Tornado leaves New Orleans neighborhood in ruins, killing one
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[March 24, 2022]
By Adrees Latiff
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -Crews were assessing
the damage on Wednesday on the east side of New Orleans where a powerful
tornado killed at least one person and injured eight others as it left a
two-mile path of destroyed homes, uprooted power lines and overturned
vehicles.
A dark funnel cloud touched down at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (0030 GMT
Wednesday), flattening buildings and flipping over vehicles in the Arabi
area of St. Bernard Parish.
A spokesperson for the parish, just east of downtown New Orleans, said
first responders found a 26-year-old man dead near his home. Eight other
people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, parish spokesperson
John Lane said.
"Everybody has been accounted for that we know of at this point," he
said, adding that search and rescue teams had finished most of their
work.
National Weather Service meteorologists surveying the damage said on
Wednesday the tornado was at least an EF3 on the five-point Enhanced
Fujita Scale, packing winds of 136 to 165 mph (219 to 266 kph).
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Mar/24/images/ads/current/farmers_grain_sda_SFARM_2022.png)
About 2,300 customers were without power as of late afternoon Wednesday,
according to poweroutage.us. Officials expected power restoration to
progress quickly given favorable weather conditions and the amount of
electrical crews and volunteers assisting with recovery.
Much of southern Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Ida, a
fierce Category 4 storm last August that devastated rural communities
south of New Orleans and killed more than 100 people in several U.S.
states and the Caribbean.
New Orleans, a city with a majority-Black population, is still
traumatized by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, one of the most powerful
storms in U.S. history, which killed at least 1,800 people.
Officials are gathering information and communicating with federal
agencies to determine what support is available to help affected
communities, Congressman Troy Carter told a press gaggle.
"This is one of those situations where, unfortunately, we’ve gotten too
good at this because we’ve had too much practice," Carter said. "The
beauty is the resiliency of the people."
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Crews were assessing the damage on Wednesday on the east side of New
Orleans where a powerful tornado killed at least one person and
injured eight others as it left a two-mile path of destroyed homes,
uprooted power lines and overturned vehicles. This report produced
by Freddie Joyner.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Mar/24/images/ads/current/eaton_lda_SFARM_2022.png) Governor John Bel Edwards said at
the press conference that he received calls from the White House and
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), adding that damage to
public infrastructure was likely not widespread enough to qualify
for public assistance.
"There was a significant amount of damage, as you can see, but at
this point we don’t know whether we’re going to meet the thresholds
necessary to qualify for federal assistance," he said.
The Small Business Administration plans to make its loan program
available soon, Edwards said.
The tornado largely spared Orleans Parish and the City of New
Orleans to the west, where no injuries or significant damage were
reported, Mayor Latoya Cantrell said in a news briefing.
ONCE HOMES, NOW RUBBLE
Residents spent the day picking through debris and climbing rubble
piles where their houses and businesses once stood while utility
crews worked to repair downed power lines along city streets.
"It sounded like a train and I just said, 'No, no, no,'" a woman
told television station WDSU. "I really thought I was going to die."
Some 2,300 homes and businesses in St. Bernard Parish and 700
customers in Orleans Parish were without power on Wednesday
afternoon, according to Entergy, the local power company.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Mar/24/images/ads/current/rbc_towing_dailysda_SFARM_2022.png)
The system moved to the east and was producing strong thunderstorms
along Florida's Panhandle on Wednesday. It could potentially bring
damaging winds, tornados and hail to the region throughout the day,
the National Weather Service said.
(Reporting by Adrees Latif and Brendan O'Brien;Editing by Andrew
Cawthorne, Jonathan Oatis, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)
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