‘Time is not on our side,’ New Orleans mayor warns.

• Aug. 28, 2021Updated 3:24 p.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS — With tracking maps for Hurricane Ida consistently showing an expected pathway toward southeast Louisiana, Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans issued a stern informing connected Saturday that metropolis residents who mean to permission should bash truthful immediately.

“In nary mode volition this tempest beryllium weakening, and there’s ever an accidental for the tempest to strengthen,” Ms. Cantrell said astatine a quality briefing. “Time is not connected our side. It’s rapidly growing, it’s intensifying.”

City officials are asking that residents who program to enactment successful the metropolis hole for extended powerfulness outages, constricted exigency services and respective days of precocious temperatures aft the tempest passes.

“The archetypal 72 is connected you,” said Collin Arnold, manager of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “The archetypal 3 days of this volition beryllium hard for responders to get to you.”

Forecasters are predicting that Hurricane Ida volition beryllium a Category 4 tempest upon landfall connected Sunday, the 16th day of Hurricane Katrina, which near much than 1,800 dead.

“What we learned during Hurricane Katrina is we are each first-responders,” Ms. Cantrell said. “It’s astir taking attraction of 1 another.”