Hurricane Ida made landfall on Sunday morning and is expected to bring high winds, heavy rain, and flooding to Oxford and Lafayette County in the coming days.
The National Weather Service has placed Lafayette County under a flash flood watch beginning Monday morning and continuing through late Tuesday night. The service also warns that wind gusts could reach up to 35 miles per hour and that two to six inches of rainfall are possible.
University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce released a statement via email Sunday morning to the university students with words of support for those impacted.
“As the Gulf Coast region faces the impending landfall of Hurricane Ida, we recognize that many in our university community and their loved ones will be impacted,” he wrote. “We are deeply concerned and want to let our students, faculty, staff and alumni know that our thoughts and prayers are with all those who will be affected.”
He directed any student in need of assistance to email vcstudentaffairs@olemiss.edu and urged the community to stay alert in case of severe weather updates from university and local authorities.
As of Sunday night, university operations are set to proceed as normal.
Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane, exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the coast in 2005. Multiple areas, including the entire city of New Orleans are seeing widespread power outages and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared Ida is the strongest hurricane to hit Lousiaiana’s coast in over a century.
