Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned Thursday that even though Hurricane Laura has made landfall and its strength had dropped some, there are still dangers being posed by the massive storm.
"We have hurricane-strength winds still associated with this storm as it moves north and it is still causing damage, power outages and so forth," Edwards said on CNN's "New Day." "I will tell you that the damage is extensive. We know that the wind speed was as promised in the forecast. It hit as a category 4 at 150 miles an hour winds."
The state has had a break on the storm surge, with it coming in at about half of what was forecast, and search and rescue crews with about 400 boats and high water vehicles moving into the Lake Charles area.
He also warned that evacuations are happening in a COVID-19 environment, so "we have to be very, very mindful of this, otherwise, in a couple of weeks we're going to really pay the price here with more cases and hospitalizations and unfortunately more deaths than we would otherwise experience."
Meanwhile, in Texas, Abbott said on NBC's "Today" that there are no reports of fatalities, but "we are not yet out of the woods.”
Ironically, last month, when Hurricane Hanna came through Texas, there was a decline in COVID-19 numbers because of the work that was done to maintain safe practices.
"We hope for the same result here, where people will not be spreading COVID-19 during the course of a hurricane," said Abbott.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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