A Louisiana man is believed to be dead after being attacked by an alligator outside his home just hours after Hurricane Ida struck the area, authorities said.

According to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, the 71-year-old man had gone Monday into the flooded shed underneath his elevated home in Slidell, just northeast of New Orleans. The man’s wife heard a commotion outside, and when she went downstairs she saw her husband being attacked by an alligator, authorities said.

According to police, she tried to pull him away from the reptile and then, after the attack had ended, she went inside to find first-aid supplies. After realizing the extent of the injuries to her husband, which included a severed arm, she paddled a pirogue to higher ground about a mile away to call for help, police said. Phone and 911 service was down in the area because of the hurricane.

When she returned to the home, her husband was nowhere to be found.

Sheriff’s deputies used boats to search for the man’s body, but have come up empty.

The man lived near a wildlife refugee that is known to have gators. Police have not released his name.

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith warned residents Monday to be on the lookout when walking through floodwaters for alligators and other animals that may have moved into neighborhoods after the hurricane.

Hurricane Ida, which slammed into the Louisiana coastline Sunday as a Category 4 storm, is being blamed for at least four deaths. A man in Prairieville, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, died when a tree fell on his home Sunday. Another man drowned in New Orleans while driving through floodwaters. And two people were killed and 10 others were injured Monday night when part of a highway in Lucedale, Mississippi, collapsed following heavy rainfall, creating a 20-foot-hole that swallowed seven vehicles.