Hurricane Laura Live Updates: Storm Intensifies to Category 4 Strength

The hurricane is projected to make landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border, pushing a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet into some areas.

RIGHT NOW

The center of Laura, now a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of nearly 140 miles per hour, is about 200 miles south of Lake Charles, La., and moving toward the city.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Forecasters say Laura could cause ‘catastrophic damage.’
• The geography of the region offers little buffer to the approaching storm surge.
• Laura has drawn comparisons to Hurricane Rita, which smashed the region in 2005.
• Stay or go? The coronavirus is complicating the decision to evacuate.
• Evacuation shelters are adjusting for the virus, too.
• What does it mean when meteorologists say Laura underwent ‘rapid intensification?’
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  Forecasters say Laura could cause ‘catastrophic damage.’

  Hurricane Laura, now a major Category 4 storm, hurtled toward the coasts of Louisiana and Texas on Wednesday morning, prompting state leaders to make dire warnings about life-threatening conditions as the storm gained further strength.

  The storm had sustained winds of about 140 miles per hour as it powered north through the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said.

  Laura is set to make landfall early on Thursday morning, most likely near the Texas-Louisiana border, but meteorologists said storm surge, powerful gusts of wind and heavy rains would arrive much sooner, as early as Wednesday afternoon.

  The Hurricane Center warned that an “unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage” along a section of the Gulf Coast near the border. The surge could reach as high as 15 to 20 feet in places and stretch as far as 30 miles inland.

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• “Only a few hours remain to protect life and property and all actions should be rushed to completion,” the center said.

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“This is a very serious storm,” Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said during a briefing on Wednesday, beseeching residents again to heed official warnings and noting that the window for evacuations would rapidly close as conditions deteriorate.

“In the five years I’ve been governor, I don’t believe I’ve had a press conference where it was my intention to convey the sense of urgency that I am trying to convey right now,” Mr. Edwards said. “Our state hasn’t seen a storm surge like this in many many decades.”

Though the center of the storm is bound for the Texas-Louisiana border, a vast and heavily populated stretch of the Gulf Coast is bracing for the possibility of hurricane-level conditions, reaching from west of Galveston Island in Texas to Morgan City, La.