Laura gains strength, could bring ‘unsurvivable’ surge from storm
DELCAMBRE, La. — Laura strengthened Wednesday into a menacing Category 4 hurricane, raising fears of a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be “unsurvivable” and capable of sinking entire communities. Ocean water topped by white-capped waves began rising ominously as the monster neared land.
Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate, but not everyone did before winds began buffeting trees back and forth.
The storm grew nearly 87% in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called “extremely dangerous.” Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system was on track to arrive during high tide late Wednesday or early Thursday as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. 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.
Maximum sustained winds increased to 150 mph before nightfall, and forecasters said up to 15 inches of rain could fall.
One major Louisiana highway already had standing water as Laura’s outer bands moved ashore with tropical stormforce winds. Thousands of sandbags lined roadways in tiny Lafitte, and winds picked up as shoppers rushed into a grocery store in low-lying Delcambre.
Trent Savoie, 31, said he was staying put. “With four kids and 100 farm animals, it’s just hard to move out,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 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 coastal 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.”
Edwards activated the state’s entire National Guard. In Lake Charles, Guard members drove school buses around neighborhoods, offering to pick up families. Across the state line in Port Arthur, Texas, few 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.
A Category 4 hurricane can render wide areas uninhabitable for weeks or months and knock out power for just as long. The threat of such devastation posed a new disaster-relief challenge for a government already straining under the coronavirus pandemic. The parts of Louisiana that were under evacuation orders included areas turning up high rates of positive COVID19 tests.
The National Hurricane Center kept raising its estimate of Laura’s storm surge, from 10 feet just days ago to twice that size — a height that forecasters said would be especially deadly.
By Wednesday night, Laura was churning about 90 miles south of Lake Charles and moving north-northwest at 15 mph.
On Twitter, President Donald Trump urged coastal residents to heed officials.