2 dead as powerful hurricane wreaks havoc across Louisiana

Ida was downgraded to a tropical depression on Monday afternoon and moved inland with torrential rain, leaving extensive damage across the coastal state, reports Xinhua news agency.

Of the two victims, a man drowned in his car after trying to drive through floodwaters in Louisiana's biggest city New Orleans and a 60-year-old person was hit by a tree falling on his home near Baton Rouge, the state's capital city.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said earlier that he "fully expects" the death toll would jump as search and rescue efforts get underway.

At least 671 stranded people in Ida-hit areas had been rescued, Edwards said on Monday night.

Four Louisiana hospitals were damaged and 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

More than 1 million customers in Louisiana and over 67,000 more in Mississippi were without power on Monday night, including residents in the whole city of New Orleans, according to PowerOutage.US, a project which tracks power outrages across the United States.

The Jefferson Parish emergency management director Joe Valiente told National Public Radio on Monday it will take at least six weeks to restore electricity to a large section of Louisiana's coast.

"Damage is incredible," Valiente said. "There are about 10 parishes that the electrical grids are completely collapsed and damaged, smashed, out -- however you want to put it."

Power company Entergy, Louisiana's biggest electricity provider, said that more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service, along with 216 substations.

Ida landed on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's destructive strike, tying with 2020's Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest ever to hit Louisiana.