Governor John Bel Edwards took an aerial-tour of Hurricane Laura damaged parishes in North Louisiana on Thursday.
At a press conference outside the Ruston Regional Airport terminal, the Governor said the damage he saw makes Laura stronger than Katrina.
“You got to understand, the storm was more powerful than Katrina,” governor Edwards said. “It came on shore one o’clock yesterday morning at 150 miles per hour.”
That is just seven miles-per-hour less than a Category 5 storm," Governor Edwards explained.
“So this is a very strong category four. And for people out there who like to study these things, in 36 hours Laura went from a tropical storm to a very, very strong category 4,” he said. “This rapid intensification occurred because of how warm the water was in the Gulf of Mexico and how ideal conditions were for the formation and strengthening of the storm.”
With respect to Hurricane Katrina, Governor Edwards says, “It really wasn’t Katrina that did damage in New Orleans; it was the failure of the levees.”
He adds, “New Orleans sits in a bowl. When the levees failed, the bowl filled up with water. That caused the devastation and ultimately all of the death.”
Hurricane Katrina was a Category 5 storm before weakening to a Category 3 strength hurricane, when it made landfall in southeast Louisiana, 15 years ago.
He says Hurricane Laura hit southwest Louisiana exactly when, where and how strong forecasters predicted.
“Actually we are finding out that the storm surge was about 15 feet,” he said. “They said 15 to 20; it came in at 15 feet. The good news is the storm never crossed west of the Calcasieu ship channel, so the most forceful winds that would have blown that water out of the Gulf up the ship channel never happened, because the storm stayed on the eastern side.”
Thursday afternoon Edwards will fly over the Alexandria area including Natchitoches, Rapides, and Vernon parishes to tour the damage there.
