New Orleans tornado causes severe damage to Arabi neighborhood near Lower 9th

A 26-year-old man was reported dead after first responders found him outside his home in the Arabi neighborhood around 10 p.m. local time, according to John Lane, a spokesman for St. Bernard Parish President Guy McInnis.

Other residents have hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, Lane told The Washington Post early Wednesday.

He said the Arabi neighborhood, between the Lower 9th Ward and Chalmette, has been the area most impacted by the tornado.

“There was severe devastation,” Lane said. “We have houses that have been completely flattened. We have houses that have been moved off [their] foundations and suffered severe structural damages.”

Lane said he has not seen this kind of devastation since Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005.

While large swaths of New Orleans were devastated in Hurricane Katrina, he told The Post what happened Tuesday night “is much more localized — two different types of devastation but nevertheless this is significant.”

Early Wednesday, community members and first responders had already started walking through a maze of downed power lines blocking the streets to check on residents.

“We are eager for the morning to get out and assess the damage,” Lane told The Post.

The New Orleans Fire Department is responding to reports of injuries and trapped people, according to the Weather Channel. The Louisiana Office of the State Fire Marshal reported that search-and-rescue teams have been dispatched and response workers are on-site in Arabi.

Social media footage revealed a large, powerful tornado ripping across the night sky. It appeared to be a multi-vortex twister, with at least one additional funnel orbiting around a primary wedge-shaped cone.

“This is something I’d hope I would never see,” New Orleans broadcast meteorologist Margaret Orr told viewers as her station, WDSU, captured the tornado in the distance.

About 2,200 people were without power in St. Bernard Parish as of early Wednesday, and another 4,200 people had lost power in Jefferson and Orleans parishes, according to PowerOutageUS.com.

Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said state and local officials were assessing the damage. “My prayers are with you in Southeast Louisiana tonight,” he said in a tweet. “Please be safe.”

How the tornado evolved, and its path

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning southwest of New Orleans at 7 p.m. Central time. Rotation tightened markedly around 7:20 as the circulation approached Destrehan Avenue in Woodmere, a suburb of southern New Orleans. The tornado warning was extended into the city of New Orleans at 7:18 p.m.

Doppler radar indicated a sudden uptick in spectrum width, or a radar product that shows in pixels how chaotic the range of motions/wind speeds are. A sudden spike in values over Woodmere indicated turbulence commensurate with a possible tornado.

At 7:22 p.m., the possible tornado was entering neighborhoods along Redwood Drive in the Timberlane area..

The rotation then arrived in Gretna at 7:24 p.m.,…