Hurricane Laura inflicted $19 billion in damage across the region. And increasing ocean temperatures are making stronger hurricanes more likely. Warmer waters are raising the odds that a storm will undergo the kind of rapid intensification that Laura did. Hurricanes happen, especially in Louisiana.īut researchers say global warming is “loading the dice” in favor of more extremes. There has been severe weather since the dawn of time without human influence. Laura exploded from a tropical storm to a hurricane pushing the upper limit of Category 4 in just 36 hours as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.Īttributing any individual weather event to climate change is a challenge. (Hurricane Ida tied that record this year.)īut the storm that wiped away Marceaux’s home was not even a hurricane two days earlier. With sustained winds of 240 kilometers per hour (150 mph), Laura was the strongest hurricane on record to hit Louisiana since 1856. 10, 2020, as they walk through the flooded street to their home, after Hurricane Delta moved through. Soncia King holds onto her husband, Patrick King, in Lake Charles, La., Saturday, Oct. To show VOA journalists around in the August heat, she swapped business attire for jeans and a T-shirt that read “Lâche Pas” – Cajun for “don’t give up.”īuildings and homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, Thursday, Aug. Marceaux is the port director for Cameron Parish, the county home to the largest liquefied natural gas export facilities in the United States. It’s traumatic to talk about it,” she said. A year after the storm, the memories still choked her up. Marceaux used to watch the marsh birds from her porch less than 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Gulf, savoring her morning coffee and the smells of breakfast cooking. The United States is no exception.Īs part of an in-depth exploration of climate migration worldwide, VOA traveled to Louisiana to document the impacts of a devastating year of natural disasters on the state’s Gulf of Mexico coast. Natural disasters brought on by climate change are forcing people from their homes from Central America to Southeast Asia. The state government considers climate change an existential threat to many of its communities. State demographic data are already showing people leaving the coast for higher ground. Louisiana is facing climate threats both acute and chronic, from the battering of more intense storms to the creeping erosion of rising sea levels. It’s just like (the house) was never there.” “It’s not like you have anything to repair. “My husband just kept stacking up cinder blocks because what else are you going to do?” Marceaux said. When her family returned to survey the damage, nothing remained but rubble. More than 4.5 meters (15 feet) of storm surge sheared her house off the slab and carried it away. The storm crashed ashore near her home in Cameron, Louisiana, on August 27, 2020, just shy of Category 5 strength. Nearly a year after Hurricane Laura hit southwest Louisiana, Clair Marceaux could still pick bits and pieces of her family’s lives out of the feral lawn surrounding the concrete slab where her house once stood.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |