'We'll endure': Ida leaves Gulf town of Houma in tatters

HOUMA, La. (AP) — Main Street of this southern Louisiana town resembles a canyon of rubble after Hurricane Ida.

Metal roofs peeled off buildings cover the sidewalks, and red bricks from a collapsed building mingle with big chunks of broken glass on a corner.

A man cleaning up damage throws a piece of roofing from atop Mardi Gras Hall, a bingo parlor, and it lands with a thud. A block away, broken limbs from giant oaks make it all but impossible to walk across a once shady square.

“It’s like a bomb went off and just blew off houses’ roofs, flattened trees, snapped them like matchsticks,” said Michael Cobb, taking in the destruction Tuesday from his front porch a couple of blocks away.

Cobb's home, built from cypress 120 years ago and painted white with purple trim, survived the storm with only a water leak. Still, seeing Main Street in tatters filled him with sadness.

“It was such a pretty place,” he said.

Situated on the Intracoastal Waterway where it crosses Bayou Terrebonne, Houma is a working-class town of 33,000 people who largely make their living off the nearby Gulf of Mexico. Many catch fish, shrimp and oysters. Others build and repair ships and barges or work support jobs for the oil industry.

Founded in 1832, Houma has weathered its share of hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina caused flooding and left the bayou littered with debris when it struck in 2005, precisely 16 years to the day before Ida made landfall.

Ida's eyewall tore through Houma with ferocious winds that reached 150 mph (240 km/h) when the Category 4 storm struck the Louisiana coast Sunday.

The hurricane ripped away the corner of the flatiron-shaped Hancock Whitney Bank building. Across the street, which had been cleared for traffic Tuesday, three walls and the roof of a small bistro were collapsed...