At least six people were killed by Hurricane Laura in Louisiana and search teams might find more victims, but the governor on Thursday said that the most powerful storm to make landfall in the US state in living memory did not cause the “catastrophic” damage that had been feared.
“We have a lot to be thankful for,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told a news conference.
“It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute catastrophic damage that we thought was likely based on the forecast we had last night,” Edwards said.
Photo: Reuters
“But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage,” he said, adding that thousands of residents of the southern state have had their “lives turned upside down.”
Hurricane Laura struck the coast of Louisiana early on Thursday as a Category 4 storm — the second-highest on the wind scale.
It has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.
Hurricane Katrina, which left 1,800 people dead in 2005, was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall.
Only one storm has made landfall in Louisiana with wind speeds as high as Laura — the Last Island hurricane of 1856, which left hundreds dead.
The Louisiana Department of Health reported there had been six storm-related deaths. Edwards said that four of them were “related to trees falling on residences.”
Of the other two deaths, health authorities said, one man died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator in his house, and another man drowned when the boat he was in sank during the storm.
“I’m concerned that as we continue to go out and do primary and secondary search and rescue, we’re going to find more fatalities,” Edwards said. “I hope not and pray not.”
He said there were about 600,000 power outages across the state and water services had also suffered some damage.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Edwards also said residents living near a chemical plant near Lake Charles where there was a chlorine gas fire had been told to shelter in place.
The governor said storm surge “did not materialize to the degree that it had been forecasted” — although it might have reached as high as 4.6m in some places.
The National Hurricane Center had warned of “unsurvivable” storm surge of up to 6m, and evacuation orders had been issued for hundreds of thousands of Louisiana and Texas residents.
Wildlife enforcement sergeant Mason Spillman expressed relief, however, that the damage was not as bad as forecast.
“I do not want to downplay it at all, it’s a terrible storm, a lot of people have lost a lot of things,” he said.
“But we are thankful that it didn’t flood, and we’re not making water rescues, swift water rescues or things of that nature,” he added.
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