New Orleans businesses reopening as city cleans up after Ida

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:52 AM PT – Friday, September 10, 2021

Although the road to recovery is still a work in progress, signs of life are starting to trickle back into New Orleans as the city cleans up in the wake of Hurricane Ida. It’s been almost two weeks since Ida made landfall along Southern Louisiana as a Category 4 storm, bringing forth powerful destruction.

However, supply trucks have begun delivering goods and some restaurants are back up and running. While there are few customers in the Big Easy, residents and business owners are holding out hope for the future.

“The main problem right now is supply. The restaurants aren’t being able to get things supplied because so many things around have been devastated,” said one resident, Philip Palumbo. “So, it’s still going to be a while to get back to any semblance of normalcy.”

Meanwhile, electricity provider Entergy said power has been restored to nearly all of the Orleans Parish with only a few thousand residents still without it. Although, they’re expected to be restored very soon.

The Hurricane Ida Relief Fund has been established in partnership with several community foundations across Southeast Louisiana. It will raise relief assistance in the form of grants to those organizations and nonprofits working directly with those impacted by #Ida. #lagov pic.twitter.com/rh5DlDuY9y

— John Bel Edwards (@LouisianaGov) September 9, 2021

City departments and contractors have cleared more than 500 miles of city right-of-ways and the debris removal is still ongoing. Additionally, around 350 residents were scheduled to be returned to the city from state-run shelters, including those who were evacuated from senior apartments, provided those facilities have been cleared by authorities.

FEMA has so far provided $259 million in grants to survivors in Louisiana with $81 million in grants to the Orleans Parish alone.

While New Orleans has shown signs of recovery, other parts of Louisiana are still struggling, with the Louisiana Public Service Commission saying hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses are still without power and could remain that way for weeks. In the meantime, Louisiana’s largest health care provider said it would take around four weeks to get two damaged hospitals back up and running.

More than two dozen deaths in the state have been blamed on Ida.

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