Evacuees urged not to return home after devastation from storm Ida

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. The storm killed at least four people and left many thousands more in misery as countless homes were destroyed and towns were flooded, evoking memories of Hurricane Katrina, which killed some 1,800 and nearly destroyed New Orleans 16 years ago.