Hurricane Laura - Gulf Coast

[Pearce]

Reports from Louisiana

Hurricane Laura updates: Some Acadiana curfews extended due to power outages

Hurricane Laura made landfall as a destructive Cat. 4 storm. See the latest developments from Lake Charles, Cameron and Western Louisiana here

www.google.com

Hurricane Laura updates: Lafayette Parish issues curfew for Thursday night

The National Hurricane Center said the storm's sustained winds measured at 150 mph, just short of reaching Category 5 storm status, as it moved slowly across the southwestern and western part of the state and Texas.

At about 11 a.m., the center of the storm was near Natchitoches, Winn Bienville, Red River and Jackson parishes with sustained winds of 75 mph, bringing damaging winds and flooding to central and northern Louisiana.

The curfew for Lafayette Parish was extended and will go into effect at 8 p.m. Thursday and lift at 6 a.m. Friday.

"The curfew will help keep roads clear to allow crews to safely work while cleaning up storm debris," accord to a press release from Lafayette Consolidated Government.

A fire has broken out on the west side of Lake Charles, causing gases and smoke to plume over I-10.

The fire seems to have erupted at a chemical plant site or oil refinery, according to multiple reports on social media.

VIDEO: Homes destroyed, flooded by Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles

kfdm.com

Aerial footage shows extensive damage throughout the area as wind gusts topped out at 130 mph.

Storm chasers with Metro Video Services captured video of a gutted convention center. All the windows were blown out and some of the structures failed and collapsed. Other video captured windows being shattered on a skyscraper.

So far, there have not been any confirmed reports of injuries, although local officials reported that people who had planned to ride out the storm were calling for help.

Hurricane Laura Kills at Least 6 People in Louisiana (Published 2020)

After landfall overnight with 150 m.p.h. winds, Laura ripped northward. Officials confirmed at least six deaths tied to the storm, and hundreds of thousands of people have lost power.

www.nytimes.com

Hurricane Laura Live Updates: Storm Plows Through Louisiana

After landfall overnight as a Category 4 hurricane with 150 m.p.h. winds, Laura has ripped northward, sowing destruction even as its winds diminish. One death was confirmed and hundreds of thousands of people lost power.

RIGHT NOW
A fire has broken out at the BioLab chemical plant in Westlake, La., outside Lake Charles, in the wake of the storm. Residents are being told to stay indoors.

Hurricane Laura sweeps ashore as one of most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S.

After making landfall as one of the strongest storms to hit Louisiana on record, Hurricane Laura steamrolled up through the state on Thursday, leaving a trail of far-flung damage in its wake.

The storm, which came ashore near Cameron, La., after midnight as a Category 4 hurricane, brought 150-mile-an-hour winds and a major storm surge out of the Gulf, ripping the facades off brick buildings in Lake Charles, La., and swatting telephone poles to the ground. Laura weakened as it moved inland, but remained destructive, with strong winds and heavy rain, and the potential to spawn deadly tornadoes.

The first confirmed U.S. death from the storm was that of a 14-year-old girl in Leesville, La., a small city about 100 miles inland. According to the Louisiana governor’s office, the girl was killed when a tree fell on her family’s home.

PHOTOS/VIDEOS: Storm Damage from Hurricane Laura across La.

Hurricane Laura made landfall in southwest Louisiana as a strong Category 4 storm on Thursday, Aug. 27 around 1 a.m.

www.wafb.com

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Hurricane Laura is impacting the entire state of Louisiana as it moves further inland.

More on the fire

Fire breaks out at industrial facility near Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura

A poisonous mixture billowed out of the facility, putting an even bigger strain on people already dealing with Laura's aftermath.

abc13.com

WESTLAKE, Louisiana -- A chemical plant in the middle of hurricane-ravaged southwest Louisiana caught fire Thursday morning, sending thick smoke billowing into the air.

Witnesses said they saw the smoke rolling north across I-10 coming from a facility. Officials at BioLab confirmed the fire was at their plant, according to KPLC-TV in Lake Charles.

BioLab manufactures chlorine-based products, according to a 2017 story on the company.

 

[Pearce]

This article has clear pictures of the destruction

Photos: Hurricane Laura damage in Louisiana and Texas

Hurricane Laura, with sustained winds of 150 mph, made landfall in Louisiana early on August 27. The storm rapidly weakened, but not before leaving a trail of destruction in parts of Louisiana and Texas.

www.cnn.com

Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana around 2 a.m. Thursday, with sustained winds of 150 mph. The storm rapidly weakened, but not before leaving a wake of destruction in parts of Louisiana and Texas.

"The damage is extensive," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told CNN. "It appears now we have more structural damage from the wind" than storm surge.

The threat of Laura's impact prompted evacuations in recent days. At least three people have died after trees fell onto homes in Louisiana, authorities said.

Hurricane Laura smashes parts of Louisiana and Texas, killing 6 and leaving widespread wind damage

Hurricane Laura's ferocious winds produced more damage than its storm surge as it pummeled portions of Louisiana. The storm left six people dead in Louisiana, including at least four from falling trees.

amp.cnn.com

Hurricane Laura smashes parts of Louisiana and Texas, killing 4 and leaving widespread wind damage

An extremely powerful Hurricane Laura ripped apart portions of Louisiana and far-eastern Texas, killing at least four people and tearing off roofs while knocking out power for hundreds of thousands after first roaring ashore as a Category 4storm.

With the risk of turning this political, the left is going to have a field day with this...

