‘Catastrophic’ hurricane Laura lashes Louisiana

Hurricane Laura has struck the US state of Louisiana, causing flash floods, severe damage to buildings and power cuts to half a million homes.

It is one of the strongest to ever hit the US Gulf Coast, striking at category four with winds up to 150mph (240km/h).

Laura’s storm surge has not reached the levels feared but is still considered life-threatening, and could spread 40 miles (65km) inland.

Half a million residents had been told to leave parts of Texas and Louisiana.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said early yesterday: “We’ve had daylight now for a couple of hours. It appears there is more structural damage from the wind and a little less flood damage than we anticipated.”

He confirmed the first fatality in his state, adding: “I suspect that won’t be the last, although I pray that we don’t have more.”

Hurricane Laura made landfall shortly after midnight local time (05:00 GMT) near the district of Cameron, in Louisiana. It tracked north, just east of the Texas-Louisiana border.

Four hours later it had been downgraded to a category three storm, the National Weather Service (NWS) reported, before weakening again. At 14:00 GMT it was a category one hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85mph (140 km/h).

But the NWS said “a catastrophic storm surge, hurricane force winds and flash flooding will continue“.

Laura will track north across Louisiana on Thursday afternoon, with its centre moving into Arkansas overnight. It is expected to become a tropical storm later, but it could still be hurricane force up to the Arkansas border, said Ken Graham, the director of the National Hurricane Center.

One sheriff’s office in Louisiana’s Vermilion Parish had told those who chose not to evacuate: “Write your name, address, social security number and next of kin and put it a Ziploc bag in your pocket. Praying that it does not come to this.”

Daylight has now reached the region, so the extent of the damage is becoming more known.

Forecasters had earlier warned of an “unsurvivable” storm surge. But they said a slight change in wind direction had spared some areas from the feared 20ft surge, with 9ft (2.7m) recorded in some parts. –BBC