A Category 4 hurricane is barrelling toward Texas and Louisana, threatening to cause widespread destruction to cities and neighbourhoods.
Hurricane Laura has intensified rapidly, growing nearly 70 per cent in strength in 24 hours to reach a Category 3. It was deemed a Category 4 on Wednesday morning as wind speeds surged off the coast.
The storm has the power to be “catastrophic,” according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Here’s what we know so far:
How strong is it?
Forecasters expect the hurricane to bring top winds of anywhere from 130 to 200 km/h across the coast from Texas to Mississippi.
Hurricane warnings have been issued from San Luis Pass, Texas to Intracoastal City, Louisiana.
It could reach as far inland as 322 kilometres, according to the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS).
Warnings for storm surges — when water levels rise and push on-shore — were also in effect from Freeport, Texas to the mouth of the Mississippi River. These surges could reach up to 15 feet, overwhelming coasts and potentially submerging entire towns.
“Every little bayou, every little river that normally drains your rain, is going to flow in the opposite direction with storm surge,” National Hurricane Director Ken Graham told CNN on Wednesday. “And it (will get) out of those banks and (go) over the land.”
The NWS says almost half of all deaths from tropical cyclones come from storm surge.
Storm surges can also exacerbate flooding. Depending on how much water is pushed ashore, it can collect, further increasing damage to communities.
While there’s a chance the storm could “weaken slightly from its peak intensity over the Gulf of Mexico,” Global News Meteorologist Ross Hull says it is “still expected to maintain major hurricane strength as it makes landfall.
Winds and rainfall are also expected to be another big problem.
Should the storm continue at Category 4 strength as it reaches land, Hull said the strength of the over 200 km/h winds have the capacity to destroy homes and knock out power.
A Category 4 storm can cause damage so severe that wide swaths of land could become uninhabitable for weeks or months.
Rainfall amounts of up to 15 inches are possible from Wednesday through Friday across much of the northwestern Gulf Coast, with smaller amounts expected over the lower to middle Mississippi Valley, according to the NHC.
Along with winds and heavy rainfall, a few tornados are likely to occur Wednesday night across southeast Texas to Louisiana and Mississippi, said Hull.
When will it make landfall?
The storm was about 450 kilometres out from Lake Charles, Louisiana as of Wednesday morning, moving at around 24 km/h.
It is expected to make landfall near the Texas-Louisiana state line late Wednesday or early Thursday, forecasters say.
Places like the Calcasieu and Cameron parishes in Louisiana could be in the grips of the storm for the longest, based on the forecast track, according to the NWS, as reported by the Associated Press.
The area is in the bullseye of the storm and could be “part of the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of days,” meteorologist Donald Jones told the AP.
Will it affect weather in Canada?
Canada won’t see anything detrimental, Hull said, but forecasts in some parts of Canada might be impacted slightly.
“The storm will get caught up in the prevailing westerly winds that move across the continent,” he said.
“The weaker, remnants of the storm will likely bring rain and possibly some breezy winds at times from Ontario east towards Atlantic Canada into this weekend.”
How are people preparing?
More than half a million people near the Texas-Louisiana state line were ordered to flee their homes on Tuesday. That includes the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, and the Calcasieu and Cameron parishes in southwestern Louisiana.
People planning on using official state shelters were instructed to bring just one bag of personal belongings each, as well as a mask to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
In Louisiana and Mississippi, where state emergencies have been declared, shelters opened with cots configured at least two-metres apart. It is one of many measures shelters are taking to curb the risk of virus transmission.
The evacuations in Texas fell on the third anniversary of Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Texas on Aug. 25, 2017, claiming in 68 lives. Another 35 deaths were also indirectly attributed to the storm.
Some areas in the path of the storm are still recovering from the devastation left behind by Hurricane Harvey.
Hurricane Laura has already claimed at least nine lives in the Caribbean, including several in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
–With files from the Associated Press
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