Ida is now around 170 kilometers south-southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth, with maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.

On Saturday, the storm strengthened faster than forecasters had projected, prompting residents along the Gulf Coast to evacuate and businesses to close.

Southern Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Laura's devastation a year ago. Over the last seven days, the state has seen the third-highest incidence of Covid-19 instances per 100,000 people in the United States.

Ida's winds will be ferocious and spread across a 480-kilometer radius, according to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, and it might be the state's worst direct impact since the 1850s.

Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on Louisiana 16 years ago this week, killing over 1,800 people.

According to Edwards, the state does not intend to evacuate institutions that are now overburdened by an inflow of Covid-19 patients.

At a news conference Saturday afternoon, Edwards stated, "The implications of having a Category 4 storm while hospitals are full are beyond what we normally contemplate,"

On Friday, more than 3400 new illnesses were reported, with over 2700 people hospitalized as a result of the virus.

"We have been talking to hospitals to make sure that their generators are working, that they have way more water on hand than normal, that they have PPE on hand," Edwards explained.

As residents and holidaymakers fled the seaside, officials ordered broad evacuations of low-lying and coastal districts, clogging highways and leaving some petrol stations empty.

"This is a powerful and dangerous storm - it is moving faster than we had thought it would be, so we have a little less time to prepare," said Louisiana's chief medical official, Dr. Joseph Kanter.

"There is a lot of Covid out there - there are a lot of risks out there."

Expected power outages

To deal with potential power outages, utilities were bringing in extra staff and equipment. President Joe Biden said he had worked with electric utilities and that 500 federal disaster response employees were on the ground in Texas and Louisiana to deal with the storm.

US energy companies slashed offshore oil production by 91%, and gasoline refiners shut down refineries in Louisiana that were in the storm's path. Fuel prices in the region have risen in anticipation of production losses and increasing demand due to evacuations.

Due to the storm, oil refineries on the coast and inland began to reduce production. Exxon Mobil Corp halted production at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery on Saturday, while Phillips 66 closed its Alliance unit on the coast in Belle Chasse.

Jean Paul Bourg, 39, was preparing to stay in Morgan City, west of New Orleans, to weather the storm. After getting Covid-19, his wife's brother was recently released from the hospital and secured a generator to assure access to oxygen if needed.

After removing trees and putting up plywood on his house, Bourg stated, "You can't necessarily pile in with family members during Covid," "More people than you'd think are sticking around."

Production of oil and fuel has been reduced.

US energy companies slashed offshore oil production by 91%, and gasoline refiners shut down refineries in Louisiana that were in the storm's path. Fuel prices in the region have risen in anticipation of production losses.

According to Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at tracking business GasBuddy, gasoline consumption in Louisiana increased by 71% for the week ending Friday.

By the time it makes landfall, Hurricane Ida, the ninth named storm and fourth hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters believe it will have surpassed the power of Hurricane Laura, the last Category 4 storm to hit Louisiana.

Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the region in August 2005, killing over 1800 people.