Hurricane Delta is gaining strength and size over the Gulf of Mexico as it takes aim for the Louisiana coast, which is still recovering from a powerful Category 4 storm six weeks ago that ripped houses from their foundations, peeled off roofs and tore trailers in half.
Delta is expected to make landfall along the southwest Louisiana coast on Friday afternoon or evening.
It will be the 10th hurricane to make landfall on the mainland U.S. this season, setting a new record.
“Right now we just can’t seem to get a break from the weather,” said one Louisiana resident.
On Thursday morning the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters posted a video from their reconnaissance flight into the storm showing dark, stormy skies stretching for miles.
The storm is churning toward the area around Lake Charles, which still has about 5,600 residents in New Orleans hotels because their homes are too damaged to occupy from Hurricane Laura in late August. Trees, roofs and other debris left in Laura’s wake still sit by roadsides waiting for pickup even as forecasters warned that Delta could be a larger-than-average storm.
The large majority of structures damaged by Laura haven’t been permanently repaired, Gov. John Bel Edwards said on Wednesday.
“All that debris could become missiles in really strong wind,” said Edwards, who also worried about the “sheer anxiety” the storm could cause residents who are already traumatized.
The Lake Charles area is expected to get hit with tropical-storm force winds starting at about noon Friday. When the hurricane makes landfall later in the day, maximum sustained winds of 100 to 115 mph and life-threatening flooding are forecast.
A storm surge of 7 to 11 feet is expected in some low-lying areas, particularly in Louisiana between Pecan Island and Vermilion Bay.
Four million people from coastal Louisiana up through central Mississippi are under flash flood watches.
The storm’s slight western shift may have spared the Alabama coast from a direct hit, as that state continues to recover from Hurricane Sally.
Delta first struck Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday as a Category 2 storm, forcing tourists in the area’s resorts to hunker down.
It then weakened slightly before moving north over the Gulf of Mexico, where it strengthened again to a Category 2.
As of 7 a.m. CT, the hurricane was about 425 miles south of Cameron, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, and moving northwest at 15 mph.
The National Hurricane Center announced a hurricane warning — which means life-threatening conditions are forecast within 36 hours — is in effect for all of south-central Louisiana, from the Texas coast to Morgan City, Louisiana.
Tropical storm watches are in effect to the west and east, including the eastern Texas coast from High Island to the Louisiana border and from Morgan City, Louisiana to the mouth of the Pearl River, which includes the City of New Orleans.
The governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi declared states of emergencies, and on Wednesday President Trump approved Louisiana’s request for a federal emergency declaration.
