Hurricane Ida makes landfall in Louisiana on Katrina anniversary as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm
(CNN) -- Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, early Sunday afternoon as an extremely dangerous, Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
Ida, striking on the 16th anniversary of the historically devastating Hurricane Katrina, tied as the state's most powerful storm ever with Laura from last year and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856.
Landfall is when the eye is halfway over the coast. Extreme winds and surge will accompany the 1 p.m. ET landfall over the next several hours.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday he expects Ida to be "a big challenge for us."
Edwards told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that his state "is as ready as we can be," but he expects Ida to be "a very serious test of our levy systems, especially in our coastal Louisiana."
Sign up for email updates for significant storms
The state invested significantly in shoring up the levy system after the catastrophic failure after Katrina. Edwards said Ida "will be the most severe test," but he expects the levees to hold. "The next 24, 36 hours are just going to be very, very critical for us here in Louisiana."
Ida became a Category 4 storm early Sunday morning, rapidly intensifying to sustained winds of 150 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm's maximum sustained winds are down to 145 mph, according to the 3 p.m. ET NHC update. It's located 25 miles southeast of Houma, Louisiana, moving northwest at 12 mph.
By Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Ida has left more than 285,000 customers without power in Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us. And Energy Louisiana said some of its customers could be without power for weeks.
Ida also caused more than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production to shut down, regulators said Sunday, indicating the hurricane is having a significant impact on energy supply.
Live updates: Hurricane Ida heads toward the Gulf Coast
'This is a buzz saw we have coming'
Ronald Dufrene, a commercial shrimper, plans to stay on his 100-foot shrimp boat in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, with his wife. He said he's stayed on his boat for every storm for the last 42 years.
"I rode out three of them last year. Don't get me wrong. This is a buzz saw we have coming," he said. "Mother Nature's a beast.
"I feel it's the safest place for me and my family is on that boat. You get on the highway and you drive 10 to 15 hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic. ... I've got enough food and water for months."
Joshua Legg, another hurricane veteran, stayed on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to ride out Ida. He posted video on Facebook.
"We're losing roofs right now," Legg told CNN.
Legg told CNN his home is safe and he is in a Category 5-rated structure. He said he was a police officer for 15 years and still works with search and rescue efforts to help his community.
Sharlette Landry evacuated Grand Isle, Louisiana, and watched her security camera feeds, which showed water quickly rising before her home lost power Sunday.
"I did prepare, but you can never be prepared for this magnitude of a storm," Landry, who posted a video on Facebook, told CNN. "I was very surprised at how fast it rose. I've never seen it that high and I'm sure it's higher now at my place."
Arlene Mire of Port Vincent, Louisiana, planned to stay home initially.
But she knows exactly how high the water must get to breach her home: 11 feet, 3 inches.
"My house has drowned before," she said. "We'll lock it up and boogie. We won't stay in the house when the water comes.
"Mother Nature is going to do what's it's going to do. There's nothing you can do."
A tornado watch is in effect until 8 p.m. ET for parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Quick-moving, brief tornadoes will be possible throughout Sunday.
There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge Sunday in areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Ida is the fourth hurricane to slam Louisiana since last August and the state's third major hurricane landfall in that time span.
'We'll be in a much better place' than 16 years ago
Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005 as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph sustained winds. Storm surge with Katrina measured up to 24-28 feet, according to the NHC.
The water topped levees and flood walls, and more than 80% of New Orleans flooded. More than 1,500 people in Louisiana died.
Katrina brought storm surge of 15 to 19 feet in eastern New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, and Plaquemines Parish, while the surge was 10 to 14 feet in western New Orleans along the southern shores of Lake Pontchartrain, according to the NHC.
By comparison, Hurricane Ida is forecast to bring a lower storm surge of 12-16 feet to some areas of southeast Louisiana, the NHC says. And near New Orleans it's expected to be even lower: 8-12 feet outside New Orleans and 5-8 feet along Lake Pontchartrain.
That's because the wind field was larger for Katrina: 90 miles from center at landfall, compared to 50 miles for Ida.
Since Katrina, the levee and water control systems in New Orleans were improved: Pumps were upgraded with backup generators and gates were added at key canals to help block water from entering the city during storm surge.
"This is a different city than it was August 28th 2005, in terms of infrastructure and safety," Ramsey Green, New Orleans deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, told reporters Saturday at a News Conference ahead of Hurricane Ida's landfall.
Green called the city's levee system "an unprecedentedly powerful protection for the city," which has three lines of defense: the coast, the wetlands and the levee system.
"From that perspective, we need to be comfortable and we need to know that we'll be in a much better place than we were 16 years ago," Green said. "That said, if we have 10 to 20 inches of rain over an abbreviated period of time, we will see flooding. We don't know at this moment -- we see 15 to 20 inches over 48 hours or less, and we can handle it, depending on the event."
Schools closed, flights canceled
Officials throughout the state have implored people to evacuate, with some issuing mandatory orders to do so.
The NWS warned of "structural damage to buildings, with many washing away" as well as winds that could bring "widespread power and communication outages."
Airlines canceled all flights arriving to and leaving from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Sunday, the airport said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tweeted, "Stunning video taken from inside the eye of #Ida this morning by the NESDIS Ocean Winds Research team during a flight on the @NOAA_HurrHunter P3 aircraft @NOAASatellites."
Tulane University in New Orleans is closed Sunday and Monday, less than a week after students returned to campus.
In Mississippi, at least 15 school districts and universities will be closed Monday, with the majority of schools announcing plans to resume classes on Tuesday, pending the weather forecast.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Friday evening that the National Weather Service and Edwards had indicated there was no time to implement contraflow traffic, meaning New Orleans could not issue a mandatory evacuation for areas inside the levee system.
Contraflow is when authorities use some lanes of traffic for travel in the opposite direction of what was intended so more vehicles can leave an area.
