Hurricane Laura could ‘turbo-charge’ into 115mph Category 3 storm before hitting Texas and Louisiana

Hurricane Laura is forecast to ‘turbo-charge’ into a devastating Category 3 storm bringing with it 115mph winds and 13-foot storm surges.

On Tuesday Laura strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane and by evening was moving west-northwest at 17mph about 465 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas and 435 miles southeast of Lake Charles Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane is only rapidly intensifying as it enters the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and is forecast to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.

More than 500,000 people have been ordered to evacuate in Texas and Louisiana, where states of emergencies have been declared, marking the largest US evacuation amid the pandemic.

In Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas more than 385,000 residents were told to flee. In the low-lying Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana another 200,000 were ordered to flee.

Officials say the storm surges and downpour of rain could leave an area the size of Rhode Island in Louisiana underwater.

On Tuesday locals in Louisiana boarded up their homes and business and filled sandbags to keep their houses dry. In Galveston, Texas, long lines of locals waited to board buses to be taken to Austin to wait out the storm. 

Forecasts say powerful storm surges of 13 feet could submerge entire communities in Louisiana.

‘The waters are warm enough everywhere there to support a major hurricane, Category 3 or even higher. The waters are very warm where the storm is now and will be for the entire path up until the Gulf Coast,’ National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Ed Rappaport said.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Laura is starting to look similar to Hurricane Rita, which ravaged southwest Louisiana 15 years ago.

‘We’re going to have significant flooding in places that don’t normally see it,’ he said.

Ocean water is expected to push onto land along more than 450 miles of coast from Texas to Mississippi. Louisiana is bracing for as much as 15 inches of rain in some parts.

Hurricane warnings were issued from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, and storm surge warnings from the Port Arthur, Texas, flood protection system to the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Edwards is telling residents of southwest Louisiana they need to be in the location where they intend to ride out Laura by Wednesday at noon – when the state will start to feel the storm’s effects.

Whitney Frazier, 29, of Beaumont spent Tuesday morning trying to get transportation to a high school where she could board a bus to leave the area. 

‘Especially with everything with COVID going on already on top of a mandatory evacuation, it’s very stressful,’ Frazier told The Associated Press.

Officials are urging people to stay with relatives or in hotel rooms to avoid spreading COVID-19.

Weather experts say that Laura is undergoing what’s known as ‘rapid intensification’, a phenomenon where a tropical cycle intensifies by at least 35mph in a 24-hour period.

‘Rapid intensification occurs when a tropical storm or hurricane encounters an extremely conducive environment. Typically, this environment consists of very warm water, low vertical wind shear and high levels of mid-level moisture,’ Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach said to USA Today.

The storm also imperiled a center of the U.S. energy industry. The government said 84 percent of Gulf oil production and an estimated 61 percent of natural gas production were shut down. Nearly 300 platforms have been evacuated.

While oil prices often spike before a major storm as production slows, consumers are unlikely to see big price changes because the pandemic decimated demand for fuel

Laura has passed Cuba and Hispaniola, where it killed nearly two dozen people, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic.

The deaths reportedly included a 10-year-old girl whose home was hit by a tree and a mother and young son crushed by a collapsing wall.

In Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas, mandatory evacuation orders went into effect shortly before daybreak Tuesday. ‘If you decide to stay, you’re staying on your own,’ Port Arthur Mayor Thurman Bartie said.

Shelters opened with cots set farther apart to curb coronavirus infections. People planning to enter shelters were told to bring just one bag of personal belongings each, and a mask to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

‘Hopefully it’s not that threatening to people, to lives, because people are hesitant to go anywhere due to COVID,’ Robert Duffy said as he placed sandbags around his home in Morgan City, Louisiana. 

‘Nobody wants to sleep on a gym floor with 200 other people. It’s kind of hard to do social distancing.’

Officials in Houston asked residents to prepare supplies in case they lose power for a few days or need to evacuate homes along the coast. Some in the area are still recovering from Hurricane Harvey three years ago.

Laura’s arrival comes just days before the August 29 anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which breached the levees in New Orleans, flattened much of the Mississippi coast and killed as many as 1,800 people in 2005.

 Less than a month later, Hurricane Rita struck southwest Louisiana as a Category 3 storm.