Hurricane Laura could make a direct hit on Houston this week and hundreds of thousands of people living on the Gulf Coast should evacuate immediately, officials in Texas warned on Tuesday.
The US National Hurricane Center forecast that storm surge could send up to 13 feet of flood water as much as 48 kilometres inland along the coast near the Texas and Louisiana border.
The hurricane was packing winds of 130 kilometres per hour as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico, qualifying it as a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring hurricane intensity.
Laura was forecast to become a “major” hurricane of Category 3 or higher by Wednesday night as it approaches the US coast, according to the NHC.
The storm was located about 480 miles (770 km) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Tuesday afternoon and moving to the west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph), the NHC said.
Lina Hidalgo, the top executive for Harris County, which encompasses Houston, warned of deadly winds and a destructive storm surge after Laura makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.
She said that put millions of lives at risk as Laura moved westward and took aim at the fourth-biggest city in the United States.
“This storm certainly can cause unprecedented devastation,” Hidalgo said at a news conference. “We truly have to say: Prepare for the worst.”
Plan for worst
More than 420,000 Texas residents and another 200,000 people in neighboring Louisiana were under mandatory evacuation orders on Tuesday. Hidalgo County urged voluntary evacuation in the coastal region surrounding Houston, and shelters were set up in San Antonio, Dallas and Austin.
Houston, which lies about 45 miles (70 km) north of the open water of the Gulf of Mexico, was pummelled in 2017 by Hurricane Harvey, which killed at least 68 people and caused $125 billion in property damage.
Hurricane Laura is forecast to dissipate quickly after landfall, with the greatest danger more from wind and storm surges than rain.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Pete Gaynor said on Twitter that a team was already deployed to the region.
White House Spokesman Judd Deere said on Twitter that President Donald Trump has been briefed about the hurricane and that FEMA has deployed stockpiles of “response resources and commodities at strategic locations across the Gulf Coast.”
