NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hurricane Ida was rapidly intensifying early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on track for a potentially devastating landfall on the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. The National Hurricane Center predicted Ida would become an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph (209 kph) winds — that happened early Sunday ahead of an expected afternoon landfall. The storm arrived on the exact date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier. He noted that during last year’s hurricane season, Louisiana found rooms for 20,000 people. A Category 3 storm, Katrina was blamed for 1,800 deaths as it demolished oceanfront homes in Mississippi and caused levee breaches and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans.
