Evacuees Urged Not to Return Home After Devastation From Storm Ida

Evacuees Urged Not to Return Home After Devastation From Storm Ida
An aerial view shows destroyed houses in a flooded area after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, in Montegut, La., on Aug. 31, 2021. Marco Bello/File/Reuters
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NEW ORLEANS—Evacuees who fled Ida before the storm hammered southern Louisiana are being urged not to return home just yet as the long, arduous recovery is only beginning from one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Three days after the Category 4 hurricane came ashore, more than a million homes and businesses remained without electricity on Wednesday, and power utility Entergy Corp warned it may take weeks to restore service in some areas where transmission towers lay in crumpled heaps of metal.