Laura could slam into land this week as a major storm with ferocious winds and deadly flooding.
More than half a million people were ordered to evacuate the Gulf Coast on Tuesday as Hurricane Laura churns in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane could slam into land this week as a major storm with ferocious winds and deadly flooding. More than 385,000 residents were told to flee the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, and another 200,000 were ordered to leave low-lying Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities. «Our goal is a safe, sane, predictable and well-run evacuation,» W. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said at a press conference Tuesday. «Our goal is no loss of life,» he said. «Our goal is evacuation, not rescue, and then a rapid cleanup and recovery.» The National Hurricane Center projected Laura will become a Category 3 hurricane before it makes landfall this week, with winds of around 115 mph that are capable of devastating damage. «On the forecast track, the center of Laura will move across the southeastern Gulf of Mexico today,» the hurricane center said Tuesday. «Laura is then forecast to move over the central and northwestern Gulf of Mexico tonight and Wednesday, approach the Upper Texas and Southwest Louisiana coasts on Wednesday night and move inland near those area on Thursday.
