CNN’s live coverage of Hurricane Laura has moved here.
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:
As Hurricane Laura continues to move inland, the weakening trend has continued. Winds are now 110 mph, which makes Laura a strong Category 2 hurricane.
The center, known as the eye of the storm, is located about 45 miles north of Lake Charles.
Further weakening will continue, and Laura will likely become a tropical storm later today as it tracks from Louisiana into Arkansas.
Power outages in Louisiana and Texas are climbing at a rapid pace this morning, after Hurricane Laura made landfall on the Gulf Coast.
There are now 394,763 customers without power in both states, according to PowerOutage.US.
More than 317,000 of those customers are in Louisiana, while more than 77,000 are in Texas.
Louisiana officials are warning those who didn’t evacuate from mandatory zones before Hurricane Laura hit that rescue efforts won’t start until the surge has passed.
Read more here.
Damage has been reported this morning at CHRISTUS St. Patrick Hospital in Lake Charles.
“At this time, we know we have sustained damage to the facility, but are waiting until the morning to get a clear picture,” hospital spokeswoman Heather Hidalgo tells CNN.
The top of the skybridge that goes from the hospital to the parking garage has lost its covering due to the powerful winds from Laura, Hidalgo said.
“Everyone is doing well. No evacuations during the storm,” she said.
Damage is being reported across the Lake Charles area – like at this condo complex.
Take a look:
Resident Tolor White, Jr, dozed off after working on a crossword puzzle, when he heard a loud noise a little before 1:15 a.m.
When he crawled out from under his makeshift barricade – two mattresses – he saw the roof had been taken off by the wind. As he was surveying the damage, the glass windows broke directly next to him.
Before Hurricane Laura made landfall, emergency management responders were already facing unprecedented demands as they juggled wildfires, hurricanes, and ongoing disaster and recovery efforts amid a nationwide pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, is among those assisting with the response on all fronts. It has taken the lead in operational coordination for the federal interagency response to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also responsible for the federal response for hurricane preparedness and recovery.
But the agency is facing a unique set of complexities in the face of a pandemic and a hurricane.
The bandwidth of the agency in the throes of hurricane season had previously been a point of concern for some government officials and disaster experts as FEMA worked to assist with the coronavirus response. While the agency is equipped to help with a range of disasters, Hurricane Laura is likely to present its own set of challenges.
From securing shelters and coordinating evacuations that allow for social distancing to ensuring an ample workforce for emergency response, the pandemic is presenting a unique set of complexities for emergency management.
Laura has weakened to a Category 3 hurricane, with winds now at 120 mph, according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center.
The storm is expected to further weaken as it moves quickly inland over Louisiana, with hurricane force winds extending out 60 miles from the center.
The center, known as the eye of the hurricane, is currently 30 miles north of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and 50 miles northeast of Port Arthur, Texas.
Where it’s heading next: The storm is expected to continue moving across southwestern Louisiana in the early hours of the morning, then continue northward across the state through Thursday afternoon. The storm’s center is forecast to move over Arkansas later Thursday night, then reach the mid-Mississippi Valley on Friday and the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday.
Josh Morgerman, a hurricane chaser currently in Sulphur, Louisiana, told CNN that Hurricane Laura was going to “become the new benchmark storm for this region of the United States.”
“The past biggies were Hurricane Audrey of 1957 which made landfall in almost the exact same place, killed hundreds of people in the town of Cameron,” he said. Then in 2005, Hurricane Rita hit the same area and devastated the region again.
The region has learned how to better respond to earthquakes – but “Hurricane Laura, because of its intensity, by far the strongest on record for this region, I think Laura’s the new benchmark for this part of the United States,” he said.
Sulphur lies just west of Lake Charles, where the eye of the hurricane is passing over.
Hurricane Laura’s maximum sustained winds have died down slightly to 130 miles per hour – but as the storm moves north from Cameron, Louisiana, where it made landfall, tidal surges are starting to push water levels up in those coastal communities.
The water levels in Hackberry, which lies next to Cameron, have already started spiking, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And Austin Lewis, who’s riding out the storm in his tugboat in Hackberry, says conditions are worsening; the wind had been relatively mild and the rain had stopped when he sat in the eye of the storm, but now choppy waters and roaring winds are approaching along with the eyewall.
The storm surges could reach 20 feet high, meteorologists have warned – which could spell disaster for lower-lying coastal towns like Cameron and Holly Beach.
Take a look:
The city of Lake Charles has experienced some damage as the eyewall of Hurricane Laura passes over it, authorities told CNN.
However, the extent of the damage is not yet known.
There is no flooding so far in the downtown area, Hoefer added.
CNN is tracking Hurricane Laura’s path here:
Power outages in Louisiana and Texas are climbing at a rapid pace this morning, after Hurricane Laura made landfall on the Gulf Coast.
There are now nearly 285,000 customers without power in both states, according to PowerOutage.US.
Nearly 225,000 of those customers are in Louisiana, while more than 60,000 are in Texas.
