Hurricane Ida has left a lasting wake of destruction and chaos along the Gulf Coast. The hurricane, which was a category 4 storm when it initially made landfall in Louisiana late last month, killed more than 60 people, caused widespread blackouts and severe flooding as far north as New York and New Jersey, and took out a key United States oil and gas hub. Now, more than a week after Ida swept through the South, more than 80% of oil production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico is still offline and the United States Coast Guard is investigating reports of 350 separate oil spills and 2,000 reports of pollution in the Gulf’s waters. A Coast Guard statement says that the organization is currently conducting flyovers off of the Louisiana coastline to look for oil spills to report back to federal, state and local authorities so that they can put […]