Hurricane Ida: Man Does Cartwheel Behind Weather Channel Reporter Struggling to Stand

The Weather Channel correspondent Jim Cantore is in New Orleans this weekend to cover Hurricane Ida, which has already devasted parts of Louisiana since making landfall Sunday afternoon. As usual, Cantore is reporting live from some of the dangerous areas during the storm, but some social media observers made fun of him for going to extreme measures to protect himself. Some even thought a man attempting a cartwheel behind him was evidence that he was going too far, but the viral clip was taken out of context.

The five-second clip shows Cantore struggling to stand up on a street corner while the wind howls around him. Cantore wore a baseball helmet to protect his head. Behind Cantore, a man is seen trying to do a cartwheel. This was just five seconds of Cantore’s coverage, though.

In a much longer segment you can see below, Cantore explained that the wind gusts can be felt at their worst when a person stands between two buildings. If a person stands in front of a building though, they wouldn’t feel those gusts due to the direction of the wind. The cartwheeling man began his gymnastics attempt in front of a building. In Cantore’s longer segment, he moved in front of one of the buildings as well to illustrate the point.

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday at 11:55 a.m. in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. As of 8 p.m. local time, the hurricane is 30 miles west of New Orleans and is a Category 3 storm, reports WDSU. The storm is moving at just 9 mph and has winds reaching 115 mph. It is expected to take a turn northward overnight, then move faster over land. Ida is projected to move northeast, through Mississippi and Tennessee. It is forecast to quickly weaken but could remain a hurricane late into Sunday night before becoming a tropical storm Monday.

In its latest public advisory, the National Hurricane Center forecast a “catastrophic” storm surge. Storm Surge warnings are still in effect for Morgan City, Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border, Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and Mobile Bay. There is also a Hurricane Warning in effect for Morgan City to the mouth of the Pearl River, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and Metropolitan New Orleans. There are over 850,000 households without power in Louisiana, according to PowerOutage.us.