Hurricane Delta makes landfall in south Louisiana

LAKE CHARLES, La. — Hurricane Delta crashed onshore Friday in southwestern Louisiana as a Category 2 storm, compounding misery along a path of destruction left by Hurricane Laura only six weeks earlier.

The center of the hurricane made landfall about 6 p.m. near the town of Creole with top winds of 100 mph, though it rapidly grew weaker. Within an hour of Delta hitting land, the National Hurricane Center downgraded it to a Category 1 storm with 90 mph winds.

Still, forecasters warned Delta’s storm surge that could reach up to 11 feet, and flash flood warnings were posted for much of southwest Louisiana and parts of neighboring Texas.

As the 10th named storm to strike the continental U.S. this year, Delta’s arrival snapped a century-old record.

People in south Louisiana steeled themselves as Delta delivered driving rain, powerful winds and rising water to a part of the state still recovering from a deadly catastrophic hurricane six weeks ago. Power outages in Louisiana and neighboring Texas soared past 203,000 homes and businesses Friday shortly after the storm came ashore, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.

The Hurricane Center said wind gusts in Lake Arthur, Louisiana, reached 96 mph as Delta made landfall. Storm surge reached 8 feet east of Cameron, a sparely populated coastal community devastated by 2005’s Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike in 2008.

In the city of Lake Charles, about 30 miles inland from where Delta made landfall, rain pelted the tarp-covered roofs of buildings that Hurricane Laura battered when it barreled through in late August and killed at least 27 people in the state.

“It’s devastating and it’s emotional for the citizenry,” Mayor Nic Hunter said as he prepared to ride out the storm in Lake Charles.

Winds picked up Friday evening in inland areas such as Lafayette, where occasionally strong gusts buffeted trees and sheets of rain were falling.