LAKE CHARLES - At least four people were killed by Hurricane Laura in Louisiana and search teams may find more victims but the governor said Thursday that the most powerful storm to make landfall in t
he US state in living memory did not cause the "catastrophic" damage that had been feared."It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute catastrophic damage that we thought was likely based on the forecast we had last night," Edwards said.
Hurricane Katrina, which left 1,800 people dead in 2005, was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall. Only one storm has made landfall in Louisiana with wind speeds as high as Laura -- the Last Island hurricane of 1856, which left hundreds dead. Edwards said there were about 600,000 power outages across the state and water services had also suffered some damage.Edwards said residents living near a chemical plant near Lake Charles where there was a chlorine gas fire had been told to shelter in place.The governor said storm surge "did not materialize to the degree that it had been forecasted" -- although it may have reached as high as 15 feet in some places.
"We thought we were safe. We had generators, we had windows boarded up," Ashley Thompson told ABC News.
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