Death toll rises as scope of Laura's destruction becomes clearer

By Friday afternoon, what was left of Hurricane Laura as it moved northeast over Kentucky and Tennessee was a mere shell of the monster storm that struck the Gulf Coast. But a day after the Category 4 storm plowed into Louisiana and eastern Texas, a clearer picture of its destruction along the Gulf Coast began to emerge.

With the death toll at 14 in the U.S., and over 30 when factoring in fatalities caused in the Caribbean before Laura was even a hurricane, and economic damages potentially in the billions of dollars, Hurricane Laura proved devastating. On top of the human toll, the storm was one for the history books.

Arriving with the strongest landfalling winds seen in Louisiana since the Franklin Pierce administration and becoming the earliest L-named system since forecasters began naming storms, Laura rewrote history before it even bore down near the Louisiana-Texas border.

After strengthening right before landfall and reaching Category 4 with sustained wind speeds of 150 mph as it crashed into Cameron Parish, Laura ravaged the Bayou State and eastern Texas coastlines with damaging winds, widespread flooding and a destructive storm surge before a chemical fire caused even further headaches.

A chemical fire erupted in the Lake Charles area Thursday as chaos spread in the storm's wake, leading officials to urge residents to shelter in place. Large smoke plumes could be seen rising into the sky over Interstate 10, video shot by AccuWeather National Reporter Jonathan Petramala showed.

The plant was confirmed by company representatives to be owned by BioLab, Forbes reported. The company is a subsidiary of the privately owned KIKCorp, and has historically manufactured chlorine-based products.

On Friday, KIK Custom Products, which owned the plant, confirmed that the fire was under control.

"We are enormously grateful to the state police and other first responders, as well as local authorities - including Louisiana State Police Emergency Resource Team, Lake Charles Fire Department, and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality - for their collaboration and thank them for their heroic efforts," the company said in a statement.

At 1 a.m. CDT Thursday, Hurricane Laura became the strongest storm to hit Louisiana since 1856, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, just 7 mph shy of being upgraded to Category 5 status. This made it stronger than Hurricane Katrina was when it made landfall along the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Lake Charles, Louisiana, took a direct hit from Laura with wind gusts in the city exceeding 130 mph. Unlike a tornado when extreme winds last for just a few seconds or a minute, the city was under siege by the hurricane-force winds for an extended period of time.

Helicopter footage captured over Holly Beach and Cameron Parish on Thursday revealed extensive flooding and wind damage dealt to residential areas. Dozens of homes were stripped of roofs while backyards were turned into temporary ponds from floodwaters. Similar damage could be seen on the Capital One building, located in Lake Charles. Shattered windows dotted the 22-story building that was battered for a second time by historic hurricanes, as the building took a similar beating in 2005 from Hurricane Rita.

At the Republic National Convention, President Donald Trump acknowledged the hurricane and said that he would be visiting the damaged areas over the weekend.

Over 800,000 residents in Texas and Louisiana were without power at one point on Thursday, along with residents in Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas, which showcased the widespread impacts of Laura's remnants. As of Monday morning, just over 300,000 of those residents in affected states are still in the dark.

At least four of the 16 known fatalities in Louisiana from Laura were caused by fallen trees, as confirmed by Gov. John Bel Edwards and Acadia Parish Sheriff K.P. Gibson. Two more fatalities were reported Thursday evening, one the result of carbon monoxide poisoning from an improperly used generator while the other was a drowning from a sinking boat, according to The Associated Press.

The Louisiana Department of Health confirmed four additional storm-related fatalities on Friday afternoon from carbon monoxide poisoning.

On Friday, Edwards said that five of the deaths were confirmed to be due to the improper use of generators indoors during the storm, and reminded residents to never use a portable power generator indoors, including in garages, carparks or basements, regardless of ventilation.

The Louisiana Department of Health confirmed two more deaths from Hurricane Laura on Saturday morning. The couple in Allen Parish, Louisiana died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator.

On Saturday, a man died while cleaning debris in the aftermath of Laura. The man was later confirmed to be a local DJ for 98.7 in Alexandria, Louisiana "Pratt Da Catt," according to KALB News.

On Saturday, the Calcasieu Parish School Board also made the announcement that school facilities will be closed until further notice due to the devastation of the hurricane.

"It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here," Brett Geyman, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles, told the AP. "It's just destruction everywhere."

Laura's winds have wreaked havoc on the power grid across the region. More than 25% of power customers in Louisiana were in the dark by noon on Thursday after outages spiked past 600,000. Another 140,000 outages were reported in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, increasing to nearly 600,000 by late afternoon.

Louisiana started to experience intense flooding on Wednesday morning near Louisiana State Route 1, among other areas, well before Laura made landfall. This flooding grew progressively worse throughout the day leading up to Laura's landfall.

Over 100 miles of Interstate 10 was shut down in Louisiana on Wednesday ahead of Laura's arrival. It was unclear when the highway would reopen. Power lines were among the debris strewn across the interstate on Thursday morning.

By 1 p.m., local time, Thursday, Laura had weakened into a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph as it made its way northward toward Arkansas. Despite its downgrade in power, the storm continues to bring flooding rainfall and strong winds inland. By 10 p.m, local time, Thursday, Laura had been downgraded to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph.

AccuWeather meteorologists said that Hurricane Laura was a 4 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes, a method devised in 2019 to better assess the overall potential damage a storm can cause. A RealImpact™ rating of 4 can mean that residents in areas directly impacted by the storm can expect severe, long-lasting flooding from coast to inland. For comparison, both Hurricane Harvey from 2017 and Hurricane Florence of 2018 were each retroactively rated as a 4 on the RealImpact™ Scale.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

"Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes," the NHC warned in a tweet on Wednesday, adding that the surge could extend up to 40 miles inland from the coastline.

Storm surge is an above-normal rise in seawater along the coast that's generated by approaching or landfalling tropical systems, its strength and reach comparing more to a river than a tide.

"A storm surge of that magnitude, combined with wave action, would be high enough to fully devastate the second story of structures located along the coast," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.

A well-organized and strengthening Hurricane Laura was churning over the west-central Gulf of Mexico, and satellite images on Wednesday, Aug. 26, captured a distinctive eye, which indicates a powerful hurricane. (NOAA/Goes-East)

Tensions mounted during the week ahead of Laura's landfall as the storm strengthened along an eerily similar path taken by one particularly notorious hurricane from 2005: Rita, another hurricane retroactively rated a 4 on the RealImpact Scale. The similarities stirred old wounds that local officials sought to address.

"This is not Harvey, this is not Imelda, this is not Allison. This is Laura," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a press conference, according to ABC13. "Every storm is different, and we urge folks not to use any prior storm as a template for what or will happen. What we need to do is prepare for the worst."

The coronavirus pandemic has indeed brought new challenges to hurricane preparation this season. To adapt to the dual danger of COVID-19 and hurricanes, the Center for Disease Prevention and Control has recommended preparing a "go kit" with items that can help protect you and others from transmission of COVID-19, including hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and two masks for each person as social distancing may become more difficult.

Forecasters say that cleanup and recovery efforts in the wake of Laura may be hampered by Mother Nature.

"There will be daily scattered storms around that will lead to cleanup delays through Monday, especially across the hard-hit coastal areas of Louisiana," AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys said. "Humidity levels will be high, and temperatures will climb up into the lower 90s F for many."

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.