On August 27, 2020, we were hit by Hurricane Laura. She turned into a major hurricane with winds up to 150 mph before making landfall in Cameron, Louisiana, which is about 70 miles away from my house. The devastation from this storm is unbelievable. The pictures coming from the coast, Lake Charles, and other areas are very sad to see. Here is how the last few days went for me and my family.
Wednesday - August 26, 2020
I didn’t have to go work so we could do final preparations for the storm. There were predictions it would make landfall as a Category 2 storm, maybe a Category 3. I went to Walmart when it opened at 7am to get what supplies we needed. I went to a couple of stores and made it home. I have an anemometer somewhere (I can’t find it). I wanted to measure wind speeds when the hurricane came in. I went back to town to Tractor Supply, Walmart, and Ace Hardware to see if they had a weather station. Nobody in town had one. I got online and checked Lowe’s. They had one left. I was able to get it. When the order was ready for pickup, I went to Crowley, which is about 20 minutes south of where I live. I picked it up and noticed a bunch of generators in stock. I called my wife to see if should get one and I got one. My son came by after work to take it home. We got to the house, set it up and waited. Late in the afternoon, I was setting up my weather station and needed some supplies to mount it. So back to town I went, this time with my son. We got what we needed and went back home. It was starting to get windy and rain bands were coming in. As the night progressed, the storm intensified to a Category 4 monster, and conditions deteriorated quickly. The power kept blinking until early Thursday morning when it went out.
Thursday - August 27, 2020
Early in the morning, Laura made landfall in Cameron, Louisiana. Our house kept shaking a bit. The trash can lid kept banging against the trash can. The tree limbs by the house kept hitting the house. It was loud and bit scary. I have never been through a major hurricane before. My family and I stayed in the living room and would go to our closet when we would get tornado warnings on our phones. About 3 in the morning, I had to lay down. The power came back on briefly but was out again. Thank goodness for the generator. It ran our freezer, refrigerator, fan, and light. I was able to run my Keurig and coffee pot on it. I highly suggest getting a generator for such emergencies. It can run over 10 hours at 50% capacity.
Friday - August 28, 2020
We didn’t have power most of the day. It was restored early afternoon. A little while later, we lost it again. After a few hours, it was back on again and has been on ever since. We did have thunderstorms come through most of the day yesterday. It kept the temperature down a bit but the humidity was bad. I’m thankful we made it with minimal damage. I believe because Laura was moving so fast, it didn’t do a lot of damage. If it was a slow moving storm, the outcome would have been a lot different in my opinion.
Below are some screenshots and pictures. Thanks for the support and have a wonderful week. Shalom.
