New Orleans homeless shelters scramble to bring in residents, facing storm and Covid surge

NEW ORLEANS  - Alarmed aid workers raced to get New Orleans' homeless off the streets on Sunday ahead of fast-moving Hurricane Ida, a complicated, last-minute push made all the more difficult by a severe outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the state.

At shelters, workers were giving masks to those brought in from the streets, while also checking temperatures and administering rapid COVID tests. Per 100,0000 people, Louisiana is seeing the nation's third-highest outbreak of the virus. The fast-moving storm left little time to spare. Ida was set to make landfall in Louisiana as Category 4 hurricane later on Sunday, bringing flooding and winds of 150 miles per hour (240 kph) to parts of the Gulf Coast.