CHRIS WHITE TECH REPORTER
Tropical Storm Laura cut through buildings, ripped roofs off of homes, and tossed vehicles on their sides Thursday as the storm struck parts of Louisiana and Texas.
The tropical storm was downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane, with the eye of the storm passing over Lake Charles, Louisiana, early Thursday morning, media reports show. Four deaths have been attributed to the storm so far, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Drone video shows the storm ripping off roofs and caving in walls, leaving living rooms and other areas of homes exposed to the outdoors.
One time lapsed video from the Weather Channel shows the before and after effects of Laura on a massive building in Lake Charles. The storm’s powerful winds effectively hollowed out the building and knocked out nearly half the windows. (RELATED: Hurricane Laura Makes Landfall Near Texas-Louisiana Border As Category 4 Storm)
WATCH:
I always find that Before/After pictures can really put things into perspective. #Laura and its destructive winds leaving this building in Lake Charles, LA basically window free! pic.twitter.com/ZFuFdweCLb
— Alex Wallace (@TWCAlexWallace) August 27, 2020
“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” Brett Geymann, a resident who decided not to evacuate and chose instead to ride out the storm with family members near Lake Charles, Louisiana, told reporters. “There are houses that are totally gone. They were there yesterday, but now gone.”
Geymann said the storm passing overhead early Thursday morning sounded like a jet-engine.
Laura brought 150-mile-an-hour winds and a storm surge out of the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, eventually weakening as it moved inland. Roughly 600,000 service locations were without electric power in Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards told The NYT.
“It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute catastrophic damage that we thought was likely,” Edwards said. “But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage.” One casualty was a 14-year-old girl who was killed when a tree fell on her family’s home, Edwards noted. Three other people also died amid the storm’s carnage.
Listen to this wind in Alexandria…..peak gust so far from #Laura of 86 MPH, illustrating the power of a landfalling Cat. 4 #hurricane even 125 miles inland. Here in Rapides Parish 93% of customers have lost power and 460k customers so far statewide. #HurricanLaura pic.twitter.com/e95Twqf3gN
— Mike Seidel (@mikeseidel) August 27, 2020
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