Rescue underway after Ida's landfall

Rescue teams in hundreds of boats joined helicopter crews in southeast Louisiana on Monday to search for residents trapped in attics and on rooftops by floodwaters after Hurricane Ida hit the area with mighty winds and a storm surge so strong that it temporarily reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.

Ida's surge was so strong that it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River to the north for about two hours, according to the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

The Louisiana National Guard tweeted on Monday night that 4,900 guard members, 195 high-water vehicles, 73 rescue boats and 34 helicopters have been deployed to help with rescue operations.

Local media reported of residents sharing their addresses on social media after becoming trapped inside attics or on rooftops.

Ida, which was downgraded to a tropical depression on Monday, knocked out power for more than 1 million properties across Louisiana, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.US.

The region's power grid was ravaged, leaving the entire city of New Orleans and hundreds of thousands of other Louisiana residents in the dark with no clear timeline on when power would return. Some areas outside New Orleans also suffered major flooding and structure damage.

At least two people have been confirmed dead as of Monday night, about 36 hours after Ida's powerful landfall.

The two victims were reportedly a man who drowned in his car after trying to drive through floodwater in New Orleans and a 60-year-old man who was hit by a tree that fell on his home near Baton Rouge, the state's capital city.

Search efforts

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

At least 671 people stranded in Ida-hit areas had been rescued by Monday afternoon, said Edwards later in the day.

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

Dozens of streets in New Orleans were flooded, and some levees failed or were overtopped. However, Edwards said the system of flood walls, levees, canals and barriers constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers spared New Orleans and the immediate area from devastation, which Hurricane Katrina caused. Katrina devastated the city and caused 1,800 deaths in 2005.

Edwards said 22 nursing homes and 18 assisted living facilities have been evacuated, though evacuating the largest hospitals was not an option because he said there are no other places to send residents.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued emergency fuel waivers for Louisiana and Mississippi due to Hurricane Ida.

The storm is the latest in what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast will be a busier than average season. It forecasts between 15 and 21 named storms, and three to five of those becoming major hurricanes.

Xinhua and agencies contributed to this story.