Hurricane Laura hits Gulf Coast as an “extremely dangerous” storm

The storm barreled toward Texas and Louisiana during the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The National Hurricane Center warned that Hurricane Laura will cause “life-threatening storm surge” reaching up to 40 miles inland and rising up to 20 feet as the storm made landfall in Texas and Louisiana.

Laura reached the Gulf Coast after midnight on Thursday morning at an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 strength, with winds reaching 140 mph. After landfall, it weakened to a still dangerous Category 2 storm.

During a Wednesday news conference, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Laura’s storm surge would reach levels not seen since 1957’s Hurricane Audrey.

“The storm surge flooding is starting now in Louisiana,” Edwards said. “It’s well ahead of the storm. It will just get worse over the next day or so.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott implored residents to evacuate. “The conditions of this storm are unsurvivable, and I urge Southeast Texans to take advantage of these final few hours to evacuate, secure their property, and take all precautions to keep themselves and their loved ones safe,” he said at a Wednesday press conference.

Laura is expected to cause flash floods and a life-threatening storm surge in areas from High Island, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River, inundating places that rarely see such high water levels.

About 20 million people reside in the path of the storm and more than 500,000 have been ordered to evacuate, a task complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline,” the NHC reported in its latest hurricane bulletin. Storm surge, where high winds push water inland several feet above high tide, is often the deadliest consequence of hurricanes.