I hope you evacuated.”The Lake Charles area is particularly vulnerable to flooding. Much of the land between the city and the coast is treeless marshland that is bisected by shipping channels that lead directly in from the Gulf. Once a freshwater lake, its namesake is now, because of saltwater influx from the Gulf, essentially a brackish inlet of the ocean. The city of 80,000 sits along Interstate 10, the primary route between south Louisiana and southeastern Texas. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Interstate 10 disappeared under a choppy ocean and was closed for days.

Source: New York Times August 27, 2020 06:00 UTC