Hurricane Laura continues to gain strength, could become Category 5 storm before making landfall

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Hurricane Laura crashed into Louisiana with ferocious 150mph winds today, bringing a ‘catastrophic storm surge’ in its wake which is set to swamp the low-lying coast with an ‘unsurvivable’ 20ft wall of ocean water.  

The Category 4 monster made landfall at 1am with the strongest winds that Louisiana has seen since 1856 and warnings that the storm could rip apart buildings and penetrate up to 200 miles inland. 

Laura reached land near the small town of Cameron around 30 miles from the Texas border, where officials went door-to-door pleading with people to flee the path of the storm amid fears the entire parish will be inundated. 

The storm wreaked havoc in the town of Lake Charles early this morning, slamming into trees and buildings and collapsing a walkway at St Patrick Hospital as residents said their town was being ‘destroyed’. 

Footage showed torrents of rain flying sideways past street lights in Lake Charles, and streets covered with water closer to the coast, while a sudden storm surge knocked over cameras meant to capture the hurricane’s effects. 

The hurricane is now pushing inland while the Gulf Coast faces storm surges and 10 inches of rain coupled with a high tide, the National Hurricane Center says – while tornadoes could form at the edges of the weather system.  

Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system arrived in ‘full beast mode’ as the most powerful hurricane to strike the US so far this year and its effects are expected to be felt in Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas. 

With hours of violent weather ahead, officials said the extent of destruction likely wouldn’t be clear until daybreak, when search and rescue missions will begin.    

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At 150mph, the hurricane’s winds were the strongest to make landfall in Louisiana since the Last Island Hurricane of 1856, said meteorologist Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University. 

Hurricane Katrina came in at 125mph, although the 2005 storm which caused up to 1,800 deaths and $125billion  of damage was worse when measured by pressure. 

The winds have taken Laura close to the threshold of a Category 5 storm, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale and defined as sustained winds of 157mph or more.   

‘This is one of the strongest storms to impact that section of coastline,’ said David Roth, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. 

‘We worry about that storm surge going so far inland there because it’s basically all marshland north to Interstate 10. There is little to stop the water.’ 

NBC reporter Jay Gray was nearly knocked over by the wind this morning as he told Good Morning Britain viewers that ‘the intensity of this early band from this storm is as strong as any that I’ve seen in recent memory,’ before the broadcast was cut off for his safety. 

The storm grew nearly 87 per cent in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called ‘extremely dangerous’, making it the powerful hurricane to strike the US so far this year. 

‘It looks like it’s in full beast mode, which is not what you want to see if you’re in its way, University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said. 

The storm surge could penetrate inland from between Freeport, Texas, and the mouth of the Mississippi River, and could raise water levels as high as 20 feet in parts of Cameron Parish, the NHC said.

People were urged to take cover in a ‘reinforced interior room away from windows’, ideally ‘under a table or other piece of sturdy furniture’, to shield themselves from the ‘life-threatening conditions’. 

‘To think that there would be a wall of water over two stories high coming on shore is very difficult for most to conceive, but that is what is going to happen,’ said NWS meteorologist Benjamin Schott at a news conference.  

‘The word ‘unsurvivable’ is not one that we like to use, and it’s one that I’ve never used before,’ Schott said of the storm surge.

Forecasters also warned hurricane-level winds could also blow as far as 200 miles inland to Shreveport, Louisiana. 

Ocean water topped by white-capped waves began rising ominously as the monster neared land on Wednesday afternoon. 

One major Louisiana highway already had standing water as Laura’s outer bands moved ashore with tropical storm-force winds. 

Thousands of sandbags lined roadways in tiny Lafitte, and winds picked up as shoppers rushed into a grocery store in low-lying Delcambre. 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 620,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders.

Officials said at least 150 people refused pleas to leave and planned to weather the storm in everything from elevated homes to recreational vehicles in Cameron Parish, which could be completely covered by ocean water.

‘It’s a very sad situation,’ said Ashley Buller, assistant director of emergency preparedness. ‘We did everything we could to encourage them to leave.’

Tony Guillory, president of  resident of Calcasieu Parish’s police jury, said some residents who did not evacuate were now requesting help but ‘there ain’t no way to get them’. 

Guillory was hunkering down in a Lake Charles government building that was shaking from the storm early Thursday as phones were ringing. 

Edwards activated the state’s entire National Guard, with some troopers driving school buses around neighborhoods near Lake Charles offering to pick up families.  

Temporary housing was being hastily organized outside the surge zone for evacuated residents, and emergency teams were being strategically positioned, state and federal emergency management agencies said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Pete Gaynor posted pictures of portable shelters at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, about 115 miles north of the Gulf Coast.

