Storm chaser walks down a pier over Lake Arthur as Hurricane Delta moves into Louisiana. Photo / AP
Hurricane Delta crashed onshore today in southwestern Louisiana as a Category 2 storm, compounding misery along a path of destruction left by Hurricane Laura only six weeks earlier.
The centre of the hurricane made landfall about 6pm (local time) near the town of Creole with top winds of 155km/h, though it rapidly grew weaker. Within an hour of Delta hitting land, the National Hurricane Centre downgraded it to a Category 1 storm with 150km/h winds.
Still, forecasters warned Delta's storm surge that could reach up to 3.4 metres, and flash flood warnings were posted for much of southwest Louisiana and parts of neighbouring Texas.
As the 10th named storm to strike the continental US this year, Delta's arrival snapped a century-old record.
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People in south Louisiana steeled themselves as Delta delivered driving rain, powerful winds and rising water to a part of the state still recovering from a deadly catastrophic hurricane six weeks ago. Power outages in Louisiana and neighbouring Texas soared past 203,000 homes and businesses
shortly after the storm came ashore, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
The Hurricane Centre said wind gusts in Lake Arthur, Louisiana, reached 154km/h as Delta made landfall. Storm surge reached 2.4 metres east of Cameron, a sparely populated coastal community devastated by 2005's Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike in 2008.
In the city of Lake Charles, about 50km inland from where Delta made landfall, rain pelted the tarp-covered roofs of buildings that Hurricane Laura battered when it barrelled through in late August and killed at least 27 people in the state.
"It's devastating and it's emotional for the citizenry," Mayor Nic Hunter said as he prepared to ride out the storm in downtown Lake Charles.
Hurricane Laura damaged about 95 per cent of the homes and buildings in Lake Charles, while up to 8000 residents — 10 per cent of the population — remain displaced, the mayor said. Piles of mouldy mattresses, sawed-up trees and other leftover debris lined the city's largely vacant streets,
arousing concern they could cause more damage and deaths when the new storm strikes.
Delta was the 25th named storm of an unprecedented Atlantic hurricane season and became the first Greek-alphabet-named hurricane to hit the continental US. As the 10th named storm to hit the continental US this year, it surpassed a record set in 1916, according to Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach.
As the fourth hurricane or tropical storm to hit Louisiana in a year, Delta also tied a 2002 record, Klotzbach said.
The storm triggered hurricane warnings stretching from High Island, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana.
Delta, the latest in a recent flurry of rapidly intensifying Atlantic hurricanes that scientists largely blame on global warming, appeared destined to set records at landfall.
This week marked the sixth time of the current season that Louisiana has been threatened by tropical storms or hurricanes. One, Tropical Storm Marco, fizzled as it hit the southeast Louisiana tip, and others veered elsewhere, but Tropical Storm Cristobal caused damage in southeast Louisiana in June.
New Orleans, to the east, was expected to escape Delta's worst. But tropical storm-force winds were still likely in the city,
and local officials said they were preparing for the possibility of tornadoes.
In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency, as did his counterpart John Bel Edwards in Louisiana. Forecasters said southern Mississippi could see heavy rain and flash flooding.
The hurricane was expected to weaken rapidly over land. Forecasters predicted Delta would be downgraded to a tropical storm overnight. The storm's projected path showed it moving into northern Mississippi
tomorrow and then into the Tennessee Valley as a tropical depression.