LOUISIANA (AP) — Gov. John Bel Edwards said he’s received a report of the first fatality from Hurricane Laura in Louisiana, a 14-year-old girl who died when a tree fell on her home.
The governors of Louisiana and Texas say search and rescue teams are still looking, but they’ve found no reports so far of widespread fatalities.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is crediting the evacuations of thousands of people for preventing deaths in Texas. Edwards says they are only beginning to assess the damage.
Both governors say the storm surge appears to have been not as bad as they feared.
Abbott said the hurricane’s storm surge hit the east Texas communities of Port Arthur, Beaumont and Orange “pretty hard” overnight and the eye of the hurricane has continued to move about 100 miles north along the Texas-Louisiana state line.
Forecasters say Laura remained a Category 2 hurricane about 6 hours after making landfall.
The National Hurricane Center said the hurricane still packed sustained winds of 100 mph, according to an update Thursday morning. That makes it a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
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