The National Hurricane Center said the storm came ashore at 1 p.m.
“Potentially catastrophic effects will continue,” forecasters said.
The storm weakened to a Category 2 hurricane as it moved overland at night. At 5 p.m., the center was located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Charles and moved north at 15 mph.
Winds stormed above hurricane force up to 127 km / h, while Laura’s northern eye wall moved onshore across Cameron Parish. Winds tore buildings apart and cut down trees throughout the region.
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Authorities closed I-10 to traffic when the massive storm closed Wednesday night. Eastbound lanes are closed on the Texas / Louisiana State Line. I-10 western lanes are closed off west of the Atchafalaya Basin.
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The storm grew in just 24 hours nearly 87% of power to a magnitude that the National Hurricane Center called “extremely dangerous.” By drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system was on track to arrive at high tide late Wednesday or early Thursday as the most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. so far this year.
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In Lake Charles, widespread damage was seen after the eye of the storm passed. The tallest building in the city center, known as the Capital OneTower, suffered major damage.
The city skyline was also changed forever by the storm. A 400-foot television tower belonging to the local ABC and NBC affiliate KPLC-TV was reduced to a wreckage by an extreme wind from Laura. The tower was erected in 1954 and had survived Hurricane Audrey in 1957 and Hurricane Rita in 2005.
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A Category 4 hurricane can cause damage so catastrophic that power outages can last for months in places, and wide areas can be uninhabitable for weeks or months. The threat of such devastation posed a new challenge for disasters for a government already trying to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Among the parts of Louisiana that were under evacuation orders were areas that evoked high rates of positive COVID-19 testing.
For some, the decision to leave home left no room to remain. Beware of opening massage parlors during a pandemic, Texas officials put evacuees in hotels instead, but Austin stopped arriving before dawn because officials said they were running out of rooms. Other evacuees called the state’s 211 information line and were directed to Ennis, outside Dallas, only to be told hundreds of miles away that there were no hotels or vouchers.
Taniquia Ned and her sisters appeared without money to rent a room, saying the family had burned their savings after losing jobs due to the coronavirus. “The COVID-19 is just completely destroying us,” said Shalonda Joseph, 43, a teacher at Port Arthur.
Prior to his arrival, the Louisiana government’s John Bel Edwards lamented the storm’s suspension of community testing for COVID-19 at a crucial time – as elementary and high schools in Louisiana open and students return to college campuses. “We’ll basically be blind for this week,” Edwards said, referring to the lack of testing.
Laura is expected to cause widespread flash floods in states far from the coast. Flood watches were issued for much of Arkansas, and forecasters said heavy rainfall could arrive by Friday in parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky. Laura is so powerful that it is expected to become a tropical storm again once it reaches the Atlantic Ocean, possibly threatening the Northeast.
Becky Clements, 56, evacuated from Lake Charles after hearing it could take an immediate hit. She and her family found an AirBnb hundreds of miles inland. Nearly 15 years have passed since Hurricane Rita destroyed the city.
“The devastation that followed in our city and that whole corner of the state was just awful,” Clements recalled. “Whole communities were washed away, never to exist again. … Knowing how devastating the storms were, there was no way we would stay here.”
The church pastor said she is afraid of her office, which is in a trailer after recent construction.
“I really expect my office to be gone when I return. It will be spread across that field.”
The hurricane took its toll on a center of the US energy industry. The government said 84% of the Gulf’s oil production and an estimated 61% of its natural gas production had been shut down. Nearly 300 platforms have been evacuated. However, consumers are unlikely to see large price increases as the pandemic has decimated the demand for fuel. Damage to facilities was not yet known.
Laura closed in the US after killing nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, where the force erupted and caused intense flooding.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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