Hurricane Laura damages Confederate monument in Louisiana after officials voted to keep it

Hurricane Laura damaged a controversial Confederate monument in Lake Charles, Louisiana, weeks after local officials refused to move the memorial.

amp.usatoday.com

Hurricane Laura damages Confederate monument in Louisiana after officials voted to keep it

A statue of a Confederate soldier in front of a courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, lies on the ground Thursday Aug. 27, 2020 after being toppled when Hurricane Laura ripped through the area. Earlier this month parish officials voted to keep the statue, called the South’s Defenders Monument, in its place.

And of course the "Can't Let A Crisis Go to Waste" (CLACG2W™) article...

Fears mount Hurricane Laura could be COVID-19 super-spreader in already struggling Texas and Louisiana

In other coronavirus news: Jobless claims climbed over a million as Pence praises Trump administration's pandemic performance

www.nbcnews.com

Fears mount Hurricane Laura could be COVID-19 super-spreader in already struggling Texas and Louisiana

Texas and Louisiana were still struggling to contain the pandemic as Hurricane Laura bore down on them, and now officials fear a new wave of COVID-19 infections will come in the wake of the massive storm.

But it will take time before they know for sure.

And the photo op...

Trump 'probably' traveling to Texas, Louisiana this weekend to tour Hurricane Laura damage | Fox News

FEMA officials have 'done a fantastic job,' president said during Thursday meeting

www.foxnews.com

Trump 'probably' traveling to Texas, Louisiana this weekend to tour Hurricane Laura damage

FEMA officials have 'done a fantastic job,' president says during meeting​

President Trump said Thursday that he will likely travel to Texas and Louisiana to tour the damage in the areas this weekend as Hurricane Laura barrels through the states.

During a meeting at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Thursday, the president said he would "probably" travel to Louisiana and Texas, and potentially make an “additional stop,” on Saturday or Sunday.

The president thanked FEMA, saying that officials have “done a fantastic job.”

The president’s comments come hours before he is set to formally accept the Republican presidential nomination at the GOP Convention Thursday night. The president is slated to deliver his acceptance speech on the South Lawn at the White House.

 

[Quasicrystal]

Just some updates on this storm:


Coming three years to the day after Hurricane Harvey, and 15 years after Katrina which was followed by Rita one month later. I lived in the direct path of Rita, and until Laura intensified it was looking like an exact replay. Now that it's upgraded to a cat4 it's going to be much worse.

The destruction left behind from Rita was catastrophic. I can only pray my friends and family that are going to ride it out tonight will be safe. I'm hoping to be able to go in to the area as soon as possible to assist, and so should have more info in the coming days.

If it's anything like before, it will be many months without power, and trees snapped like twigs as far as the eye can see.

I live in Gulfport MS and stayed for Katrina. I have been very overwhelmed for the last 24 hours. I’m praying for your everyone. All sorts of emergency response crews were staging in MS last night waiting on the official go to start heading to Lousiana and Texas to help y’all.

 

[Gary]

The death toll from Hurricane Laura is currently six, with the ferocious winds having caused more damage than its storm surge as it pummeled portions of Louisiana, according to CNN.

Laura has now been downgraded to a tropical storm and is heading towards Arkansas.

There was still widespread damage:

The article also states that Laura tied with a hurricane from more than 160 years ago for the strongest storm to hit Louisiana. The 1856 hurricane also had winds of 150 mph when it made landfall, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.

Hurricanes, waterspouts, tornadoes, firenados and other types of wind vortices seem to be getting more intense and frequent these days, which reminded me of this SOTT comment from a recent article:

First ever firenado warning in California as wildfires rage into third day

In Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection Pierre Lescaudron explicates the drivers behind wind vortices of all kinds:

The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power. Because of this similarity, we will refer to these three phenomena collectively as 'air spirals' in the following discussion.

McCanney [in his book Planet-X, Comets and Earth Changes] describes the electric nature of hurricanes in these terms:

A simple model showed that these [tropical] storms formed when electrical currents connected between the ionosphere and the top of the clouds. [...] the reason hurricanes lost power when they approached land was that the powering electrical current from the ionosphere to the cloud tops and to the Earth's surface had no connection (anode) while over the ocean so it drew up vast surface areas of ionized air from the ocean surface and sucked them up a central column (the spinning vortex was caused by the moist air rising 'up the drain')  whereas the land provided a 'ground' for the current and therefore it shunted out the storm's power source. [...] I also calculated that the warm water theory for hurricane development lacked sufficient energy to account for the energy in these massive storms. We later witnessed hurricanes on Mars where there is no water at all. Clearly, the warm water concept did not work [...]1

From this perspective, air spirals are simply the manifestation of electric discharges between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface. The image above shows a waterspout and a lightning bolt occurring in the same place at the same time, suggesting that indeed electric potential difference between the clouds at the top of the picture and the ground at the bottom is what powers both the lightning and the tornado.This additional feature of dust particles - their ability to carry an electric charge - means that dust accumulation enables any given area of the atmosphere to carry potentially massive electric charges, which can differ from the charge of adjacent regions, from the charge of the ionosphere and from the charge of the Earth's surface.

See also:

• 3 tornadoes hit Delaware in a week, normally sees 1 a year - Philadelphia region rainfall nearly 1,000% of normal
• 43% of Iowa corn, soybean crop hit by Monday's storm
• Record outbreak of 84 waterspouts last week over the Great Lakes

And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?