Hurricane Laura roars toward land
Storm arrives near the Texas-Louisiana border, threatening widespread flooding.
As the storm rises to Category 4 off the Gulf Coast, forecasters warn of an “unsurvivable” 20-foot storm surge.
DELCAMBRE, La. — Laura roared ashore over southwestern Louisiana near the Texas border as a ferocious Category 4 hurricane late Wednesday, swamping a low-lying coast with ocean water that forecasters said could be 20 feet deep and “unsurvivable.”
Winds gusted above hurricane force to 110 mph while Laura’s northern eyewall moved onshore over Cameron Parish, the National Hurricane Center said, and forecasters said even stronger winds were possible that could rip apart buildings, level trees and toss vehicles like toys.
Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate, but not everyone did before winds began buffeting trees back and forth in an area that was devastated by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
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 waters, the system was on track to arrive during high tide as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.
“It looks like it’s in full beast mode,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. “Which is not what you want to see if you’re in its way.”
Hurricane-force winds extending 60 miles from the storm’s center neared the coast, forecasters said, and bands of heavy rain fell 30 miles from the beach in Lake Charles, La.
Maximum sustained winds increased to 150 mph before nightfall, and forecasters said up to 15 inches of rain could fall. Forecasters issued a string of tornado warnings as the storm pushed on to land, but there were no immediate reports of damage. Thousands of homes and businesses were without power.
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. Trent Savoie, 31, said he was staying put.
“With four kids and 100 farm animals, it’s just hard to move out,” he said.
Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and John Bel Edwards of Louisiana fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders.
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, a few stragglers boarded evacuation buses, and city officials announced that two C-130 transport planes offered the last chance to leave.
Officials said at least 150 people refused pleas to leave and planned to weather the storm in shelters including elevated homes and 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.”
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 to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The areas in Louisiana that were under evacuation orders include those with high rates of positive coronavirus tests.
The National Hurricane Center kept raising its estimate of Laura’s storm surge, from 10 feet just a couple of days ago to twice that size — a height that forecasters said would be especially deadly.
On Twitter, President Trump also urged coastal residents to heed local officials. Hurricane warnings were issued from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Intracoastal
City, La., and reached inland for 200 miles. Storm surge warnings were in effect from Freeport, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River.
For some, the decision to evacuate left them with no place to stay. Wary of opening mass shelters during a pandemic, Texas officials instead put evacuees in hotels, but Austin stopped taking arrivals before dawn because officials said they ran out of rooms.
Other evacuees called the state’s 211 information line and were directed to Ennis, outside Dallas, only to be told after driving hundreds of miles that there were no hotels available or vouchers.
Taniquia Ned and her sisters showed up without money to rent a room, saying the family had burned through its savings after losing jobs because of the coronavirus. “The COVID-19 is just totally wiping us out,” said Shalonda Joseph, 43, a teacher in Port Arthur.
Forecasters said storm surge topped by waves could submerge entire towns.
Water was already rising in the small Louisiana community of Holly Beach in imperiled Cameron Parish.
Laura was expected to cause widespread flash flooding in states far from the coast. Flood watches were issued for much of Arkansas, and forecasters said heavy rainfall could arrive by Friday in parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Becky Clements, 56, evacuated from Lake Charles after hearing that it could suffer a direct hit, almost 15 years after Hurricane Rita destroyed the city. She and her family found an Airbnb rental hundreds of miles inland.
“The devastation afterward in our town and that whole corner of the state was just awful,” Clements said, recalling Rita’s destruction. “Whole communities were washed away, never to exist again . ... So knowing how devastating the storms are, there was no way we were going to stay for this.”