Satellite Photos Reveal Extent of Power Outages Across Hurricane-Stricken New Orleans

Satellite photographs taken earlier than and after Hurricane Ida swept by Louisiana this week are showcasing the upsetting extent to which individuals have suffered with out energy in New Orleans.

Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, made landfall on August 29 close to Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Its winds, at 150 miles per hour (240 km/h), together with torrential rains and storm surges, wreaked havoc throughout a lot of Louisiana and Mississippi, downing energy traces and destroying transmission towers.

The remnant of Ida induced critical flooding in a single day within the U.S. northeast, and the ordeal is way from over within the south. As CBS reports, some individuals in Louisiana could possibly be with out energy for 3 weeks—simply as temperatures are set to soar within the coming days. Nearly 900,000 prospects in Louisiana and 31,000 prospects in Mississippi have been with out energy as of Thursday afternoon, based on PowerOutageUS.

The view from area attests to those figures. Researchers with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Universities Space Research Association launched before-and-after photographs of New Orleans, exhibiting town because it appeared at evening on August 9 and August 31. Scientists with the company’s Black Marble Project processed the pictures, which included base maps supplied by the Landsat 8 satellite tv for pc.

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The photographs are sobering. New Orleans is usually related to dazzling lights and vibrant colours, and this boring, gray view of the darkened metropolis is simply unhappy. New Orleans will bounce again—it all the time does—however Ida is one more bitter capsule this metropolis has to swallow.

The photographs have been taken by the Suomi NPP satellite tv for pc, which is provided with the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day/evening band of this instrument can seize sources of sunshine and likewise reflections. As NASA’s Earth Observatory explains, VIIRs makes it attainable to “distinguish the intensity, types, and sources of lights and to observe how they change.” Importantly, the Black Marble staff can filter out sources that aren’t electrical lights.

Miguel Román, who leads the Black Marble Project mentioned the brand new imagery is “capturing a lot of diesel-power/backup generation, which utilities do not monitor,” which is actually attention-grabbing. Sadly, these generators can solely work for so long as there’s gas to energy them, and Louisiana is at present dealing with a gas shortage.

It’ll be some time earlier than we all know the complete extent to which Ida broken the United States, however this storm is clearly headed for the historical past books.

More: New York grinds to a halt as file rain floods metropolis, kills at the least 9.