Laura victims may go weeks without power, deaths climb to 11

LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people across Louisiana were still without power or water Friday, a day after Laura sawed a devastating path through the state, killing at least 11 people, and officials warned that basic services could be knocked out for weeks or longer along parts of the Gulf Coast.

The death toll rose after authorities reported that a Texas man was killed when the Category 4 hurricane sent a tree crashing into his home near the Louisiana border.

Four other people, all in the same residence, died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator.

Six deaths were reported Thursday in Louisiana, where the outlook was grim for thousands of evacuated residents eager to return.

“We need help,” said Lawrence “Lee” Faulk, 57, who returned to a home with no roof in hard-hit Cameron Parish, which was littered with downed power lines.

“We need ice, water, blue tarps — everything that you would associate with the storm, we need it. Like two hours ago.”

In Lake Charles, Mayor Nic Hunter cautioned that there was no timetable for restoring electricity and that water-treatment plants “took a beating,” resulting in barely a trickle of water coming out of most faucets in the city of 80,000 people.

Several hospitals were evacuating critical patients to other facilities because of water and power issues, the state health department said. Other hospitals were operating on intermittent generator power.

Forty nursing homes also relied on generators, and assessments were underway to determine if more than 860 residents in 11 facilities that had been evacuated could return. Water outages remained a major problem in evacuated facilities, the Louisiana Department of Health said.

President Donald Trump planned to visit the Gulf Coast this weekend to tour the damage.

Meanwhile, the hurricane’s remnants threatened to bring flooding and tornadoes to Tennessee as the storm, now a tropical depression, drifted north.

Forecasters warned that the system could strengthen into a tropical storm again upon returning to the Atlantic Ocean this weekend.

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