Over 100,000 Louisiana customers without power as Hurricane Ida makes landfall
29 August 2021
Over 100,000 customers in southern Louisiana were without power Sunday as "extremely dangerous" Hurricane Ida made landfall as a high-end Category 4 storm near Port Fourchon, according to power outage monitors.
Why it matters: Ida is bringing "catastrophic effects" to Louisiana with storm surges, extremely high winds and dangerous rainfall flooding.
What they're saying: Entergy Louisiana, one energy provider in the state, said in a statement Sunday that people could be without power weeks after the storm passes.
- "Every storm is unique. Based on historical restoration times, customers in the direct path of a Category 4 hurricane can experience outages up to three weeks and beyond three weeks for a Category 5 hurricane," the company said.
The big picture: At landfall, the storm's maximum sustained winds were 150 mph, which is close to Category 5 intensity, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
- President Biden on Friday approved Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards' state of emergency declaration, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts in the state.
Go deeper:Meteorologists ahead of Hurricane Ida arrival: "We can't bear to see this on satellite"
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.