Hurricane Ida churned toward the U.S. Gulf coast today

​By a Staff Reporter: Hurricane Ida churned toward the U.S. Gulf coast on Saturday, forecast to gather strength in coming hours and prompting evacuations of flood-prone New Orleans neighborhoods and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters said it could make U.S. landfall as a dangerous Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, generating winds nearing 140 miles per hour (225 kph), heavy downpours and a tidal surge that could plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water.