Across the state line in Port Arthur, Texas, a handful of stragglers boarded evacuation buses, and city officials announced that two C-130 transport planes offered the last chance to leave. 

Abbott warned that people who fail to get out of harm’s way could be cut off from help long after the storm hit, warning that Laura’s power was ‘unprecedented’. 

‘Your property can be replaced,’ Abbott said, ‘your life cannot.’

A Category 4 hurricane can render wide areas uninhabitable for weeks or months and knock out power for just as long. 

Hurricane warnings were issued from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, and reached inland for 200 miles. Storm surge warnings were in effect from Freeport, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River.

On the forecast track, Laura will ‘approach the Upper Texas and southwest Louisiana coasts this evening and move inland within that area tonight’, NASA said. 

The center of Laura is forecast to move over northwestern Louisiana tomorrow, across Arkansas Thursday night, and over the mid-Mississippi Valley on Friday. 

‘Devastating wind damage will occur near where Laura makes landfall in the hurricane warning area. Well-built homes may incur major damage, trees will be snapped or uprooted, and electricity and water will be unavailable for several days to weeks,’ officials warned. 

‘Some areas, when they wake up Thursday morning, they’re not going to believe what happened,’ said Stacy Stewart, a senior hurricane specialist.

‘What doesn’t get blown down by the wind could easily get knocked down by the rising ocean waters pushing well inland.’ 

A National Weather Service meteorologist in Lake Charles, Louisiana – in the bullseye of Laura’s projected path – gave an urgent warning for people living south of Interstate 10 in southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas.

‘Your life will be in immediate and grave danger beginning this evening if you do not evacuate,’ Donald Jones said.

In the largest US evacuation since the pandemic began, more than half a million people were ordered Tuesday to flee from an area of the Gulf Coast along the Texas-Louisiana state line.

More than 420,000 residents were told to evacuate the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur. 

Another 200,000 were ordered to leave the low-lying Calcasieu and Cameron parishes in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities.

Officials say the storm surges and downpour of rain could leave an area the size of Rhode Island underwater in Louisiana.

Laura also is expected to dump massive rainfall over a short period of time as it moves inland, causing widespread flash flooding in states far from the coast. 

Flash flood watches were issued for much of Arkansas, and forecasters said heavy rainfall could move to parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky late Friday and Saturday. 

Forecasters in Little Rock, Arkansas said the remnants of the hurricane could bring up to six inches of rain and flash flooding affecting homes and businesses. 

Strong winds are also expected to affect Mississippi until Thursday evening while the tornado warnings also cover parts of the state.  

Coronavirus also loomed over preparations, with Angela Jouett, head of evacuation operations in Lake Charles, saying authorities were ensuring that that evacuees use hand sanitizer, get their temperatures taken and maintain a 6ft safety distance. 

In the Texas town of La Porte, near Houston, residents were stocking up on essentials and a voluntary evacuation was in place.

‘I’m a little nervous but then I’m also like, okay, I know I’m going to be safe inside my apartment,’ said 28-year-old security guard Matthew Jones.

‘I got bread. I got lunch meat, peanut butter, jelly, gallons of water, snacks.’

Further east, in Port Arthur, a town near the border with Louisiana, Jannette Zinos was packing up her family to evacuate.

‘We really need to leave. I’m just worried that the house will go down on us,’ she said.

Another evacuee in Lake Charles, Patricia Como, said other family members had stayed behind but she was ‘not going to take a chance.’

‘I’m not going to play with the good lord,’ Como said.

Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards tweeted that portions of I-10, the interstate highway that connects all of the southern United States, were closed ahead of Laura’s arrival.

He urged those evacuating to head north in order to ‘detour the closure and avoid undrivable conditions.’ 

Laura’s arrival comes just days before the August 29 anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which breached the levees in New Orleans, flattened much of the Mississippi coast and killed as many as 1,800 people in 2005. 

Laura has  also imperiled a center of the US energy industry. The government said 84 per cent of Gulf oil production and an estimated 61 per cent of natural gas production were shut down. Nearly 300 platforms have been evacuated.

When Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017 there were oil and chemical spills, along with heavy air pollution from petrochemical plants and refineries.

“The storm and the direct damage and human life are the most important things, but pollution can be a double whammy and compound the risk to the community,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. 

While oil prices often spike before a major storm as production slows, consumers are unlikely to see big price changes because the pandemic has already decimated demand for fuel. 

Laura passed Cuba and Hispaniola, where it killed nearly two dozen people, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic.

The deaths reportedly included a 10-year-old girl whose home was hit by a tree and a mother and young son crushed by a collapsing wall.