USA ; One of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. Laura hustled across Louisiana on Thursday, shearing off roofs and killing at least six people while engraving a destructive path hundreds of miles inland.
A full analysis of the damage wrought by the Category 4 system was likely to take the threat of additional damage appeared as new tornado warnings were issued after dark in Arkansas and Mississippi even as the storm weakened into a depression.But despite a trail of demolished buildings, entire neighborhoods left in ruins and almost 900,000 homes and businesses without power, a sense of relief prevailed that Laura was not the annihilating menace forecasters had feared.
The storm crashed ashore in low-lying Louisiana and clobbered Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. Laura’s top wind speed of 150 mph (241 kph) put it among the strongest systems on record in the U.S. Not until 11 hours after landfall did Laura finally lose hurricane status as it plowed north and thrashed Arkansas, and even by Thursday evening, it remained a tropical storm with winds of 40 mph (65 kph).
On Broad Street, many buildings had partially collapsed. Windows were blown out, awnings ripped away and trees split in eerily misshapen ways. Police spotted a floating casino that came unmoored and hit a bridge. At the local airport, planes were overturned, some on top of each other. Part of a transmission tower toppled into the emptied-out studios of KPLC-TV, whose staff evacuated hours before landfall to broadcast from other locations.
A massive plume of smoke visible for miles began rising from a chemical plant following Laura’s passage.Nearby residents were told to close their doors and windows and turn off air conditioners, and the fire smoldered into the night. State and federal aircraft headed into the skies over the coast to look for signs of any other industrial damage.The fatalities included a 14-year-old girl and a 68-year-old man who died when trees fell on their homes in Louisiana, as well as a 24-year-old man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator inside his residence. Another man drowned in a boat that sank during the storm, authorities said.
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