PORT ARTHUR, Texas — Hurricane Laura is expected to be an "extremely powerful Category 4 hurricane" with "unsurvivable storm surge" when it reaches the Gulf Coast on Wednesday night and early Thursday, the hurricane center said in its 10 a.m. CDT update. Laura, which grew to a Category 3 storm early Wednesday, is forecast to bring "potentially catastrophic" storm surge, fierce winds and flash flooding to eastern Texas and Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said. More than half a million people were ordered to evacuate as the storm approached, including the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur. The storm has already intensified a "remarkable" amount in the past 24 hours, the storm center says. Laura is growing in size, too. "Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles," forecasters said. The storm, moving northwest at 16 mph, was last spotted 225 miles south-southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and 235 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas, as of 10 a.m. CDT Wednesday. Wind speeds had increased to up to 125 mph, which is a Category 3 major hurricane. It's the first major hurricane of the 2020 season. “We are expecting widespread power outages, trees down. Homes and businesses will be damaged,” said Donald Jones, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Lake Charles, Louisiana. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-storm-category-4-texas-louisiana/3441543001/
30 MILES inland!? Jesus chriminy. I think I've read that Portland would notice issues with the Columbia and Willamette under similar circumstances, but that wouldn't have the impact of this magnitude. Just insane.
Hurricane Laura damaged a Lake Charles Confederate monument, after parish officials voted to keep it Hurricane Laura damaged the controversial Confederate monument in Lake Charles, Louisiana after officials voted to keep the statue earlier this month. The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury voted 10-4 Aug. 13 to let the South's Defenders Monument remain on the grounds of a courthouse in Lake Charles. A Calcasieu Parish official said they had received 945 written responses from the public during this period. "Of the total responses, 878 were against relocating the monument and 67 were for relocating the monument," Calcasieu Parish Administrator Bryan Beam said. Twitter posts Thursday morning showed images of the monument with the general in pieces on the ground. Dedicated in 1915, the monument honors Confederate soldiers from the area and other towns across the South. Parish officials had been taking public comments since late June about what to do with the statue amid calls around the country to remove Confederate monuments many see as symbols of racism.
I think I warned people about this ass hole about five years ago. Actually, I knew he was an ass long before that because of the way Letterman made fun of him on his show.
