Damages caused by Hurricane Laura

Residents of Lake Charles, southwest Louisiana (USA), heard Laura's winds howling and the sound of broken glass as the storm crossed the city of 78,000 inhabitants with winds of 137 km/h and gusts of 206 km/h an hour after the hurricane reached the American continent.

A chemical plant caught fire after Hurricane Laura hit Westlake on the morning of 27/08, 6.4 km west of Lake Charles in Louisiana, throwing a column of black, thick smoke into the sky of the windswept landscape near Interstate Highway 10.

The hurricane destroyed buildings in small towns in the far southwest of the US state and killed four people hit by falling trees over their homes, authorities said. But the damage Laura has caused so far is less than meteorologists had anticipated. There were fallen transmission lines in the streets around the city, and the winds turned some semi-trailer trucks.