Hurricane Laura sows damage, death in Louisiana
Lake Charles pounded as Category 4 storm roars in
LAKE CHARLES, La. – One of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. pounded the Gulf Coast with wind and rain Thursday as Laura roared ashore in Louisiana near the Texas border, unleashing a fearsome wall of seawater and killing at least four people.
Louisiana took the brunt of the damage when the Category 4 system barreled over Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. Laura’s powerful gusts blew out windows in tall buildings and tossed around glass and debris. Police spotted a floating casino that came unmoored and hit a bridge.
Drone video showed water surrounding homes with much of their roofs peeled away.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said there were at least four storm-related deaths, all caused by trees falling on residences. Among those killed were a 14-year-old girl and a 68-year-old man, authorities said.
The hurricane’s top wind speed of 150 mph put it among the most powerful systems on record in the U.S. Not until 11 hours after landfall did Laura finally weaken into a tropical storm as it churned toward Arkansas.
“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles. He described Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2 a.m.
“There are houses that are totally gone. They were there yesterday, but now gone,” he said.
Not long after daybreak offered the first glimpse of the destruction, a massive plume of smoke began rising over Lake Charles, where authorities responded to a chlorine leak at a chemical plant. Police said the leak was at a facility run by Biolab, which manufactures chemicals used in household cleaners such as Comet bleach scrub and chlorine powder for pools.
Nearby residents were told to close their doors and windows and turn off air conditioners.
Elsewhere, initial reports offered hope that the destruction might be somewhat less than originally feared, but a full damage assessment could take days. Wind and rain blew too hard for authorities to check for survivors in some hard-hit places.
Hundreds of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate ahead of the hurricane, but not everyone fled from the area, which was devastated by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
“There are some people still in town, and people are calling … but there ain’t no way to get to them,” Tony Guillory, president of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, said over the phone from a Lake Charles government building that was shaking from the storm.
Guillory said he hoped the stranded people could be rescued later in the day, but he feared that blocked roads, downed power lines and floodwaters could get in the way.
“We know anyone that stayed that close to the coast, we’ve got to pray for them, because looking at the storm surge, there would be little chance of survival,” Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
More than 875,000 homes and businesses were without power in the two states, according to the website PowerOutage.Us, which tracks utility reports.
More than 580,000 coastal residents were ordered to join the largest evacuation since the coronavirus pandemic began, and many did, filling hotels and sleeping in cars since officials did not want to open large shelters that could invite more spread of COVID-19.
But in Cameron Parish, where Laura came ashore, Nungesser said 50 to 150 people refused pleas to leave and planned to endure the storm, some in elevated homes and even recreational vehicles. The result could be deadly.
Bucky Millet, 78, of Lake Arthur, Louisiana, considered evacuating but decided to ride out the storm with family due to concerns he had about the coronavirus. He said a small tornado blew the cover off the bed of his pickup and made him think the roof on his house was next.
“You’d hear a crack and a boom and everything shaking,” he said.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Pete Gaynor urged people in Laura’s path to stay home, if that’s still safe. “Don’t go out sightseeing. You put yourself, your family at risk, and you put first responders at risk,” he told “CBS This Morning.”