Hurricane Laura is the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in more than a century
Hurricane Laura sweeping inland on Thursday morning (NOAA/)Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the early hours of Thursday morning, with winds just a few miles per hour shy of the Category 5 mark. Wind speeds hit 150 mph, tying with a hurricane from 1856 for the strongest storm to ever hit Louisiana. Laura has now been downgraded to Category 2 storm, but it’s still barreling over Louisiana with winds of 110 mph.The full extent of the damage isn’t clear yet, since the storm is still raging, but there are already massive storm surges recorded and roughly 400,000 without power. Meteorologists predicted water levels up to 15-20 feet above ground level, a height at which the National Hurricane Center termed the surge “unsurvivable.” It will likely take days just for the floodwaters to recede.There were evacuation orders in place for some half a million people across Louisiana...