Hurricane Laura is now sitting over Lake Charles, Louisiana, and maximum sustained winds have fallen slightly to 140 mph.
It’s still a Category 4 storm, though meteorologists had previously forecast that it would weaken rapidly after moving inland.
Where is it going next? Winds in the eye of the hurricane will decrease dramatically for an hour or more, before the southern eyewall moves over Lake Charles and brings gusts over 100 mph once again, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm continues to move north at about 15 mph, and the eyewall will head across southwestern Louisiana in the coming hours.
“It’s hitting with such force, this could still be a Category 1 well up into the state of Arkansas. They could lose power in Little Rock as well,” warned CNN meteorologist Tom Sater.
Austin Lewis is riding out Hurricane Laura on his tugboat in Hackberry, Louisiana – and he’s now sitting in the eye of the hurricane.
Hackberry lies south of Lake Charles and north of Cameron, where the hurricane made landfall just over an hour ago.
There’s not much rain at the moment, he said. The wind is at a low roar outside his cabin, and measuring about 30 to 40 miles per hour on his boat’s wind gauge.
He added that it was fairly common for people in the area to stay, since many of them have boats. “Everybody knew what they were getting into before they got here,” he said.
Watch:
Hurricane Laura made landfall about an hour ago near Cameron, Louisiana.
The town is relatively low-lying, with only about 5 or 10 feet of elevation – meaning “It’s mostly completely underwater,” said CNN meteorologist Tom Sater.
“There will not be a chance to get to that area until late in the morning,” he added.
The eye of the storm is now moving over Lake Charles, lying further north. Already, the conditions have deteriorated severely; winds are howling, and storm chasers have reported glass being blown everywhere, and ears hurting from the low air pressure.
“Right now you can still hear the wind. It’s screaming through the cracks and crevasses of the building,” said CNN correspondent Martin Savidge from Lake Charles, where the CNN crew is taking refuge indoors.
“When you were outside, you literally felt the entire building as it was shuddering under the wind blow. So it’s taking a beating. And this is one of the strongest buildings in the area., it’s why we chose it.”
The storm surge, heavy rainfall and powerful winds mean it’ll be near impossible to assess the damage until the morning – first responders won’t be able to travel in those conditions, and drones or aircraft won’t be able to get any aerial pictures. Roads will be submerged and power lines will have fallen, making transport or rescue efforts even harder.
Hear more:
CNN Correspondent Martin Savidge is in Lake Charles, Louisiana, about 30 miles away from the eye of Hurricane Laura, which has made landfall near Cameron.
“You’re really getting a sense of the volume of water and amount of wind blow that is blasting across the landscape here,” Savidge said, as wind and rain gusts around him.
Savidge added that the wind was so strong it was hard to stay standing – but the area is facing the second, potentially worse threat of storm surge.
There is a “tremendous volume of rain that’s now falling down,” he said. “We have slight damage on the property here, but in the exposed areas, especially right down on the coast, they would be getting hammered by all of this.”
Take a look:
Authorities in Cameron, Louisiana, will probably be unable to survey damage across the parish on Thursday due to the expected tidal surge, said Ashley Buller, Cameron’s Assistant Director of Emergency Preparedness.
Buller speculated that it may be Friday or Saturday before authorities could make it into the parish.
Hurricane Laura just made landfall near Cameron. Peak wind gusts in the Parish have been reported up to 127 mph in the past hour as the eye approached.
About 150 residents of the parish chose not to evacuate and ride out the storm.
Hurricane Laura, still a Category 4 storm, has made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana.
There are already “catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding” taking place in some portions of the state, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The hurricane is now about 30 miles southwest of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and about 40 miles east of Port Arthur, Texas.
Maximum winds are still a devastating 150 miles per hour, and the hurricane itself continues to move north at 15 mph.
The storm is expected to move inland across southwestern Louisiana over the coming hours, then head north across the state on Thursday afternoon. The center of the storm will then move over Arkansas and the mid-Mississippi Valley on Friday, then reach the mid-Atlantic states by Saturday.
Power outages in Louisiana and Texas are continuing to climb in the early hours of Thursday morning, as Hurricane Laura inches closer to the Gulf Coast.
There are now more than 103,000 customers without power in both states, according to PowerOutage.US.
Some 87,157 of those customers are in Louisiana, while the remaining 16,356 are in Texas.
In Port Arthur, Texas, the majority of residents have evacuated, Mayor Thurman Bartie said on Wednesday night, warning that emergency services won’t be able to help those left behind when the storm fully hits.
“My main priority is really to get all citizens out of homes. Thank God, we probably got 70, almost 80% of our citizens out, actually evacuated,” he told CNN.
The mayor called a mandatory evacuation order on Monday, he said.
Winds in the area are already reaching 40 to 50 miles an hour, and the rain is intensifying, but “the full brunt of it has not even arrived yet,” he said.
“Thank God our citizens, the majority of them, have gotten out. We appreciate that.”
Watch:
