Hurricane pounds US Gulf Coast as at least four die in storm’s fury
One o f t h e s t r o n g e s t h u r r i - c a n e s e ve r t o s t r i ke t h e US pounded the Gulf Coast yesterday, shearing off roofs and killing a least four people, as Laura barrelled across Louisiana and maintained fero - cious strength while car ving a destructive path hundreds of miles inland.
A full assessment of the damage wrought by the categor y four system was likely to take days. But initial reports offered hope that Laura, despite leaving entire neighbourhoods in ruins and more than 875,000 people without power, was not the annihilating menace that forecasters had feared.
“It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute, catastrophic damage that we thought was likely,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said. “But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage.”
He called it the most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, meaning it surpassed even Katrina, which was a categor y four storm when it hit in 2005.
T h e h u r r i c a n e’s t o p wi n d speed of 150mph put it among the most powerful systems on record in the US. Not until 11 hours after landfall did Laura finally weaken into a tropical storm as it ploughed north and thrashed Arkansas with powerful winds and heavy rain.
The storm came ashore in low-lying Louisiana and clobbered Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. On Broad Street, many buildings had par tially collapsed and those didn’t were mi s s i n g c h u n k s . Wi n d ows w e r e b l o w n o u t , a w n i n g s ripped away and trees split in half in eerily misshapen ways. Police spotted a floating casino that came unmoored and hit a bridge.
“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here, it’s j us t destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles. He describ ed Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2am (8pm GMT).
“There are houses that are totally gone,” he said.
N o t l o n g a f t e r d a y b r e a k offered the first glimpse of the destruction, a massive plume o f s m o k e v i s i b l e f o r m i l e s b egan rising from a chemical plant. Police said the leak was at a facility run by Biolab, which manufactures chemicals used in household cleane r s s u c h a s C o m e t b l e a c h scrub and chlorine p owder for p o ols. Nearby residents were told to close their doors and windows.
T h e f a t a l i t i e s i n c l u d e d a 14-year-old girl and a 68-yearold man, who died when trees fell on their homes in Louis i a n a , a u t h o r i t i e s s a i d . No deaths had been confirmed in Texas, which Republican Governor Greg Abbott said would amount to “a miracle”.
US president Donald Trump said he would visit the Gulf Coast this weekend to tour the damage.
More than 580,000 coastal residents were ordered to join the largest evacuation since the pandemic began.