Here’s a selection of pictures I took from Friday, August 27 to Tuesday, August 31, 2021, documenting the before, during, and after experience of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall on the Louisiana coast the morning of Sunday, August 29, 2021. You can find the full batch of photos and the [quite 😅] long version of events here.

The short version is I chose to stay in town through the storm, making a last-minute decision to shelter with a friend in a 3rd-floor condo rather than stay in my ground-floor apartment by myself. Ultimately, the worst consequence of the storm in my area was that eight major Entergy transistors bringing power to the New Orleans region suffered significant damage (including one that was blown into the river), and power was predicted to be out for up to three weeks following the storm.

I’ll give the disclaimer that these photos may or may not be misleading. The wreckage tends to be the most interesting thing to photograph, so that’s largely what I photographed… but the wreckage was frankly the exception and not the rule in the parts of town I visited. While some homes and businesses will certainly have a long road ahead, I believe the majority of residents feel a bullet was dodged in terms of loss of property and life– especially considering the scope of the storm.

However, many other parts of Louisiana did not dodge that bullet by any measure. Areas along the coast saw far greater flooding and far greater wind damage; restoring power to New Orleans seems to have been prioritized over restoring parts to other parts of the state. While I’m so thankful to have gotten off easy this time, I really don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that this storm ‘wasn’t as bad as expected,’ because for many others it was exactly as bad or worse.

Consider donating to any of these organizations making an impact in New Orleans as well as other parts of Louisiana.