Hurricane Laura, one of the most violent to hit Louisiana, was downgraded to a tropical storm Thursday afternoon after killing at least four people in the southern United States, all killed by waterfalls. trees on their homes.
"We are aware of four deaths so far," Governor John Bel Edwards told a press conference.
Winds of 240km / h
The hurricane made landfall in category 4 (of 5) around 1 a.m. local (6 a.m. GMT) at the coastal town of Cameron, near the border with Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico, with sustained winds of 240 km / hr, according to the National Hurricane Center.
That makes it the most powerful to hit Louisiana in over a century and a half, according to data compiled by University of Colorado hurricane researcher Philip Klotzbach.
Nearly 800,000 people were without power Thursday afternoon in Louisiana and Texas, according to the PowerOutage.us site.
Fire in a chemical plant
The shattered windows of a large building bore witness to the violent winds in Lake Charles, a town in Louisiana known for its oil refineries, the region's main economic resource. A fire broke out there in a chemical plant, from which a towering plume of smoke rose above the water for a long time. Governor John Bel Edwards has invited residents on Twitter to put themselves in “until further notice” at their homes by turning off their air conditioning.
According to the latest NHC bulletin at 6 p.m. GMT, the low weakened considerably after making landfall, with sustained winds reaching no more than 100 km / h, making it now a tropical storm. But meteorologists continued to warn of flooding in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas, which Laura must reach next night.
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