World News – UA – Hurricane Delta inflicts further misery on storm-tired Louisiana

Lake Charles, La • Hurricane Delta crashed ashore in southwest Louisiana on Friday as a Category 2 storm, tearing tarps over already damaged roofs and debris piled up by roads along a path of destruction inflicted by Hurricane Laura just six weeks earlier

The center of the hurricane made landfall at about 6 pm near the town of Creole – a distance of only about 15 miles from where Laura struck in August

Delta struck with winds of 100 mph (155 km / h) but quickly weakened In the hour that hit land, the National Hurricane Center downgraded it to a Category 1 storm with 85 mph (140 km / h) winds

Still, forecasters have warned that Delta is pounding the coast with a potentially fatal storm surge of up to 11 feet (34 meters) Flash flood warnings have been posted for much of the southwestern Louisiana and parts of neighboring Texas

In the town of Lake Charles, about 50 kilometers inland from where Delta made landfall, winds over the tarpaulin-covered rooftops of buildings that Hurricane Laura struck as it passed through at the end of August and which killed at least 27 people in the state

Ernest Jack was lying in bed, trying to sleep as water flowed through the ceiling of his home in Lake Charles as Delta walked inland on Friday night He said the tarp he used to cover his damaged roof after Laura had not blown off and his windows were covered to protect against flying debris

“It’s raining very hard; there are floods; the wind is strong « , said Jack » I’m fine I’m not worrying about anything, I just pray that everything is going well « 

Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said the latest storm was tearing tarps off townhouses – where he estimated 95% of buildings were damaged by Laura Piles of moldy mattresses, trees sawn timber and other remaining debris lined the city’s largely empty streets when Delta arrived. Hunter said some of this debris was being thrown and floated in the streets

« I’m in a building right now with a tarp on it and just the sound of the tarp pounding on the building sounds like someone hammering over the building with a hammer, » Hunter said « C ‘ is quite intense « 

In the town of Lake Arthur, the wind was so strong it tore the shingles off the LaBanca Albergo Hotel, an eight-room boutique hotel in what was once a bank

« I probably don’t have any more shingles on top of this hotel, » owner Roberta Palermo said, as the winds blew outside

Palmero said the power was cut and across the street she could see pieces of metal peeling off the roof of a 100 year old building Unsecured garbage cans were flying through the streets

One of his guests was Johnny Weaver, a meteorology student who traveled to Louisiana from Tampa to study the storm

« There are a lot of power lines everywhere, there is very deep water in some places, » Weaver said, speaking from the hotel porch. He was out on time with his friends over early and the friend’s car was stuck in the water

The deleterious effects of Delta were felt as far west as Galveston, Texas, about 160 miles from where the storm hit Louisiana Two homes under construction in Galveston were blown by winds , just like trees and signs in the area Beach dunes flattened by previous storms allowed a storm surge to sweep under some of Galveston’s raised beach houses

Schools and colleges canceled classes on Friday in coastal Texas counties east of Galveston Bay Wind gusts approaching 90 mph were recorded at the Jack Brooks Regional Airport near Beaumont, about 55 miles west of the landing

Power outages in neighboring Louisiana and Texas topped 330,000 homes and businesses on Friday shortly after the storm landed, according to the PowerOutagenous tracking website

Delta was the 25th named storm in an unprecedented hurricane season in the Atlantic and became the first hurricane named after the Greek alphabet to hit the US Continent As the 10th named storm to strike the U continentalS this year, he also broke a century-old record set in 1916, according to Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University.

As the fourth hurricane or tropical storm to hit Louisiana in a year, Delta also tied a 2002 record, Klotzbach said

Delta, the latest in a recent wave of rapidly escalating Atlantic hurricanes that scientists largely attribute to global warming, appeared destined to set records upon landing

The concern was not limited to the Lake Charles and Cameron parish areas where Laura landed in late August Further east, in towns in the Acadiana region such as New Iberia and Abbeville, people took the storm seriously

« You can still have another house, another car, but not another life, » said Hilton Stroder as he and his wife, Terry, boarded their Abbeville home Thursday night with the plan to visit their son further east

This week marked the sixth time this season Louisiana has been threatened by tropical storms or hurricanes One, Tropical Storm Marco, sparkled as it hit the southeastern tip of Louisiana, and others veered elsewhere, but Tropical Storm Cristobal caused damage in southeast Louisiana in June

Hurricane expected to weaken quickly on land Forecasters predicted Delta would downshift to tropical storm overnight The storm’s projected track showed it was moving into northern Mississippi on Saturday and then into the Tennessee Valley as a tropical depression

Pleasure reported from New Iberia, Louisiana Associated Press contributors include Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Gerald Herbert in Lake Charles, Louisiana; Kevin McGill in New Orleans; Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; and Leah Willingham in Jackson, Mississippi

Tropical Cyclone, Louisiana, US Gulf Coast