The damage to Louisiana’s power grid from Hurricane Ida is so extensive that the U.S. Coast Guard has joined the task of assessing the wreckage, a departure from its maritime security duties. More than 1 million homes and businesses along the U.S. Gulf Coast are without power following Ida’s landfall late Sunday. The storm destroyed transmission lines up and down the Mississippi River, including one large tower that collapsed near Avondale, Louisiana, leaving a conductor from an electrical line in the river itself. “Where and how the tower fell, and the assessment on how we can deal with it has yet to be made,” a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman told Reuters. The Coast Guard joined the effort because of the potential hazard […]