NEW ORLEANS — As Hurricane Ida hovered over Louisiana as a Cat. 4 storm, firefighters were dispatched to a Kenner apartment complex Sunday night, but low water pressure hampered their efforts to put out the blaze, allowing it to burn for nearly a full day.
Firefighters arrived on the scene around 9 p.m. Sunday. More than 17 hours later, the fire had consumed the building and several cars parked nearby.
Hurricane Ida made landfall around noon Sunday and hovered over Southeast Louisiana for several hours with wind gusts reaching 180 mph.
The winds damaged infrastructure, leaving 888,000 customers without power. The outages cut water supplies to Jefferson Parish residents, and it will not be restored for several days.
At 2:30 p.m. Monday, embers at Relais Esplanade Apartments were still smoking, and firefighters were still spraying water to prevent the fire from reigniting.
Across the street from Esplanade Mall, the two structures were burned to the ground. Each building had 12 residential units.
Water pressure wasn't even half what firefighters normally get, they told WWLTV. By Monday afternoon, water pressure from fire hydrants hasn't reached half of what is expected, as the structure burned to the ground.
Several cars were completely destroyed.
Firefighters made several attempts overnight Sunday to put out the fire.
First responders said they received reports and photos of a generator being used inside one of the apartments in the building, but those reports have not been confirmed yet.
An investigation into the fire is ongoing.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.