Death toll rises as scope of Laura's destruction becomes clearer
By Friday afternoon, what was left of Hurricane Laura as it moved northeast over Kentucky and Tennessee was a mere shell of the monster storm that struck the Gulf Coast. But a day after the Category 4 storm plowed into Louisiana and eastern Texas, a clearer picture of its destruction along the Gulf Coast began to emerge.
With the death toll at 14 in the U.S., and over 30 when factoring in fatalities caused in the Caribbean before Laura was even a hurricane, and economic damages potentially in the billions of dollars, Hurricane Laura proved devastating. On top of the human toll, the storm was one for the history books.
Arriving with the strongest landfalling winds seen in Louisiana since the Franklin Pierce administration and becoming the earliest L-named system since forecasters began naming storms, Laura rewrote history before it even bore down near the Louisiana-Texas border....