The United States on Monday declared public health emergencies for the states of Louisiana and
Mississippi, saying that it will help suspend government red tape that may get
in the way of providing help to people affected by Hurricane Ida.

The emergency declaration by Health and Human Services
Secretary Xavier Becerra puts a pause on certain payment rules and other
requirements that could become an unwelcome distraction for hospitals and
doctors trying to provide services under stressful conditions.

One example is a requirement that health care professionals
be licensed in the state they provide care.

HHS has also staged an incident management team in Dallas to
provide coordination of federal health and medical support after Ida passes
through the region. Another team is providing support for people needing kidney
dialysis.

New Orleans residents faced a massive cleanup effort and
possibly weeks without power. Whole toppled trees blocked streets, pulled down
power lines, covered yards, and damaged homes. This has also affected medical
services.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards’ office says parishes
that urged its residents to evacuate are encouraging people to stay away in the
immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ida because it remains unsafe to return amid
downed power lines, flooded homes, snapped trees, and other destruction.

The New Orleans suburb of Jefferson Parish, for example, was
estimating it could take at least five days to restore the water system there.
That’s according to Edwards spokesperson Christina Stephens.

“The best advice is to stay put where you are” if
you evacuated, Stephens said. “People who have evacuated out of the state
should stay where they are right now.”

With widespread AT&T cell service outages, many people
were frantically trying to reach loved ones and were unsuccessful. But Stephens
said people shouldn’t return from their evacuation points to try and check on
family and friends. Just because you can’t get through by phone, “that
does not necessarily mean that they are not OK,” Stephens said. “We
know that much of this is a communications problem.”

Stephens said AT&T hasn’t yet provided the governor’s
office with any estimates of when cell service will be restored.

According to Edwards’ office, power company crews were doing
a damage assessment of its power grid, but that it appeared the damage was
“catastrophic.”

Officials were estimating Monday that it could be weeks for
full restoration in some areas.

Stephens said search and rescue was underway across many
communities in southeast Louisiana, with particularly high water problems in
Lafitte, LaPlace, the west bank of Jefferson Parish and the Houma/Thibodaux
areas.

The state had more than 1,000 people conducting search and
rescue operations, and many more local search and rescue operations were up and
running as well.

Stephens said only one death has been confirmed from Ida,
but she cautioned that based on the widespread destruction: “We’re going
to have many more confirmed fatalities.”

The governor also tweeted that Ida “packed a very
powerful punch” and “did everything that was advertised,
unfortunately.”

He wrote that levies in hard-hit areas “performed
extremely well” for the most part, but that much of the state remains
without power, water systems were out, and “we have tremendous damage to
homes and businesses.”