Hundreds of thousands ordered to flee coast ahead of Laura

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — More than half a million people were ordered to evacuate the Gulf Coast on Tuesday as Laura strengthened into a hurricane that forecasters said could slam Texas and Louisiana with ferocious winds, heavy flooding and the power to push seawater miles inland.

More than 385,000 residents were told to flee the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, and another 200,000 were ordered to leave low-lying Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet (3.96 meters) of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities.

The National Hurricane Center projected that Laura would draw energy from warm Gulf waters and become a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, with winds of around 115 mph (185 kph).

Officials urged people to stay with relatives or in hotel rooms to avoid spreading the virus that causes COVID-19.

The storm also imperiled a center of the U.S. energy industry. Oil refineries and liquefied natural gas plants dot the coastal region, and the government said workers were removed from more than 40% of the 643 platforms that are normally staffed in the Gulf.

As of Tuesday morning, Laura was 585 miles (940 kilometers) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, traveling northwest at 16 mph (26 kmh). Its peak winds were 75 mph (120 kph). The hurricane center nudged its forecast track a bit farther west as computer simulations pushed the storm closer to Texas

Laura passed Cuba after killing nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding. The deaths reportedly included a 10-year-old girl whose home was hit by a tree and a mother and young son crushed by a collapsing wall.

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