Hurricane Harvey scars reopened by Laura
Although her home appeared to be just outside Hurricane Laura’s cone of uncertainty, Antonieta Cádiz, who fled Hurricane Harvey floodwaters in 2017, was expecting the worst.
“I am hysterical,” Cádiz, 41 of Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston told NBC News.
Despite her anxiety, she is staying put for now with her two young children and husband.
“COVID,” she said. “What are we going to do? We are in a national pandemic. I cannot go and expose my children … I cannot expose my family to be with other people not knowing if they have COVID or not.”
She was not reassured by the fact that the state is putting people in hotels. She and her husband have parked one of their two cars on higher ground and have a small boat in the driveway, as do her neighbors, just in case.
Cádiz’s home flooded in 2017 when local officials opened floodgates to release rainwater dropped by Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm. When the floors cracked and water burst through, she and her husband, two children and a niece fled in a rescue boat that Cádiz flagged down with screams of “Help!” The storm destroyed the home, which had to be rebuilt.
A freelance Spanish-language journalist, Cádiz took a temporary job as a spokeswoman for Climate Power 2020 because of her experience.
“This will happen again, I know it. Yesterday it was Harvey. Today Laura. Tomorrow it will be another catastrophic hurricane,” she said. “If we don’t do something to face the challenges of climate change, my story will be the story of millions in the U.S. and all over the world.”
Hospital chief in Laura’s path: 2020 has been the ‘perfect storm’
HOUSTON — As soon as he saw the forecast calling for a Category 3 or 4 hurricane cutting a path directly through his home of Beaumont, Texas, Dr. Gary Mennie knew he and his team needed to act fast.
Mennie, the chief medical officer The Medical Center of Southeast Texas, said his hospital began transferring its most critically ill patients Monday morning, shuttling many of them two hours west by ambulance to Houston, which is now expected to avoid the worst of Hurricane Laura’s impacts.
That included all of the hospital’s COVID-19 ICU patients.
Now — after months of treating patients on the frontlines of a deadly pandemic — Mennie and dozens of his colleagues are preparing to camp out in a mostly empty hospital, waiting for Laura to come ashore.
“It’s like, great, 2020,” Mennie said. “The perfect storm.”
Like many other hospital workers, Mennie sent his wife and children out of town so he could focus on treating patients without having to wonder whether his family was safe. But it’ll be hard not to think of his home in Beaumont.
Mennie’s house was flooded in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey, and again last year during Tropical Storm Imelda. His family had just gotten everything pieced back together, and now Laura is barreling ashore with what forecasters warn could be devastating winds and storm surge.
It’s been a long three years, Mennie said. But he and his colleagues won’t have time to worry once storm refugees begin streaming through the hospital doors.
“Everybody that stays are the people who say, ‘I want to stay. I’m going to ride it out. We’re going to be here for the community,'” Mennie said. “And that’s sort of in the blood of frontline workers. It’s not even an obligation, but you feel that duty. You’ve got to be there for the community.”
Flooding in southeast Louisiana
Flood waters in southeast Louisiana have caused partial closures to Louisiana Highway 1, beyond the Leon Theriot Lock in Golden Meadow. Golden Meadow is approximately 75 miles south of New Orleans.
Gov. Greg Abbott urges residents of southeast Texas to get out now
Gov. Greg Abbott pleaded with residents of southeast Texas on Wednesday to evacuate immediately because first responders won’t be able to get to any storm-ravaged areas until the morning.
The impact of Hurricane Laura should be felt at about 7 p.m. CT near the Texas-Louisiana border and then make landfall by 1 a.m.
“The hurricane is going to be quite severe,” Abbott told reporters in Austin. “People in that area will be dealing with the ravages of that storm for a few more hours.”
Laura should leave that corner of Texas by morning and be out of the state by the end of Thursday, but Abbott said first-responders won’t be able to do much work until 9 a.m. at the earliest.
“It will be a little bit of a lockdown time period for the ability of rescuers and aiders to get in and to provide support for anybody in the local regions,” Abbott said. “We urge everybody who may be in harm’s way to take these last few hours to get out of harm’s way.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warns residents to evacuate now
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards doubled down on warnings about Hurricane Laura, a category 4 storm with 140 mph winds, which is expected to make landfall in Texas and Louisiana later tonight.
Edwards emphasized that now is the time for Louisianans to evacuate their homes, and said that the window to do so is quickly closing.
Louisiana is anticipating an “unsurvivable” storm surge that is expected to reach 18 to 20 feet, and the majority of Cameron Parish will be underwater at some point.
“I am asking people right now to pay attention to this storm and to get out of harm’s way if there is an evacuation order in place, whether it’s mandatory or voluntary, and understand our state hasn’t seen a storm surge like this in many, many decades.”
Already, 200,000 people were ordered to leave low-lying Calcasieu Parish and parts of Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana.
For the first time in many years the entire Louisiana National Guard has been activated for Hurricane Laura, according to Edwards. Three thousand guardsmen are currently providing support, and the number will continue to increase throughout the day.
Edwards added, “If you think you’re safe because you made it through Rita in Southwest Louisiana, understand this storm is going to be more powerful than Rita.”
Laura upgraded to Category 4 hurricane, National Weather Service says
Laura was upgraded to an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane just before 2 p.m. ET, according to an update from the National Weather Service.
In an alarming all-caps warning, the weather service said Laura was poised to lash the northwest Gulf Coast with “catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds and flash flooding.”
“LITTLE TIME REMAINS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY,” the NWS said in its update.
The weather service also described the potential surge as “unsurvivable” in some places, with seawater penetrating up to 30 miles inland near the Texas-Louisiana border.
President Trump tweets administration ‘fully engaged’ on storm prep
Dire warning from the National Weather Service
