BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. — The Bayou La Batre Police Department reported Sunday morning, Aug. 29, 2021, that multiple roads in the waterfront community were impassable because of rising water as Hurricane Ida churned north through the Gulf of Mexico toward the northern Gulf Coast.
Water covering low-lying streets
Police said water had moved over roadways across the city as winds out of the south pushed Gulf water into Mississippi Sound and up against the shoreline. Bayou La Batre, a working seafood town of roughly 2,000 residents on the western shore of Mobile County, sits at low elevation along the Sound, making its streets especially vulnerable to storm surge even from storms that make landfall well to the west.
Ida strengthened rapidly overnight before coming ashore that afternoon near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane. Even with the center aimed at southeast Louisiana, eastward-extended surge bands and onshore winds flooded coastal roads across Mobile County’s bayou communities.
Officials urged residents to stay off flooded roads
Emergency officials repeated their standing advice during the event: never drive through water covering a roadway, where the depth and condition of the pavement beneath cannot be seen. Just a foot of moving water can carry away a passenger vehicle. Residents were asked to shelter in place until water receded and crews could assess damage.
The flooding came nearly a year to the week after Hurricane Sally pushed record surge into the same stretch of coastline in September 2020, an event still fresh for Bayou La Batre families repairing homes and boats along the bayou.