Hurricane Delta Inflicts New Damage on Hurricane-ravaged Louisiana

Hurricane Delta made landfall at 6 p.m. Friday night with top winds of 100 mph. It made landfall near Creole — a distance of only about 15 miles from where Laura struck in August. It’s the second hurricane to make landfall in Cameron Parish in 43 days.

Delta then moved over Lake Charles, a city where Hurricane Laura damaged nearly every building in late August.

The highest wind speeds from Delta were in Lake Charles, 95 miles per hour, Lake Arthur 96-miles per hour, and New Iberia recorded a wind speed of 90 miles per hour. The Lafayette and Opelousas areas recorded wind speeds of 75 miles per hour. Alexandria saw wind speeds at 45-miles per hour.

The governor’s office says peak power outages for Hurricane Delta were around 688,000.

There have been some impressive rainfall totals from Delta even into Central and North Louisiana. Catahoula in Grant Parish has recorded 12 inches of rain. Jena almost ten inches, Natchitoches eight inches, and Monroe has seen over five inches of rain.

No deaths from Delta have been reported so far. But remember, a leading cause of the 32 attributed to Laura was carbon monoxide poisoning from generators used in buildings without electricity.

Delta weakened into a tropical depression, but forecasters warned of flash flood and storm surge danger in areas from Texas to Mississippi.

Delta is the tenth named storm to hit the continental United States this year, breaking a century-old record.

(Story written by REBECCA SANTANA, STACEY PLAISANCE and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER/AP & Jeff Palermo/Louisiana Radio Network)