Hurricane Ida (2021)

After crossing western Cuba, Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at about 11:55 a.m. CDT on August 29, 2021, as a Category 4 hurricane with 130-knot (150 mph) winds and a central pressure near 931 mb.¹ Its eye moved north-northwest between Houma and New Orleans, then passed just west of LaPlace and between Baton Rouge and Hammond, and Ida weakened to a tropical storm before entering southwestern Mississippi on August 30.¹

Measured gusts included 111 knots (128 mph) at Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River and 96 knots (110 mph) in Mandeville on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.¹ Wind and surge damaged thousands of buildings in southeastern Louisiana, worst in coastal Lafourche and Jefferson parishes, where almost every structure was damaged and many in Leeville and on Grand Isle were destroyed.¹ Wind damage to structures reached as far inland as southwestern Mississippi.¹ Storm surge reached 9 to 14 feet above ground on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish and 6 to 12 feet in West Bank Jefferson and Lafourche parishes, with surveyed high-water marks of 10.2 feet on Grand Isle and 8.2 feet in LaPlace.¹

After Ida became a post-tropical low, it dropped up to 10.10 inches of rain at Downingtown, Pennsylvania, and 9.64 inches on Staten Island, and flash and urban flooding in the Northeast affected thousands of structures and filled the basements of many buildings.¹ An EF3 tornado struck Gloucester County, New Jersey, and an EF2 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, killed one person.¹ NHC counts 55 direct US deaths, 6 along the Gulf coast and 49 in the Mid-Atlantic and New England, where 14 people drowned in their homes or apartments.¹ NOAA's NCEI puts US damage at $75 billion, about $55 billion of it in Louisiana.¹