Hurricane Laura

Hurricane Laura is heading towa rd Louisiana and eastern Texas as a strong cat 4. It may  be hitting with cata 5 storm surge.
Please pray for the people in its path. One of our members, Issac-1, lives in or very near its path.

Yes, please remember all in it?s path. I have quite a bit of family in the Lake Charles area....hopefully they?re already on higher ground. memtb

I am about 45 miles north of Lake Charles on the main north / south highway, evacuation traffic is now down to a trickle, things are eerily quiet outside right now.  We had one fairly strong bit of rain a couple of hours ago from an outer feeder band, nothing now, light breeze outside, overcast clouds, at sunset.  I know it is going to get worse, this storm is taking an almost identical path to what hurricane Rita did 15 years ago, Rita was at one time the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the gulf, but weakened to a strong cat 3 at landfall, maybe higher as all the official wind instruments blew away.  This one looks like it will be slightly worse.  I am hoping for the best here, our house is fairly solid, it was built in 1902 from old growth timber and probably has 10 times as much wood in it as a modern house, of course we do have several large trees (oak pecan, etc) them falling on the house is my biggest concern.  We live in town and were without power for 5 days after Rita, I know people less than 20 miles from here that were without power for over 2 months.  The motorhome is locked up in its metal shed  on the family cattle ranch about 15 miles east of here.  One way or another we should know how it goes in another 12-14 hours or so.

Good luck Isaac. Lots of us will be hoping and praying for a safe outcome. Try to get some rest before the storm.

Good to hear from you Ike. Take care of yourselves.

If this is like Rita was in 2005 I suspect we will be without power for a few days, and even cell phone communication may be spotty.  Hopefully no worse than that, the closest point of approach for the eye should be in about 10-11 hours.

Still all calm here, just a slight breeze outside, no rain in the last few hours.

I feel for you Isaac, I lived in So. Lake Charles, out by the Airport, during the early 90s. I was there for Andrew, but was gone before Rita came through.

Gusts are now 205 mph.

You would not recognize that area now, large housing subdivisions all the way out to the airport area.  My sister in law and her husband are / were building a house out that way, just in the finishing touches, chances are it will be flooded after tonight.  They were hoping to move in the first or second week of September.  Lake Charles has really grown over the last 20 years or so

Boat Addict said:

Gusts are now 205 mph.

Click to expand...

BA. Did you mean kph? Big difference.

I suspect he meant MPH, current sustained winds at 10PM is 150 MPH

My CG son is in the area and we spoke and he said that they had gust of 205. Right now its showing on my station winds 150 and gust to 185 mph.

Well we made it through the night, lots of downed limbs and some broken trees on the vacant lot next door, don't know about our back yard yet, power is out, city water is out, wind is still gusting a bit, and loose limbs are still falling.  The eye went over us at about 4 am, wind speeds in the eye wall clocked at 120 mph when it went past here, 150 at land fall 80 miles due south of here.  Lots of destruction 45 miles south of here in Lake Charles.

And you have access to the internet!! Good news. Glad you made it through.

Two years ago I was in the middle of Irma. That dam storm thread the needle right into our condo. It was quite the experience. We elected to stay. I had mostly thought that it couldn't hit us head on. I was wrong. 2nd floor condo. Back side faces east front west. As the eye wall hit the east balcony and the glass doors began fluttering and sounding like a freight train, I actually thought it was going to blow in. We went into the kitchen area (west side) and thought we may not get through it. 15 minutes later the eye went through. Everything stopped. The sun did not come out but it lightened up almost to full day. 20 minutes later the back side hit us. After the 150 - 175 mph gusts the backside was like a day at the beach. We knew we made it. Probably will never take that chance again. If any flying debris had hit the balcony slider we were in big trouble. The wind tore sheets of paint off the balcony walls. Screen doors were ripped off and everywhere and several large multi vehicle carports were ripped from the bases and flipped over like paper plates. The noise of the carports right before the eye went through is something I will never forget. We didn't know what all the noise was until the backside went through and we were able to walk outside. The flooding, trees and debris was extensive but we made it. Scarey as hell. Very helpless feeling that 15 minutes before the eye came through. The condo is 4 miles from the coast and I don't think we could have been in a worse location for that hurricane.

Glad you made it. Be careful during the clean up.

Issac-1,  Glad to hear that you?re ?mostly? good!    Waiting to hear something about my ?kinfolk? in Lake Charles area!  memtb

Glad you are OK Isaac.

What an absolutely terrifying thing to experience.

I went out to the family ranch to get my coach today (30 mile round trip), we are driveway camping at least until city water comes back on, maybe until there is power, the coach barely fits in the driveway.  Along the way I saw lots of downed trees, many uprooted, even had to stop and clear limbs from the road in one place.  Lots of trees down at the family ranch, dozens, maybe more, a couple of hay barns and a tractor lean to style shed blown away, shed where I keep my coach was ok though.  On the drive there I also saw several building that were destroyed, a tire shop located in an old (1940's?) Ford dealership had a brick wall collapsed, the old bowling alley (now self storage) roof was completely gone, down to bare wood rafters, so were 3 or 4 other places, lots of places have roof damage, maybe 80-90% of houses, are missing shingles, thankfully ours looks fine.  We do have some damage though, our wood privacy fenced back yard, is no longer so private with the fence laying down on once side, we also have 3 or 4 downed trees in our back yard (3/4 acre lot), 2 medium large trees (a magnolia that is now leaning over and a hickory that is snapped off about 8 ft above ground, and a couple of smaller ones that are uprooted.  Plus a few other trees with damage, large broken limbs, etc.

For all that saw the chemical plant fire at Lake Charles, that's where I used to work, spent many hours in that building.

Here is a picture of a house a few blocks down from mine that I just saw a few minutes ago.  Eastern exposure (the direction of the peak winds as the north east quadrant of the eye passed over us, makes all the difference).  While I am typing this I hear chain saws and generators running in the distance.

Note the car roof, and the house roof, or lack there of.

Holy crap. Was there people riding the storm out in that house? What the hell do you do if your are in there and the roof flies off. My goodness. Thats a scary thought. Hope they made it through and are ok.