deaths arising from gatherings at Christmas and New Year.

Related: Larry King, TV chatshow veteran, in hospital with coronavirus – reports

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Hurricane Zeta kills at least six as 100mph winds race through south

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More than 2.6 million without power in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, with life-threatening weather to continue

More than 2.6 million customers were without power on Thursday morning across several southern states and at least six people had been killed after Hurricane Zeta howled ashore in Louisiana with winds over 100mph then weakened to a tropical storm and raced through the region.

According to the website PowerOutage.us, shortly after dawn at least 2 million were without electricity in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and the number grew from there. Georgia has the most outages, with more than 800,000 people in the dark.

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Hurricane Laura brings 150mph winds to Louisiana with more ‘catastrophic conditions’ to come

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Six fatalities recorded in Louisiana, including a teen girl who died after a tree fell on her home and a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning

Hurricane Laura, the most powerful hurricane to strike the US this year, moved across Louisiana on a northerly path on Thursday, after threatening an “unsurvivable storm surge” on the coast and tropical force weather as far as Tennessee.

The storm slammed into western Louisiana overnight with gusts of up to 150mph and could cause “catastrophic conditions”, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Not until 11 hours after landfall did it finally weaken.

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‘Devastation everywhere’: Louisiana city wakes up to storm’s aftermath

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Lake Charles felt the full force of Hurricane Laura and now residents who rode out the disaster are picking up the pieces

Classie Ballou lives on the fifth floor of Chateau du Lac, an eight-story retirement home in the Louisiana city of Lake Charles. “I made it through Rita,” he said from a park bench in the rubble of downtown as he reflected on the fury of Hurricane Laura that had just roared through his home town. “Honestly, I thought it wasn’t going to be that bad.”

He shook his head. “If I were doing it over, I would leave.”

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Marco and Laura could hit US coast as hurricanes, forecasters say

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  • Louisiana in path of two tropical storms now in Gulf
  • Mississippi governor heralds ‘unprecedented times’

Tropical Storm Marco was swirling over the Gulf of Mexico early on Sunday, heading for a possible hit on the Louisiana coast as a hurricane, while Tropical Storm Laura knocked utilities out as it battered Hispaniola, following a track forecast to take it to the same part of the US coast – also as a hurricane.

Related: Could the US and Caribbean be heading for their worst hurricane season?

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Tornadoes rip through US south leaving trail of devastation and killing dozens

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  • More than two dozen tornadoes reported in four states
  • Louisiana sheriff reports ‘extreme flooding’ seen rarely ‘if ever’

At least six people were killed after severe storms tore through a number of southern states late on Wednesday, adding to weeks of extreme weather that had already killed more than two dozen people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Related: Tornadoes and storms hit US south as six killed in Mississippi

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Storms tear through US south, leaving at least 19 people dead

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Storms caused flooding, mudslides and power outages, killing 11 people in Mississippi and six people in Georgia

Severe weather has swept across the southern US, killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian mountains.

Many spent part of the night sheltering in basements, closets and bathtubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.

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‘These houses are flattened’: tornadoes and storms hit US south – video report

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A tornado strike destroyed homes and left a trail of devastation across large parts of the US south on Sunday. In northern Louisiana, up to 300 homes and other buildings were damaged, and utility companies reported thousands of power outages. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency confirmed at least six deaths in the state from the severe weather

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Tornado strikes Louisiana as powerful storm could affect over a dozen states

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Twister destroyed buildings in Monroe, Louisiana, while local media said at least two tornadoes touched down in central Texas

A tornado strike destroyed homes and left a trail of devastation across parts of Louisiana on Sunday, as forecasters warned that a powerful Easter storm could affect more than a dozen states and millions of people before the early hours of Monday.

The storm provided a dilemma for public safety officials trying to find the balance between wanting people to stay in lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic and wanting them to leave their homes for shelter if conditions worsened.

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‘A perfect storm’: poverty and race add to Covid-19 toll in US deep south

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Whole families are falling victim as African Americans are hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic

Last weekend, at two churches in New Orleans, two pastors read from separate passages of the Bible as they buried four members of the same family. Each had died within days of each other after contracting the novel coronavirus.

Related: 'A nightmare all over again': after surviving Katrina, New Orleans battles Covid-19

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One of the last abortions in Louisiana? Diary of a woman from a clinic under threat of closure

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This week, the supreme court will hear a case that if upheld could threaten the constitutional right to an abortion in the US

The US supreme court will hear oral arguments this week in a high-stakes case that threatens the constitutional right to an abortion.

The Louisiana law under review, known as June Medical Services v Russo, would require doctors who perform abortions to be able to admit patients at a nearby hospital – a law abortion rights groups characterize as a bureaucratic hurdle designed limit abortion access.

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‘Trust your dog’: extraordinary pets help solve crimes by finding bodies

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After grueling training, a rare few civilians and their dogs are allowed to participate in criminal investigations by searching for cadavers

Rob Ward keeps baby wipes, canned soup, and bottled water in his truck. “If I need a bath or a meal, there it is,” he explained in a Walker, Louisiana Waffle House. Calls can come at anytime, and his truck remains loaded, his bag packed.

Today is a rare day off from both of his jobs: a nine to five at a printing company and volunteer work looking for dead bodies with his Australian shepherd, Niko. Ward and Niko are one of approximately 500 volunteer cadaver dog-handler pairs across the country who assist law enforcement in recovering human remains.

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