Bourbon Street is once more home to supply trucks that deliver beer. Cafe Du Monde, the iconic cafe, serves beignets and fried pastries with white sugar.
With almost all the power back on in New Orleans nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ida struck, the city is showing signs of making a comeback from the Category 4 storm, which is blamed for more than two dozen deaths in the state. There are more businesses opening each day, it is easier to find gasoline and roads are littered with debris from the cleanup.
Many are still without power and water in the metro area. Officials say that the oppressive heat is causing both health problems as well as misery. Some areas could be without power for weeks, and some residents who fled have not returned.
Governor John Bel Edwards stated, “It is not lost upon anybody here at state level and certainly on our local partners how many people continue suffering.” John Bel Edwards stated Thursday. “Though things are improving and we can be grateful for that… this will be a very long-term recover.”
Residents in New Orleans are beginning to see signs that things are returning to normal following Ida. Philip Palumbo, a resident of the French Quarter, works at a bar that is still shuttered. He said that the lifting of the citywide curfew should help struggling restaurants and bars reopen.
He said, “There aren’t many around yet but they’ll return.”
In New Orleans, power crews achieved a “major landmark” by restoring electricity for the vast majority of customers. Phillip May, chief executive officer of Entergy Louisiana (the state’s largest provider of power), said this in a conference call. The company stated that about 201,000 of Entergy’s 205,000 customers have power now, which is 98% percent. Those who didn’t have power had suffered more severe damage.
According to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, more than 270,000 homes or businesses were still without power. According to May, 46,000 Jefferson Parish homes and businesses remain without electricity. However, progress is being made in difficult-hit areas like LaPlace in St. John the Baptist Parish, where service has been restored.
Others in the state’s healthcare network are also struggling, as they were already slammed by COVID-19 cases before Ida. Ochsner Health System executives, Louisiana’s largest provider of care, estimates it will take approximately four weeks to make two of its hospitals operational again.
