Hurricane Laura made landfall with wind speeds of 150 miles per hour, joining a grim list of storms with high wind speeds that caused widespread destruction.
The National Hurricane Center said Laura slammed the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm near Cameron, a 400-person community about 30 miles east of the Texas border.
Laura is tied to the windiest storm in Louisiana history. It was stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 3 with sustained winds of 100 to 140 miles per hour.
Lake Charles, which is about 30 miles inland, saw recorded winds of 132 miles per hour, even as it was weakening.
That speed was confirmed before the measuring instrument broke, so the winds could have been even higher, ABC13 meteorologist Kevin Roth said.
Over the last 85 years, only four storms had stronger winds than Laura upon a landfall in the U.S.:
- 1935, Labor Day Hurricane in Florida, 185 mph wind speed
- 1969, Hurricane Camille in Mississippi, 175 mph wind speed
- 1992, Hurricane Andrew in Florida, 165 mph wind speed
- 2018, Hurricane Michael in Florida, 160 mph wind speed
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