Ida and Katrina's memory in the United States (+ photo)

The phenomenon will already appear on Sunday afternoon as a reminder that that day marks the 16th anniversary of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the state, which caused at least two thousand deaths due to the hurricane itself or subsequent floods.

The city of New Orleans was the hardest hit, and the meteor in general caused one of the worst disasters in the country.

Now, Ida is approaching the continental United States, and after passing through Cuba, where it caused serious damage on Isla de la Juventud (south) and in the province of Pinar del Rio (west), experts expect it to reach this category. Four on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The arrival of the storm cites a report by the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC), which highlighted that this region may be the scene of ‘complex phenomena’ with catastrophic effects due to global warming, and Ida is part of that projection.

Specialists from the US space agency (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have already warned of what Ida will bring, that if it keeps its slow pace, it will increase the damage.

Climate change is making hurricanes slower to move and therefore more destructive.

Faced with this possibility, the governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, urged his citizens to prepare for a Category 4 phenomenon and evacuate to safe places.

“What I can say is that Hurricane Ida is intensifying rapidly and the situation is changing, seemingly every hour. We now think it’s very likely to be a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall. That’s how fast the storm is developing. Now is the time to wrap up preparations.

The storm center could hit Louisiana as a hurricane Sunday, with maximum sustained winds of 177 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 209, according to the CNH tracking model.

“Hurricane Ida is expected to be extremely dangerous when it hits the coast of Louisiana,” the center said on Twitter Friday afternoon, and that parts of Louisiana could expect “potentially catastrophic” hurricane-force winds on Sunday.

In anticipation of the worst, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell on Friday afternoon ordered all residents to be evacuated from the city’s levee system by Saturday morning. Areas under this arrangement included Lake Catherine, the Venetian Islands, and the Irish Bayou areas of the city.

The phenomenon’s proximity also led the transnational oil company, ExxonMobil, to evacuate its employees from an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ida became the third named storm to form in quick succession in the Atlantic Ocean, causing inclement weather, flooding, and damaging winds in various parts of the United States and the Caribbean.

The trend, according to scientists, indicates the close link between hurricanes and climate change.

Experts say a warming planet could expect to see stronger hurricanes over time, and a higher percentage of more powerful storms, with rising sea levels producing higher and more destructive storms.

According to a United Nations climate report in August, tropical cyclones have likely become more intense in the past 40 years, something Ida could show if it imitated the brutal strength of Katrina 16 years ago, which today has caused damage equal to 170 billion dollars.

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