AT least 15 people have died in Louisiana and Texas as President Donald Trump surveyed the damage left in Hurricane Laura’s aftermath.
Trump got a firsthand look on Saturday at the destruction left behind in Louisiana and Texas two days after the Category 4 storm slammed the Gulf Coast.
“I’m here to support the great people of Louisiana. It was a tremendously powerful storm,” he said in Lake Charles.
The president planned to visit Orange, Texas – the hardest-hit area in the state – later in the day.
As Air Force One prepared to land in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the president got a bird’s eye view of smashed houses, downed power lines and trees, and debris strewn across the city.
After his first stop at a staging area for search and rescue volunteers, Trump toured a neighborhood with Gov John Bell Edwards, who asked the federal government for emergency financial assistance.
Edwards on Friday formally asked the president to declare a federal disaster for 23 parishes in the state, which Trump approved.
He said at a news conference that Laura was the most powerful hurricane to ever strike his state, surpassing even Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it walloped the state in 2005.
“Hurricane Laura is the fifth strongest storm to make landfall in the United States in recorded history and the first in memory to maintain major hurricane strength as it traveled through Louisiana, bringing catastrophic destruction to many parishes,” Edwards said in a statement.
The death toll rose on Friday as 10 people were pronounced dead in Louisiana and another five died in Texas.
Some of the deaths were thought to be from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators, officials told NBC News.
Hurricane Laura slammed the coast of Louisiana near the Texas border as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday, bringing with it winds of 150mph.
About 8,000 homes were possibly destroyed in both states and more than 14,000 people sought shelter from the Red Cross and other agencies, the Red Cross told NBC News.
More than 3,000 people in the Bayou found shelter in hotels, Edwards said.
As of early Friday evening, 485,192 residents were without power in Louisiana, while 106,801 were powerless in Texas.
