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<\/p>\nHurricane Laura rapidly gained strength Wednesday to become a catastrophic Category 4 storm with an “unsurvivable\u201d 20-foot storm surge that could sink entire communities in Texas and Louisiana. Authorities implored coastal residents to flee before it’s too late.<\/p>\n
Satellite images show Laura\u2019s remarkable intensification into \u201ca formidable hurricane\u201d that can smash homes and sink entire communities, \u201cand there are no signs it will stop soon,\u201d the National Hurricane Center said.<\/p>\n
Laura grew to reach Category 4 status, and it showed no sign of weakening before making landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday. The system was on track to arrive as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.<\/p>\n
Weather Connection<\/h3>\n
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The National Hurricane Center kept raising its estimate of Laura’s storm surge, from 10 feet just a couple of days ago to twice that size.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cSome areas, when they wake up Thursday morning, they\u2019re not going to believe what happened,\u201d said Stacy Stewart, a senior hurricane specialist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could see storm surge heights more than 15 feet in some areas,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t get blown down by the wind could easily get knocked down by the rising ocean waters pushing well inland.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, Laura had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph). It was about 225 miles (365 kilometers) out from Lake Charles, Louisiana, moving northwest at 16 mph (26 kph). Those winds are expected to increase to 145 mph (233 kmh) before landfall, pushing water onto more than 450 miles (724 kilometers) of coast from Texas to Mississippi.<\/p>\n
Hurricane warnings were issued from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, and reached inland for 200 miles (322 kilometers). Storm surge warnings were in effect from Freeport, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeed the advice of your local authorities. If they tell you to go, go! Your life depends on it today,\u201d said Joel Cline, tropical program coordinator at the National Weather Service. \u201cIt\u2019s a serious day and you need to listen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n — National Weather Service<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n A Category 4 hurricane can cause damage so catastrophic that power outages may last for months in places, and wide areas could be uninhabitable for weeks or months, posing a new disaster relief challenge for a government already straining to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n In the largest U.S. evacuation of the pandemic, more than half a million people were ordered Tuesday to flee from an area of the Gulf Coast along the Texas-Louisiana state line.<\/p>\n More than 385,000 residents were told to evacuate the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur. Another 200,000 were ordered to leave the low-lying Calcasieu and Cameron parishes in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities.<\/p>\n \u201cCameron Parish is going to be part of the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of days, based on this forecast track,\u201d said Donald Jones, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Lake Charles, Louisiana, which is near the bullseye.<\/p>\n In Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas, many people boarded buses to Austin and other inland cities. \u201cIf you decide to stay, you\u2019re staying on your own,\u201d Port Arthur Mayor Thurman Bartie said.<\/p>\n Laura also is expected to dump massive rainfall over a short period of time as it moves inland, causing widespread flash flooding in states far from the coast. Flash flood watches were issued for much of Arkansas, and forecasters said heavy rainfall could move to parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky late Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n Urging people in southwest Louisiana to evacuate before it\u2019s too late, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said they need to reach wherever they intend to ride out the storm by noon Wednesday, when the state will start feeling the storm\u2019s effects.<\/p>\n Officials urged people to stay with relatives or in hotel rooms to avoid spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. Buses were stocked with protective equipment and disinfectant, and they would carry fewer passengers to keep people apart, Texas officials said.<\/p>\n Whitney Frazier, 29, of Beaumont spent Tuesday morning trying to get transportation to a high school where she could board a bus to leave the area.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially with everything with COVID going on already on top of a mandatory evacuation, it\u2019s very stressful,\u201d Frazier said.<\/p>\n Shelters opened with cots set farther apart to curb coronavirus infections. Evacuees were told to bring a mask and just one bag of personal belongings each.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully it\u2019s not that threatening to people, to lives, because people are hesitant to go anywhere due to COVID,\u201d Robert Duffy said as he placed sandbags around his home in Morgan City, Louisiana. \u201cNobody wants to sleep on a gym floor with 200 other people. It\u2019s kind of hard to do social distancing.\u201d<\/p>\n The hurricane is threatening a center of the U.S. energy industry. The government said 84% of Gulf oil production and an estimated 61% of natural gas production were shut down. Nearly 300 platforms have been evacuated.<\/p>\n While oil prices often spike before a major storm as production slows, consumers are unlikely to see big price changes because the pandemic decimated demand for fuel.<\/p>\n Laura killed nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding.<\/p>\n\n
Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months<\/h3>\n
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