Sharjah24 – Reuters: South Louisiana braced for a month without electricity and reliable water supplies in the wake of Hurricane Ida, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, as people faced suffocating heat and humidity.

The storm killed at least four people, officials said, a toll that might have been much larger if not for a fortified levee system built around New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago. 

By early Tuesday, about 1.3 million customers were without power 48 hours after the storm made landfall, most of them in Louisiana, said PowerOutage https://poweroutage.us, which gathers data from U.S. utility companies.

Officials were unable to complete a full damage assessment because downed trees clogged roads, said Deanne Criswell, chief of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Compounding the suffering, the heat index in much of Louisiana and Mississippi reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), the National Weather Service said.

"We all want air-conditioning ... Even if you have a generator, after so many days they fail," said Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.

"Nobody is satisfied" with the estimate that power might not be restored for 30 days, he added, expressing hope that the 20,000 line workers in the state and thousands more en route could finish sooner.

At Ochsner St. Anne Hospital southwest of New Orleans, 6,000-gallon tanker trucks pumped fuel and water into tanks to keep its air-conditioning running. The medical center closed to all but a few emergency patients.

New Orleans' restaurants, many shut ahead of the storm, also face an uncertain future because of a lack of electricity and facilities, reviving memories of the difficulties that plagued businesses for weeks in the wake of Katrina.