Hurricane Laura pounded the Gulf Coast with ferocious wind and torrential rain and unleashed a wall of seawater that would push 40 miles inland because the Category 4 storm roared ashore Thursday in Louisiana near the Texas border. A minimum of one person was, killed.
Laura battered a tall building in Lake Charles, blowing out
windows as glass and debris flew to the bottom. Police spotted a floating
casino that came unmoored and hit a bridge. However, hours after the hurricane
made landfall, the wind and rain were still blowing too hard for authorities to
see for survivors.
Gov. John Bell Edwards reported Louisiana's first fatality —
a 14-year-old girl who died when a tree fell on her range in Leesville.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals were ordered’ to
evacuate before the hurricane, but not everyone fled from the world, which was
devastated’ by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
“There are some people still in town, and other people are
calling ... but there ain’t no thanks to get to them,” Tony Guillory, president
of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, said over the phone from a Lake Charles
building that was shaking from the storm.
Guillory said he hoped the stranded people might be rescued’
later within the day, but he feared that blocked roads, downed power lines and
floodwaters could get within the way.
“We know anyone that stayed that on the brink of the coast,
we’ve need to pray for them, because watching the storm surge, there would be
little chance of survival,” Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told ABC’s
morning America.
More than 600,000 homes and businesses were without power
within the two states, consistent with the web site PowerOutage.Us, which
tracks utility reports.
The National Hurricane Center said Laura slammed the coast
with winds of 150 mph (241 kph) at 1 a.m. CDT near Cameron, a 400-person
community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of the Texas border. Forecasters
had warned that the storm surge would be “unsurvivable” and therefore the
damage “catastrophic.”
They predicted a storm surge of 15 to twenty feet in Port
Arthur, Texas, and a stretch of Louisiana including Lake Charles, a city of
80,000 people on Lake Calcasieu.
"This surge could penetrate up to 40 miles inland from
the immediate coastline, and floodwaters won't fully recede for several
days," the hurricane center said.
Hours after it arrived, Laura weakened to a Category 1
hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph). The storm was 65
miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Shreveport and moving north. Damaging winds
extended outward as far as 175 miles (280 kilometers), consistent with the
hurricane center.
Dick Gremillion, the emergency director in Calcasieu Parish,
said authorities were unable to urge bent assess damage.
"The wind remains over 50 mph. It’s getting to need to
drop significantly before they will even run any emergency calls. We also need
daylight,” Gremillion said in an interview with Lake Charles TV station KPLC.
More than 580,000 coastal residents were ordered’ to hitch
the most important evacuation since the coronavirus pandemic began and lots of
did, filling hotels and sleeping in cars since officials didn't want to open
large shelters that would invite more spread of COVID-19.
But in Cameron Parish, where Laura came ashore, Nungesser
said 50 to 150 people refused pleas to go away and planned to endure the storm,
some in elevated homes and even recreational vehicles. The result might be
deadly.
“It’s a really sad situation,” said Ashley Buller, assistant
director of emergency preparedness. “We did everything we could to encourage
them to go away.”
Becky Clements, 56, didn't gamble. She evacuated from Lake
Charles after hearing that it could take an immediate hit. With memories of
Rita's destruction almost 15 years ago, she and her family found an Airbnb many
miles inland.
“The devastation afterward in our town which whole corner of
the state was just awful,” Clements recalled. “Whole communities were washed
away, never to exist again.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Pete Gaynor
urged people in Laura's path to remain home, if that's still safe. “Don't leave
sightseeing. You set yourself, your family in danger, and you set first
responders in danger," he told “CBS This Morning.”
FEMA has many resources staged to assist survivors, Gaynor
said. Edwards mobilized the National Guard to assist, and state Department of
Wildlife crews had boats prepared for water rescues.
Forecasters expected a weakened Laura to cause widespread
flash flooding in states far away from the coast. An unusual tropical storm
warning was issued’ as far north as Little Rock, where forecasters expected
gusts of fifty mph (80 kph) and a deluge of rain through Friday. The storm was
so powerful that it could regain strength after turning east and reaching the Atlantic,
potentially threatening the densely populated Northeast.
Laura hit the U.S. after killing nearly twenty-four people on
the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three within the Dominican Republic,
where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding.
It was the seventh named storm to strike the U.S. this year,
setting a replacement record for U.S. landfalls by the top of August. The old
record was six in 1886 and 1916, consistent with Colorado State University
hurricane researcher Phil Klotz Bach.
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