Hurricane Laura hit the Louisiana coastline early Thursday — sweeping ashore as the region’s strongest storm in over a century.
Hours before Laura’s landfall, water levels along the coast rose rapidly as forecasters warned of an « unsurvivable » storm surge of up to 20 feet and devastating winds. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards predicted parts of his state will be submerged. « The surge is going to inland… there will be parts of Lake Charles underwater that no living human being has ever seen before, » he told WWL Radio. « We are marshaling all of our people and assets to go in … and start a very robust search and rescue effort. » The storm made landfall nearly the same week as Hurricane Katrina 15 years ago. Katrina was a Category 5 while it was over the Gulf of Mexico — but was downgraded to a Category 3 by the time it made landfall. Latest developments Coronavirus complications: The storm is complicating evacuations in the midst of a pandemic. Due to safety concerns associated with the coronavirus outbreak, officials are opening congregate shelters only as a last resort. States and parishes were lining up noncongregate options, such as hotel rooms, for evacuees, said Mike Steele, a spokesman for the state’s office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Extended storm surge: The storm surge for Laura could spread up to 30 miles inland in southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas — reaching all the way to Interstate 10 potentially between Beaumont and Lake Charles. Record storm: Laura is the seventh named storm to make landfall in the US so far this year, a record for the most to do so before the end of August.
