Hurricane Ida: US Gulf Coast prepares for ‘dangerous’ storm | Al Jazeera

Authorities on the Gulf Coast of the United States have issued more dire warnings as Hurricane Ida is expected to bring heavy rains, a tidal surge across much of the Louisiana shoreline and winds of up to 225km per hour (140mph) to the region this weekend.

Forecasters said the storm could make a US landfall on Sunday as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said in an update at 19:00 CDT on Saturday (00:00 GMT on Sunday) that the storm was located about 460 kilometres (285 miles) southeast of Houma, Louisiana, and had maximum sustained winds of 165kmph (105mph).

The hurricane is expected to bring a “life-threatening storm surge, potentially catastrophic wind damage, and flooding rainfall” to the northern Gulf coast beginning on Sunday morning, the NHC said.

“Ida is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it approaches the northern Gulf coast on Sunday,” the agency said earlier in the day, adding that storm preparations should be “rushed to completion”.

“Today is it,” Jamie Rhome, acting deputy director of the NHC, also said on Saturday. “If you’re in coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, you really, really have to get going because today is it in terms of protecting life and property.”