Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana early Thursday morning as a Category 4 hurricane. Like most hurricanes, Laura weakened as it came closer inland. However, the loss of warm air didn’t prevent Laura from taking out power lines, leaving an estimated 650K without power. Since making landfall, Laura has been downgraded to a Category 2, and brought less flooding than what meteorologists predicted.

Unfortunately, the only reported death was a 14-year-old girl after a tree collapsed into her home, as reported from the Governor of Louisiana. Gov. John Bel Edwards had this to say about the tragic death: “I suspect that won’t be the last, though I pray we don’t have anymore.”

According to PowerOutage.US., more than 134K people in Texas and at least 518K people in Louisiana are without power because of Laura’s short-lived reign of terror over the southern states. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser told reporters that he’d heard of dozens of families who stayed in their homes despite evacuation orders, and that emergency crews would be dispatched for support. Amid the destruction, an industrial plant that makes chlorine-based products nearby was set on fire, leading to shelter-in-place orders as caustic smoke spewed through downtown Lake Charles. The chemical cloud emanating has shut down Interstate 10. 

Update as of 9/3/2020, there has been 57 deaths reported. Apparently, 15 deaths were caused by the improper use of generators; some families were poisoned by carbon monoxide poisoning. The last reported death was a 49-year-old man who was struck on the head by a tree. An estimated 324k citizens are still left without power as more than 17k crew members are working to restore the power grid.

On a lighter note, who had hurricanes and industrial fires on their 2020 bingo cards?