second largest to ever scorch parts of california. i didn t know where i was, whose house is what. it was just a wasteland. we re just grateful to be alive. we got each other. reporter: the 2021 hurricane season, while not as prolific as the record-shattering 2020, was still an overachiever. there were 21 named storms, including seven hurricanes, four of which were category 3 or higher. category 4 hurricane ida lashing louisiana, still recovering from last year s four landfalls. we are looking at imminent landfall of this storm. reporter: the deadly hurricane flattening entire communities, leaving millions of people in louisiana without power. some outages lasting for months. ida then slashed a path of destruction into the northeast, dumping up to 10 inches of rain in some parts of the region. several areas seeing one night all-time record high totals for the month of september.
lashing louisiana, still recovering from last year s four landfalls. we re looking at imminent landfall of this storm. the deadly hurricane flattening entire communities leaving people ida then slashed a path of destruction into the northeast, dumping up to 10 inches of rain in some parts of the region. several areas seeing one night all-time record high totals for the month of september. new york city taking a direct hit from the tropical storm, with subways turning into walls of water and floods pushing cars down streets. the storm once again turning deadly, when basement apartments were submerged, trapping residents. while the east got too much water, the bone dry west, in its second decade of extreme drought, finally hit a tipping point. lake mead dropping to its lowest level on record.
burning more than 413,000 acres. the dixie fire becoming the second largest to ever scorch parts of california. i didn t know where i was, whose house was what. it was just a wasteland. we re just grateful to be alive. we ve got each other. reporter: the 2021 hurricane season not as prolific at 2020 was still an over achiever. there were 21 named storms including seven hurricanes, four of which were category three or higher. category four hurricane ida lashing louisiana, still recovering from last year s four landfalls. we re looking at imminent landfall of this storm. the deadly hurricane flattening entire communities, leaving millions of people in louisiana without power. some outages lasting for months. ida then slashed a path of destruction into the northeast. dumping up to 10 inches of rain in some parts of the region. several areas seen one night
on. a strong round of thunderstorms late today, areas of new england, from central pennsylvania, yum state new york, to capital district, vermont, new hampshire, maine, 12 million people in risk of strong storms. that heat, 90 again in d.c. that humidity is what won t goal away for so many people, jonathan. there s no relief in sight yet. i think we have to wait for october this year. bill, that s bad news. and the number of landfalls extraordinary, almost as if the climate is changing. bill karins, thank you for that. still ahead, democratic leader joe manchin crossing the aisle. before we go to break, we want to ask, why are you awake? email to waytooearly@msnbc.com. or tweet me @jon lemire.
north of baton rouge. flash flood watch in green includes 6 million people, areas of pensacola, all the way to panama city, isolated flooding is possible and river flooding. another one two three inches of rain possible today. driving interstate 10, anywhere near the gulf coast, you re going to drive in and out of heavy downpours throughout the day today. and even through the day tomorrow. and relentless landfalls, we ll call this. so 2020, you know, last year, we were like, we can t do this again, this was crazy. we had 11 u.s. landfalls last year. notice, look at louisiana there, four of them. this season already, we re only halfway through it, we ve had eight u.s. landfalls so far. and typically, we only get like three a year. and we ve had 19, you know, in 17 months. it s been absolutely ridiculous. we don t have anything coming our way in the next five to seven days. we ll get a little bit of a break. the other story we have posed