Laura weakens to tropical depression, leaves deadly path of destruction up Gulf Coast

Hurricane Laura weakened to a tropical depression in Arkansas Thursday evening after paving a path of destruction throughout Louisiana, with at least four deaths blamed on the storm.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said state officials now know of four storm-related deaths tied to Hurricane Laura. The deaths were all caused by trees falling on residences, Edwards said. None were on the coast, having happened in Vernon, Jackson and Acadia parishes. Jackson is in north Louisiana, demonstrating the power of the storm.

Laura made landfall around 2 a.m. Thursday at Cameron, Louisiana as a Category 4 storm and the first major hurricane of the year, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. Upon its arrival, Laura quickly diminished in strength, from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph by the National Hurricane Center’s 11 p.m. EDT update.

Although Laura continues to weaken, strong wind gusts are likely to spread over northern Louisiana and Arkansas into this evening, the NHC said. The storm is 30 miles north northeast of Little Rock, Ark., and moving north northeast at 15 mph.

The full scope of Laura’s destruction was revealed with the light of the sunrise Thursday morning with flooded roads, downed power poles and lines, houses completely leveled, towers with windows blown out, trailers destroyed and brick buildings dismantled.

Fallout from the storm includes a chlorine leak at a company that makes chemicals just west of Lake Charles, according to Louisiana State Police. The leak at the BioLab chemical manufacturing facility in Westlake is forcing police to ask area residents to close their doors and windows, turn off their air conditioning and stay inside.

The major hurricane’s power was also responsible for the collision of a floating casino that came unmoored and hit a bridge.

“At the time of landfall, Laura was a ferocious looking hurricane with a clear circular eye, an intense eyewall, and tightly-coiled surrounding spiral bands,” the NHC said.

Hurricane forces prevented first responders from assessing the damages early Thursday while it was still dark, however there were 911 calls received by the state from those who did not evacuate, according to the Associated Press.

“There are some people still in town and people are calling … but there ain’t no way to get to them,” Tony Guillory, president of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, said early Thursday morning over the phone as he hunkered down in a Lake Charles government building that was shaking from the storm.

Guillory said he hoped the stranded people could be rescued later in the day, but he feared that blocked roads, downed power lines and floodwaters could get in the way.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says his state appeared to have made it through Hurricane Laura with minimal or no loss of life, which he said was a “miracle.”

Abbott on Thursday described seeing roofs sheared off buildings and uprooted trees following aerial tour of the damage near the state border with Louisiana. The storm surge that was predicted to be as high as 10 feet before landfall wound up being closer to 3 feet, he said.

And nearly 12 hours after landfall, Abbott says there were still no confirmed fatalities.

Laura was described by the NHC to have an “unsurvivable” storm surge, capable of penetrating 40 miles inland from the Louisiana-Texas coast.

“We know anyone that stayed that close to the coast, we’ve got to pray for them, because looking at the storm surge, there would be little chance of survival,” Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told ABC’s Good Morning America.

Officials said search and rescue missions would begin as soon as conditions allowed, along with damage assessments.

Florida’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 4 and set out for Baton Rouge, Louisiana Wednesday morning with a crew of 40 firefighters from Orlando Fire Department, Orange County Fire Rescue and Seminole County Fire Department, which included a host of firefighters, paramedics, structural engineers, doctors, search and rescue K9s, and other highly-trained specialists. After a briefing with the emergency operations center with the Louisiana State Fire Marshal, team members will head to Lake Charles to assess damage and rescue anyone as needed, said Task Force planning coordinator Craig Hulett, a fire training chief at Orlando Fire.

More than 800,000 Louisiana and Texas customers were still without power Thursday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.US. At 3 p.m. Arkansas has an additional 33,000 customers reporting power loss.

Videos on social media showed Laura’s winds battering a tall building in Lake Charles, blowing out windows as glass and debris flew to the ground, according to the Associated Press.

The storm is expected to see massive weakening as it continues on its northwest continental path toward Arkansas. Laura should de-escalate into a tropical depression Friday as it makes its way to the mid-Mississippi Valley.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared an emergency ahead of Laura and set aside $250,000 for the state to prepare for the hurricane’s impact in his state. Hutchinson said the state will have search-and-rescue teams on standby.

Tropical storm warnings were canceled for northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas and extreme western Mississippi Thursday night. Forecasters advised certain areas of the states could expect a few inches of rain through Friday, with central and northern Arkansas anticipating 3 to 6 inches of rainfall and isolated areas of southern Louisiana and Mississippi, northern Mississippi, western Tennessee and southeast Missouri expecting 5 inches of rain.

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. The old record was six in 1886 and 1916, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

More than 580,000 coastal residents were under orders to flee in the largest evacuation since the coronavirus pandemic began and many did, filling hotels and sleeping in cars since officials didn’t want to open mass shelters and worsen the spread of COVID-19. But in Cameron Parish, where Laura came ashore, officials said at least 150 people refused pleas to leave and planned to weather the storm in everything from elevated homes to recreational vehicles. The result could be deadly since forecasters said the parish could be completely covered by ocean water.

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, where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding.

The area’s population still recalls the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when catastrophic flooding breached the levees in New Orleans and as many as 1,800 people died.

Elsewhere in the tropics, the NHC is monitoring two tropical waves in the Atlantic with low odds of developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm. First, the NHC is eyeing a tropical wave moving off the west coast of Africa Thursday afternoon that has a slight chance of forming into the next tropical depression or tropical storm as it makes its way into the mid-Atlantic. The NHC gives it a 20% chance of formation in the next five days.

Second, another tropical wave in the Central tropical Atlantic has a 10% chance of developing in the next two days, and a 30% chance of doing so in the next five. The wave is moving west between 15 and 20 mph.

Orlando Sentinel staff writers David Harris and Katie Rice contributed to this report, along with the Associated Press.

More coverage at OrlandoSentinel.com/hurricane.