Official Hurricane Ida Death Toll Rises To 10, Including Nursing Home Residents

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Richard A. Webster

Published September 7, 2021 at 11:27 AM CDT

A car smashed by a fallen tree in the Central Business District of New Orleans, as the sun rises on Aug. 30, the morning after Hurricane Ida.

The storm-related death toll from Hurricane Ida has risen to 10, according to numbers released Friday by the Louisiana Department of Health.

Three of the dead are nursing home residents who were among 843 residents from seven privately run nursing homes who were evacuated to a warehouse in the town of Independence before Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday as a Category 4 storm.

Two additional residents died, but their deaths were not classified as storm-related by state officials.

The state shut the facility down Thursday and rescued the residents after reports emerged of elderly men and women with significant health conditions living in squalor and “deteriorating conditions.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced an investigation into the situation on Friday.

Carbon monoxide poisoning linked to improper use of generators has caused the most deaths linked to Hurricane Ida, killing three people in Jefferson Parish and one in St. John the Baptist Parish.

In Jefferson Parish, a 17-year-old man, a 23-year-old woman and a 54-year-old woman died of carbon monoxide poisoning. In St. John the Baptist Parish, a 59-year-old man died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator believed to be running inside his home.

Two people also drowned in floodwaters: a 65-year-old Jefferson Parish woman, and a New Orleans man, who’s age has not been released, who drowned after driving through floodwaters.

Jefferson Parish officials announced another death this week, not attributed to the storm.

An unidentified man was shot to death during an argument while waiting in line to get gas at a Chevron station in Metairie.

“It's absolutely ridiculous,” Sheriff Joe Lopinto said in a press conference Friday.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, gas has become a precious and hard to find commodity, resulting in long lines and waits of up to four hours or more through the region.

Lopinto said it wasn’t the only act of violence at a gas station. He described an incident from earlier Friday, where a man pulled a gun on another person who cut in line at a gas station.

“He’s in my jail right now and will continue to be there,” Lopinto said. “We were taught in kindergarten to not cut in line. I shouldn't have to teach this as the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish.”