Tropical Storm Laura prompted the National Hurricane Center on Saturday night to issue tropical storm watches for the Florida Keys and the Bahamas, while Tropical Storm Marco led the NHC to issue a hurricane watch for Louisiana and Mississippi.
At 11 p.m., the NHC said the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located about 25 miles southeast of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Maximum-sustained winds were 50 mph, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 140 miles. The storm was moving toward the west-northwest at 16 mph.
“On the forecast track, the center of Laura will move across Hispaniola Saturday night and early Sunday, near or over Cuba Sunday and Monday, and over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico Monday night and Tuesday.,” forecasters said.
A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Puerto Rico and parts of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and Cuba.
A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to Key West and the Dry Tortugas and Florida Bay, as well as for the central Bahamas and Andros Island.
Laura is forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico early next week and strengthen into a hurricane with an expected landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi – just days after Marco makes landfall in the same area, likely also as a hurricane.
At 11 p.m. Saturday, the hurricane center said Tropical Storm Marco was located about 110 miles northwest from the western tip of Cuba and 470 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Maximum sustained winds were 65 mph, and the storm was moving north-northwest at 13 mph.
“Marco is forecast to continue moving north-northwestward across the central Gulf of Mexico on Sunday and will approach the northern Gulf Coast on Monday..” forecasters said. “A gradual turn toward the west with a decrease in forward speed is expected after Marco moves inland on Monday and on Tuesday.”
Two hurricanes have never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959, he said.
The last time two storms made landfall in the United States within 24 hours of each other was in 1933, Klotzbach said.
The projected tracks from the U.S. National Hurricane Center on Saturday afternoon pointed to both storms being together in the Gulf on Monday, with Marco hitting Louisiana and Laura making landfall in the same general area Wednesday. But large uncertainties remain for that time span, and forecasts have varied greatly so far for the two storms.
“We are in unprecedented times,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news conference Saturday as he declared a state of emergency. “We are dealing with not only two potential storms in the next few hours, we are also dealing with COVID-19.”
He urged residents to prepare for the storms and, if possible, find places to evacuate that are not public shelters.
People in Louisiana headed to stores to stock up on food, water and other supplies. Raymond Monday of Gretna, though, had only a generator on his cart at Sam’s Club. “We’ve got a freezer full of food” at home, along with large containers of water, he said.
Officials in the Florida Keys declared a local state of emergency Friday and issued a mandatory evacuation order for anyone living in boats, mobile homes and in recreational vehicles and campers. Tourists who are staying in hotels in the Florida Keys should be aware of hazardous weather conditions and consider altering their plans starting on Sunday, Monroe County officials said in a news release.
The order also says all recreational vehicles must be removed from the county by noon Sunday.
In Puerto Rico,the storm knocked down trees in the island’s southern region and left more than 200,000 clients without power and more than 10,000 without water across the U.S. territory.
Officials said they were most concerned about the thousands of people in Puerto Rico who still have been living under blue tarps since 2017’s Hurricane Maria and the hundreds of families living along the island’s southern coast in homes damaged by a string of strong earthquakes this year.
Orlando Sentinel staff writers Roger Simmons, Paola Pérez, Matthew J. Palm and Lynnette Cantos, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this report.