As Hurricane Ida intensifies, Lousiana braces for a devastating landfall

Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast. In pic, residents along the shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain evacuate prior to the arrival of Hurricane Ida. The area was hard hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (AP)

Ida was a Category 4 hurricane Sunday morning with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. In pic, men place plywood in front of a store in preparation for Hurricane Ida, in New Orleans, Lousiana. (Reuters)

The storm was centered about 175 miles (280 kilometers) southeast of coastal Houma, Louisiana, and was traveling northwest at 15 mph (24 kph). In pic, Fisher High School football and basketball players help build a sandbag levee near Tidewater Dock ahead of Hurricane Ida in Jean Lafitte on Aug. 28, 2021. (AP)

The storm threatened a region already reeling from a resurgence of COVID-19 infections, thanks to low vaccination rates and the highly contagious delta variant. In pic, a family shares a moment after boarding up their property in preparation for Hurricane Ida in Morgan City, Louisiana. (Reuters)

New Orleans hospitals planned to ride out the storm with their beds nearly full, as similarly stressed hospitals elsewhere had little room for evacuated patients. In pic, two crab farmers unload about 400 crab traps that they had to pull out of the water and move via flatbed trailer to dry land near their home in eastern St. Bernard Parish as the Louisiana coast prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Ida. (AP)

Gov. John Bel Edwards vowed Saturday that Louisiana's "resilient and tough people" would weather the storm. In pic, water begins to rise and cover the land around a lake house by Lake St. Catherine before landfall of Hurricane Ida in New Orleans. (AP)

In coastal Gulfport, Mississippi, a Red Cross shelter posted signs displaying directions for evacuees along with warnings about COVID-19. In pic, a cross erected on Shell Beach as a memorial to the 163 residents in St. Bernard Parish who died after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is seen before Hurricane Ida makes landfall in New Orleans on Aug. 28, 2021. (AP)

Comparisons to the Aug. 29, 2005, landfall of Katrina weighed heavily on residents bracing for Ida. A Category 3 storm, Katrina was blamed for 1,800 deaths as it demolished oceanfront homes in Mississippi and caused levee breaches and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans. In pic, traffic moves bumper to bumper along I-10 west as residents arrive into Texas from the Louisiana border ahead of Hurricane Ida in Orange, Texas. (Reuters)