Gadolhadorah,
“CA: Laura was not even within the “top 10” of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the U.S.”
I think it just made the cut, actually.
“Very fortunately, it was more of a wind and storm surge event than a wind event and the winds dropped down incredibly quickly once it made landfall.”
Unfortunately for the people in its path it was a serious wind and storm surge event. Hurricanes always weaken rapidly after landfall, but Hurricane Laura spread destructive winds more than 100 miles inland. And if we’re comparing Laura to Katrina, Katrina’s most devastating impacts came from storm surge and the subsequent breaking of the levees in New Orleans, not wind damage.
“While any loss of life is tragic, compare with Katrina, Harvey etc. the residents of Texas and LA were very fortunate.”
Not the residents of places like Cameron or Lake Charles. Just because the storm didn’t hit a highly populated area does not mean it was weak.
“Whats worrisome is that we’ve had several big storms in the past few years that were hyped as “monster storms” or the “biggest in history” and they turned out to be considerably less.”
Laura was a monster storm. And if you’re frequently let down by your sources of information, you should probably seek out better ones.
“People seem to be getting jaded to these predictions and more willing to “ride out the storm” rather than evacuating.”
I think response rates to the mandatory evacuation orders in southern Louisiana was pretty high. The local National Weather Service forecast office in Lake Charles even evacuated, and Laura’s winds shredded their doppler radar.