After Hurricane Ida — what happens now?

New Orleans firefighters assess damages as they look through debris after a building collapsed from the effects of Hurricane Ida, on August 30, 2021, in New Orleans, La. (Photo: Eric Gay/AP)

With more than one million homes and businesses without power across Louisiana, assessing the damage from Hurricane Ida will definitely take some time. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Port Fourchon, La., on August 29, approximately 40 miles away from where Hurricane Katrina had landed just 16 years earlier.

Preliminary damage estimates of uninsured losses in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama will be approximately $19 billion, according to CoreLogic, which pegs total losses (insured and uninsured) somewhere between $27 and $40 billion. Ninety percent of the losses are expected to be found in Louisiana, where nine parishes were severely impacted.