Powerful Hurricane Laura battered the Louisiana coastline Thursday morning after sweeping ashore as the region’s strongest storm in over a century.
If you’re just reading in now, here are the latest developments on the storm:
- Downgraded: Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm, but it has since weakened to a Category 2. It still has winds of 110 mph.
- More weakening expected: Further weakening will continue, and Laura will likely become a tropical storm later today as it tracks from Louisiana into Arkansas.
- The storm surge threat: 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. The National Hurricane Center warned the surge could be “unsurvivable” in some areas.
- Not everyone headed evacuation warnings: Cameron Parish, Louisiana, was put under a mandatory evacuation, but out of 6,500 residents, 150 have refused to leave, said Ashley Buller, assistant director of Emergency Operations for the parish.
Source: CNN
