What is hitting is certainly as bad as it gets. So far we seem to be avoiding a hammer blow on a city. rumbling inland over farm country is no fun either but it avoids most of the human displacement.
I am writing this thursday afternoon and it hit a lot of industrial areas and Lake Charles but well away from far more sensitive areas. The storm surge ran nine to twelve feet, bad enough but not impossible either. four reported deaths so far.
This did have the potential to be far worse than Katrina but the path makes all the difference. It was still level four against Katrina's level three.
Hurricane Laura expected to make landfall in Louisiana, with life-threatening storm surge along Gulf Coast
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL |
AUG 26, 2020 AT 11:06 PM
Hurricane Laura continues to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico, forecast to slam the Gulf Coast as a Category 4.
Hurricane Laura was expected to make landfall overnight along the southwest Louisiana coast overnight, with winds near Category 5 strength and rising waters slamming into the northwest Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center said.
The hurricane strengthened Wednesday, growing from a Category 1 storm in the morning to Category 4. Sustained winds were 150 mph, the hurricane center said in its 11 p.m. advisory.
Laura remains a Category 4 storm, with winds ranging from 130 mph to 156 mph and is expected to make landfall overnight.
Winds from Category 4 storms obliterate much if not everything in their path, cause power outages that could last weeks or months, and leave areas uninhabitable for weeks and months, the hurricane center said.
“Some areas, when they wake up Thursday morning, they’re not going to believe what happened,” Stacy Stewart, a senior hurricane specialist, told the Associated Press.
Sustained tropical storm-force winds and steady heavy rains started spreading on the shore of central Louisiana’s coast by 7 p.m.
Sustained winds of 39 mph were reported at Caillou Lake, Louisiana and 48 mph at Cypremort Point on Vermilion Bay, Louisiana, the hurricane center said.
Laura’s storm surge is also likely to be a disaster, with the National Hurricane Center issuing this blunt message:
“Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes,” the hurricane center said. “This storm surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline in southwestern Louisiana and far southeastern Texas.”
The surge, or the inundation of water pushed inland from a storm, could reach as high as 20 feet in some areas, forecasters said.
“We could see storm surge heights more than 15 feet in some areas,” Stewart said. “What doesn’t get blown down by the wind could easily get knocked down by the rising ocean waters pushing well inland.”
The storm, which would be the first major hurricane of 2020, prompted the largest U.S. evacuation during the pandemic. More than half a million people in the storm’s path have been told to flee their communities. About 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.
Hurricane Laura is shown in a satellite image on Aug. 26, 2020. (NOAA)
A hurricane warning was in effect for nearly 200 miles of coastline between San Luis Pass, Texas, near Galveston, and Intracoastal City, La., about 185 miles west of New Orleans.
A hurricane watch, meaning that hurricane conditions were possible, but not necessarily expected, over the next 36 hours, was in effect for the area east of Intracoastal City to Morgan City, La.
Hurricane Laura was expected to remain a Category 4 storm as it approached landfall in southwest Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. update. (National Hurricane Center/Courtesy)
Several hundred miles of the coastal areas stretching from San Luis Pass, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River, were under a storm surge warning, as was Freeport to San Luis Pass, Texas. Forecasters were saying it was possible the surge could be as high as 15 to 20 feet in some areas.
At 11 p.m. Wednesday, Hurricane Laura was 75 miles south of Lake Charles in Louisiana and moving west-northwest at 15 mph. Laura’s maximum sustained winds were steady at 150 mph, and hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 205 miles.
Shawn Nelson, 7, right, and Asia Nelson, 6, left, board a bus to evacuate Lake Charles, La., Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020, ahead of Hurricane Laura. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert/AP)
Laura’s approach comes after a significantly weakened Marco hit Louisiana’s coast on Monday, making landfall in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River about 7 p.m. Monday as a tropical storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. It dissipated Tuesday.
Marco was the 13th named storm of the hurricane season. Laura was the 12th storm of the year, matching the record for the most number of tropical storms before September. The only other time that happened was in 2005, the year of hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.
Late Wednesday, a new tropical wave formed off the coast of Africa. It has a 20% chance of development in the next five days, the hurricane center said.
The next named storms of 2020 are Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
A tropical wave formed Wednesday off the coast of Africa. It has a 20% chance of developing in the next five days, the National Hurricane Center said. (National Hurricane Center/Courtesy)
Staff writer Wayne K. Roustan contributed to this report.
