Trump visits Louisiana neighbourhood hit by Laura

US President Donald Trump on Saturday got a firsthand look at the damage from Hurricane Laura on a post-Republican National Convention trip that allowed him to use the trappings of his office to try to project empathy and leadership.

His stops, first in Louisiana and later in Texas, came two days after the Category 4 storm slammed the Gulf Coast, leaving at least 16 dead and wreaking havoc with severe winds and flooding.

While the storm surge has receded and the cleanup effort has begun, hundreds of thousands remain without power or water, and they could for weeks or months as the hot summer stretches on.

During the slightly more than two hours he spent in Lake Charles in Louisiana, Trump met officials and relief workers but not any of the residents whose homes had been ripped apart in the storm.

He did, however, get a good look at the extensive damage and the debris strewn across the city of 80,000 people.

Accompanied by Governor John Bel Edwards and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, he made his way down a street blocked by felled trees and where houses were battered by the storm, one with its entire roof torn off.