Mississippi governor on 'challenging' Ida recovery
Gov. Tate Reeves notes damage in Louisiana more 'catastrophic' than his state
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves notes the southeast part of the state, which is along the coast, experienced 'significant tornadoes as well as rising water and 12 inches of rain.'
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, explained the issues his state is facing in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida on Tuesday, stressing that it has been "a challenging time."
He also noted that "there’s no doubt that what happened in Louisiana was catastrophic."
"The storm came ashore there in Louisiana and so we’re dealing with some of the same things in the aftermath, but not to the scale that happened down there," Reeves told "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" on Tuesday.
"In fact, early yesterday morning I was able to release some of our search and rescue assets that we had here in Mississippi to send to Louisiana."
The National Weather Service said Ida, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S, came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane and weakened to a Category 1 storm with top sustained winds of up to 75 mph as its eye moved west of the city.
It knocked out power to much of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, blowing roofs off buildings and causing widespread flooding as it pushed a surge of ocean water.
What's more, the entire city of New Orleans was without power just hours after blasting ashore, according to New Orleans government officials.
FOX Business’ Grady Trimble on the growing concerns over lack of supplies like water and fuel following Hurricane Ida.
President Biden on Sunday declared that a major disaster exists in Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the areas impacted by Hurricane Ida.
Reeves told host Neil Cavuto on Tuesday that in Mississippi thousands are still without power amid scorching temperatures.
"When you look at our power outages, at our peak we had 136,000 in our state, mostly in southwest Mississippi, that number is now down to 55,000," Reeves said.
He then called the "linemen and women" that got the power back on "heroes."
"They went to work in the southwest part of the state when the storm was still in the north part of our state," he explained.
Reeves stressed that the past three to four days have been "challenging" in Mississippi and Louisiana.
"Hurricane Ida entered our state and the eye of the storm actually stayed in Mississippi for almost 30 hours," Reeves explained.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, explains the issues his state is facing in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.
"It was a slow-moving storm, but because it was so slow-moving that meant we got a little less wind than originally projected, but we also got more water than what was projected, up to 12 inches along our coastline."
He also said that Ida was "a very large storm," which caused power outages mainly in the southwest part of the state and in the southeast, where the coast is, "we saw significant tornadoes as well as rising water and 12 inches of rain."
He stressed that "we’re in the process of going to work and getting things fixed and making sure that our people are OK."
Reeves shared the insight on the recovery efforts on the day after two people were killed and at least 10 others were injured when seven vehicles plunged, one after another, into a deep hole where a dark, rural highway collapsed as Ida slammed Mississippi, according to authorities.
Torrential rain may have caused the collapse and the drivers likely did not see that the roadway in front of them had disappeared, according to Mississippi Highway Patrol Cpl. Cal Robertson.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.