People return to the ravaged path of Hurricane Laura with harsh conditions and a huge task lying ahead.
President tours damaged areas in Louisiana, Texas
LAKE CHARLES, La. – The destructive storm surge has receded, and the clean up has begun from Hurricane Laura, but officials along this shattered stretch of Louisiana coast are warning returning residents they will face weeks without power or water amid the hot, stifling days of late summer.
The U.S. toll from the Category 4 hurricane stood at 16 deaths, with more than half of those killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.
President Donald Trump toured the damage in Louisiana and neighboring Texas on Saturday.
Across southwestern Louisiana, people were cleaning up from the hurricane that roared ashore early Thursday, packing 150 mph winds. Many were deciding whether they wanted to return home to miserable conditions or wait until basic services are restored.
At First United Methodist Church in Lake Charles, a work crew was battling water that continued to pour into the church building as it rained Friday.
“This roof blew off. There’s some of it over there,” said Michael Putman, owner of Putman Restoration, pointing to part of the roof resting near the side of the building. A pile of black garbage bags sat outside the church, filled with insulation and ceiling tile.
Putman lives in Shreveport, which also got damage from the storm. But he said he drove down to Lake Charles to help the minister, who was his high school pastor.
“We slept in our truck in the parking lot last night,” he said.
Simply driving was a feat in Lake Charles, a city of 80,000 residents hit head on by Laura. Power lines and trees blocked paths or created one-lane roads, leaving drivers to negotiate with oncoming traffic. Street signs were snapped off their posts or dangling. No stoplights worked, making it an exercise in trust to share the road with others.
Mayor Nic Hunter cautioned that there was no timetable for restoring electricity and that water-treatment plants “took a beating.”
“If you come back to Lake Charles to stay, make sure you understand the above reality and are prepared to live in it for many days, probably weeks,” he wrote on Facebook.
The Louisiana Department of Health estimated that more than 220,000 people were without water. Restoration of those services could take weeks or months, and full rebuilding could take years.
The much weaker remnants of the hurricane continued to move across the Southern U.S., unleashing heavy rain and isolated tornadoes.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike the state, meaning it surpassed Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005.
Saturday marked the 15th anniversary of Katrina’s landfall.