LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Remnants of Hurricane Laura unleashed heavy rain and twisters hundreds of miles inland from a path of death and mangled buildings along the Gulf Coast, and forecasters said an eastern turn would again make the storm a looming threat, this time to the densely populated Atlantic Seaboard.
Trees were down and power was out as far north as Arkansas, where remnants of the storm were centered as the once fearsome Category 4 hurricane weakened to a depression after dark.
Additional damage was possible as new tornado warnings were issued after nightfall in Mississippi and Arkansas after one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the United States barreled across Louisiana on Thursday. The storm peeled away roofs and splintered utility poles while killing at least six people.
A full assessment of the damage could take days. By then, the storm could re-energize and pose a threat to several Northeast states by Saturday, forecasters said.
Despite demolished buildings, entire neighborhoods left in ruins and almost 900,000 homes and businesses without power, a sense of relief prevailed that Laura was not the annihilating menace forecasters had feared.
“It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute, catastrophic damage that we thought was likely,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage.”
He called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, meaning it surpassed even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005.
The hurricane’s top wind speed of 150 mph (241 kph) put it among the strongest systems on record in the U.S. Not until 11 hours after landfall did Laura finally lose hurricane status as it plowed north and thrashed Arkansas, and even by Thursday evening, it remained a tropical storm with winds of 40 mph (65 kph).
The storm came ashore in low-lying Louisiana and clobbered Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. On Broad Street, many buildings had partially collapsed, and those that didn’t were missing chunks. Windows were blown out, awnings ripped away and trees split in half in eerily misshapen ways. A floating casino came unmoored and hit a bridge, and small planes were thrown atop each other at the airport.
In front of the courthouse was a Confederate statue that local officials had voted to keep in place just days earlier. Laura knocked it down.
“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles. He described Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2 a.m.
“There are houses that are totally gone. They were there yesterday, but now gone,” he said.
As the extent of the damage came into focus, a massive plume of smoke visible for miles began rising from a chemical plant. Police said the leak was at a facility run by Biolab, which manufactures chemicals used in household cleaners such as Comet bleach scrub and chlorine powder for pools.
Nearby residents were told to close their doors and windows and turn off air conditioners, and the fire smoldered into the night. State and federal aircraft headed into the skies over the coast to look for signs of any other industrial damage.
The fatalities included a 14-year-old girl and a 68-year-old man who died when trees fell on their homes in Louisiana, as well as a 24-year-old man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator inside his residence. Another man drowned in a boat that sank during the storm, authorities said.
No deaths had been confirmed in Texas, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called “a miracle.” Chevellce Dunn considered herself among the fortunate after a night spent huddling on a sofa with her son, daughter and four nieces and nephews as winds rocked their home in Orange, Texas. Left without power in sweltering heat, she didn’t know when the electricity might come back.
“It ain’t going to be easy. As long as my kids are fine, I’m fine,” Dunn said.
President Donald Trump planned to visit the Gulf Coast this weekend to tour the damage.
It was unclear when the journey home would be complete for more than 580,000 coastal residents who evacuated under the shadow of a coronavirus pandemic. Although not everyone fled, officials credited those who did leave with minimizing the loss of life.
A lower-than-expected storm surge also helped save lives. Edwards said ocean water rose as much as 12 feet (4 meters) rather than the 20 feet (6 meters) that had been predicted. Water still got into buildings, but the prospect of recovery was brighter.
Finishing search and rescue efforts was a top priority, Edwards said, followed by efforts to find hotel or motel rooms for those unable to stay in their homes. Officials in Texas and Louisiana both sought to avoid traditional mass shelters for evacuees over fears of spreading COVID-19, and Edwards worried the storm would inhibit coronavirus testing as schools and universities are reopening.
Bucky Millet, 78, of Lake Arthur, Louisiana, considered evacuating but decided to ride out the storm with family due to concerns about the coronavirus. He said a small tornado blew the cover off the bed of his pickup and made him think the roof of his house was next.
“You’d hear a crack and a boom and everything shaking,” he said.
The force of Laura’s winds blew out every window of the living room in the Lake Charles house where Bethany Agosto survived the storm with her sister and two others. They sought safety in a closet when the hurricane was at its worst.
“It was like a jigsaw puzzle in this closet. We were on top of each other, just holding each other and crying,” Agosto said.
Laura was the seventh named storm to strike the U.S. this year, setting a new record for U.S. landfalls by the end of August. Laura hit the U.S. after killing nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic.
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Associated Press contributors include Jeff Martin in Marietta, Georgia; Kevin McGill in New Orleans; John L. Mone in Holly Beach, Louisiana; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland; Juan A. Lozano in Houston; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Sophia Tulp in Atlanta.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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