One, two wreak-downs from Hurricanes Laura, Delta, brings weary Louisiana to its knees

In the southwest corner of Louisiana, residents are beginning the second wave of recovery after two storms brought damaging effects within a six week span.

Creole, where Delta made landfall Friday, was struck with top winds of 100 mph (155 kph), which then moved over to Lake Charles, a city where Hurricane Laura damaged nearly every home and building in late August.

No deaths had been reported as of Saturday afternoon, but officials said people were not out of danger.

Although the Category two storm was a weaker storm than Laura, it brought significantly more flooding, Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said. He estimated that hundreds of already battered homes across the city took on water. The recovery from the double impact will be long, the mayor said.

“Add Laura and Delta together and it’s just absolutely unprecedented and catastrophic,” Hunter said. “We are very concerned that with everything going in the country right now that this incident may not be on the radar nationally like it should be.”

Recovering towns have pummelled back to square one as power poles, re-installed after Laura were seen lying on the ground, again.

Across The Boot, hundreds of thousands of residents remain without power from Delta. Trees were seen knocked down on almost every street.

However, Louisiana avoided one feared scenario: that the winds would pick up the debris left by Laura – piles of soggy insulation, moldy mattresses, tree limbs and twisted metal siding – and turn it into projectiles. In at least some neighborhoods, the small mountains stood on curbs more or less intact.

Delta inflicted most of its damage with rain instead wind. It dumped more than 15 inches of rain on Lake Charles over two days and more than 10 inches on Baton Rouge. Southwest parishes such as Cameron, Jefferson Davis, Vermilion and Acadia that sustained heavy blows from Laura took the hardest hit.

Delta, the 25th named storm of an unprecedented Atlantic hurricane season, was the 10th named storm to hit the mainland U.S. this year, breaking a record set in 1916, Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

[Sourced from Agencies]