This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken Wednesday, Augus 26, at 2:40 p.m. eastern daylight time and provided by NOAA, shows hurricane Laura over the Gulf of Mexico. Maximum sustained winds from hurricane Laura increased to 150 miles per hour before nightfall, and forecasters said up to 15 inches of rain could fall. The governor of the southern US state of Texas Greg Abbott and Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders. The threat of such devastation posed a new disaster-relief challenge for a government already straining under the coronavirus pandemic. The parts of Louisiana that were under evacuation orders included areas turning up high rates of positive coronavirus tests.

Source: The Standard August 27, 2020 04:18 UTC