Trump to head to Louisiana as Hurricane Laura cleanup starts

angry storm surge has receded and clean up has begun from Hurricane Laura, but officials along this shattered stretch of Louisiana coast are warning returning residents y will face weeks without power or water amid hot, stifling days of late summer. U.S. toll from Category 4 hurricane stood at 14 deaths, with more than half of those killed by carbon moxide poisoning from unsafe operation of generators.

President Donald Trump plans on Saturday to tour dam in Louisiana and neighboring Texas. He told reporters he considered delaying his Thursday night speech accepting Republican Party’s mination for reelection because of storm. But he said that, as “it turned out, we got a little bit lucky. It was very big, it was very powerful, but it passed quickly. ”

Across southwestern Louisiana, people were cleaning up from destructive hurricane that roared ashore early Thursday, packing 150-mph (240-kph) winds. Many were deciding wher y wanted to stay in miserable conditions or wait until basic services are finally restored.

Lauren Sylvester returned to her townhouse in Lake Charles on Friday after heeding a mandatory evacuation order and staying with her mor in a city about 95 miles (130 kilometers) away. inside of her unit was t directly damd, but roof lost shingles. Around her home, it was a different story. Power lines and trees were down.

“It’s still an incredible amount of dam,” said Sylvester, who was heading back to her mor’s house as soon as she finished cleaning up.

Simply driving was a feat in Lake Charles, a city of 80,000 residents hit head on by hurricane’s eye. Power lines and trees blocked paths or created one-lane roads that drivers had to navigate with oncoming traffic. Street signs were snapped off ir posts or dangling. stoplights worked, making it an exercise in trust with or motorists sharing roads.

Mayor Nic Hunter cautioned that re was timetable for restoring electricity and that water-treatment plants “took a beating,” leaving barely a trickle of water coming out of most faucets. “If you come back to Lake Charles to stay, make sure you understand above reality and are prepared to live in it for many days, probably weeks,” Hunter wrote on Facebook.

Caravans of utility trucks were met Friday by thunderstorms in sizzling heat, complicating recovery efforts. Louisiana Department of Health estimated that more than 220,000 people were without water. Restoration of those services could take weeks or months, and full rebuilding could take years. Forty nursing homes were relying on generators, and assessments were underway to determine if more than 860 residents in 11 facilities that had been evacuated could return.

much weaker remnants of hurricane continued to move across Sourn U.S., unleashing heavy rain and isolated tornadoes. rth Carolina and Virginia could get brunt of worst wear Saturday, forecasters said. When storm moves back over Atlantic Ocean, forecasters said it could become a tropical storm again and threaten Newfoundland, Canada.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called Laura most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, meaning it surpassed even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005. He said Friday that officials w believe surge was as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters).

hurricane also killed nearly two dozen people in Haiti and Dominican Republic en route to Gulf Coast. In Lake Charles, chainsaws buzzed and heavy machinery hauled tree limbs in front lawn of Stanley and Dominique Hazelton, who rode out storm on a bathroom floor. A tree punctured roof t far from where couple was taking cover. y regretted staying.

“re’s people without homes,” Stanley Hazelton said. “So it was dumb. We’ll never do it again. We’ll never stay through ar hurricane again.”