Laura degrades to a tropical storm
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Update: 27th of August, 6:25 p.m. UTC
After 10 hours of hitting US land, Hurricane Laura weakened to a tropical storm, with high wind speeds of 105 km / h, but without stopping the force of its rains.
With dawn, the numerous material damage caused by the hurricane as it passed through Louisiana is becoming evident.
At least one death and numerous damage is the preliminary balance of the arrival of Hurricane Laura to the southeast coast of the United States this Thursday.
The powerful storm, one of the most intense to hit the region in history, made landfall in the early hours of the morning as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
It did so, as the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) had anticipated, producing a "catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds and flooding."
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed the first fatality in his state, a 14-year-old girl who died from a tree falling on her home in the Leesville area.
One deceased and damages
The NHC reported that Laural's eye first reached the Cameron district of Louisiana at 01:00 am local time (06:00 GMT) and urged the population to protect themselves.
The cyclone registered winds of up to 240 km/h, but dropped to category 2 after making landfall. NHC forecasts indicate that a few hours later it would become a tropical storm.
In its report at 10:00 (15:00 GMT) this Thursday, the NHC reported that Laura maintained maximum sustained winds of up to 120 km/h, which corresponds to category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The agency warned of a "dangerous storm surge" for the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, in addition to the fact that the floods seen in some areas will take "several days" to recede.
"Widespread flash flooding along streams, urban areas and on highways will continue through sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas," the alert read.
The arrival of the day showed the debris, broken windows and trees torn from the ground left by Hurricane Laura passage in Lake Charles.
Forecasters had originally warned of an "unsurvivable" storm surge.
However, a slight change in wind direction prevented some areas from flooding up to 20 feet. There were reports of 2.7 meters in some areas.
More than 540,000 homes in Louisiana and more than 130,000 in Texas were without power Thursday morning, according to the PowerOutage site.
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