Tornadoes — a common companion of hurricanes — will also be a threat today

Assessment teams await daylight to go on the ground to inspect damages caused by Ida, but significant impact is already expected, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said.

“It remained a Category 4 for several hours over the southern parts of Louisiana. So they just got the impacts from the winds, from the significant and intense rainfall as well as that storm surge for several hours,” Criswell told CNN.

“I don’t think there could have been a worse path for this storm. It’s going to have some significant impacts. We’re already seeing the power outages across the area and the threat isn’t over,” she added.

As Ida moves as a Category 1 storm into Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia, Criswell said there’s still going to be significant rainfall, and people need to remain aware of the risks.

Meanwhile, “widespread structural damage” has already been reported, with a number of buildings that may have collapsed, hospitals running on generator power, and some people stranded, she said Monday.

“My initial reports are the levees around New Orleans did what they were supposed to do, but that intense rainfall, that’s going to create a lot of urban flooding across many of the jurisdictions — New Orleans, Baton Rouge and all of the different localities in between. ” Criswell said. “It’s going to strain the drainage system. That with the debris, so it’s going to take a while for some of that to clear up.”