Louisiana Nursing Home Residents, Evacuated Before the Storm, Died in New Facility, State Says

BROUSSARD, La. — Four Louisiana nursing location residents who were evacuated up of Hurricane Ida person died, authorities officials said connected Thursday, and authorities inspectors accidental they were prevented this week from conducting a afloat appraisal of conditions successful the tract wherever they were relocated.

Three of the deaths were classified arsenic storm-related by the coroner, though definitive causes of decease person not yet been confirmed, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. Officials identified the victims arsenic a 59-year-old pistillate from Jefferson Parish and 2 men, a 52-year-old from Orleans Parish and a 77-year-old from Terrebonne Parish.

Details were sparse, but officials expressed interest astir the installation the nursing location residents had been evacuated to and said hundreds of different nursing location residents who had initially been taken determination had since been relocated. Fourteen of them required hospitalization.

“We person important concerns astir conditions successful this facility,” authorities officials said of the determination the nursing location residents were sent to arsenic a refuge from the tempest that battered Louisiana earlier pounding its mode up the East Coast. Details of that determination were not provided.

On Thursday evening, Gov. John Bel Edwards said that authorities and national officials would analyse what had happened. “We volition bash everything we tin to marque definite our astir susceptible citizens are decently taken attraction of,” helium said. “It appears that that astir surely was not the lawsuit here.”

The deaths of the nursing location residents successful Tangipahoa Parish, northbound of New Orleans, raised the decease toll of the tempest and its aftermath successful the Southeast to astatine slightest 16, from causes including c monoxide poisoning and electrocution.

“It’s precise disheartening,” said Robby Miller, the Tangipahoa Parish president.

The mounting toll came arsenic hundreds of thousands of residents of Louisiana and Mississippi spent a 4th time cleaning up the storm’s debris successful darkness, amid soaring temperatures, and without casual entree to the basal necessities: caller h2o and meals.

By Thursday, energy had been restored to customers successful areas including Baton Rouge and St. Bernard and St. Jefferson Parishes, officials said. But successful and astir New Orleans, galore radical remained without power. Patience was waning.

Officials successful New Orleans announced connected Thursday that they were organizing a voluntary evacuation enactment for residents hoping to get retired of the city. Details of that program are inactive successful the works, but it would let residents to beryllium taken to a state-run structure extracurricular the city, said Collin Arnold, the New Orleans manager of homeland security.

The metropolis would springiness precedence to older radical and disabled residents and would past marque the enactment disposable to the wide public, helium said.

Across Louisiana, determination were inactive hundreds of thousands of customers without powerfulness connected Thursday, including astir 600,000 served by Entergy. By aboriginal afternoon, 30,000 powerfulness customers successful New Orleans had their energy restored, said Ramsey Green, the city’s lawman main administrative serviceman for infrastructure.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell, speaking astatine an day briefing, noted that successful summation to electricity, entree to substance continued to beryllium a situation for metropolis residents. “We conscionable person not received capable fueling sources to the wide public,” Ms. Cantrell said, adding that “when we get more, we shall stock more.”

In Broussard, horns honked louder and louder successful a agelong enactment astatine a state presumption wherever Pat Hille and Robin Corrabi filled up brand-new state cans, their compact S.U.V. packed with supplies to instrumentality backmost to Ms. Hille’s household successful LaPlace.

“If we get h2o back, it would marque a difference,” Ms. Corrabi said.

President Biden, who is expected to sojourn the authorities connected Friday, said the flash floods that had inundated New York City and the almighty winds that had knocked retired powerfulness successful Louisiana were a motion that “extreme storms and the clime situation are here” and that the storms and fires creating life-or-death situations crossed the state constituted “one of the large challenges of our time.”

Local officials offered upbeat assessments.

“I deliberation the cardinal successful what we are trying to bash is connection immoderate progress, and that is the goal,” Mr. Arnold, the homeland information manager successful New Orleans, said. “Every day, we unfastened a caller site, immoderate caller service.”

He added that “there are tons of lessons from this, aft each of this is done.”