Slowly and carefully, Louisiana contractors are making their way back to jobsites in the path of Hurricane Ida to assess damage and get sites up and running again—working around staggering shortages of workers, fuel and equipment, along with still widespread outages of power, water and communications.
After tearing through Louisiana and Mississippi, the storm continued to cause chaos as it battered the East Coast, bringing heavy rainfall, tornados and flash floods to parts of New Jersey, New York Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia. As of Sept. 3, those states had counted about 80 deaths attributed to the storm.