If the National Hurricane Center's word on Hurricane Laura's devastation isn't good enough, the Weather Channel has some visuals.
On Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center forecast the Louisiana and eastern Texas coasts would see an "unsurvivable storm surge" of 10–20 feet as a Category 4 Laura pulled in; Al Roker said he'd never heard the term used before. The Weather Channel also seemed unprepared for a surge of that magnitude. Its graphics could only show what a storm surge would look like at nine feet, but that was terrifying enough.
ABC News took a different approach with its storm surge animation, showing how quickly the water could flow into and fill up a home.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
And as these photos show, even with Laura still 200 miles offshore at mid-day Wednesday, the storm surge was already piling in. Kathryn Krawczyk
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Political cartoons for December 12Cartoons Friday's political cartoons include presidential piracy, emissions capping, and the Argentina bailout
-
The Week Unwrapped: what’s scuppering Bulgaria’s Euro dream?Podcast Plus has Syria changed, a year on from its revolution? And why are humans (mostly) monogamous?
-
Death toll from Southeast Asia storms tops 1,000speed read Catastrophic floods and landslides have struck Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia
-
Hurricane Melissa slams Jamaica as Category 5 stormSpeed Read The year’s most powerful storm is also expected to be the strongest ever recorded in Jamaica
-
Renewables top coal as Trump seeks reversalSpeed Read For the first time, renewable energy sources generated more power than coal, said a new report
-
China vows first emissions cut, sidelining USSpeed Read The US, the world’s No. 2 emitter, did not attend the New York summit
-
At least 800 dead in Afghanistan earthquakespeed read A magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan
-
Massive earthquake sends tsunami across PacificSpeed Read Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan and Hawaii were told to evacuate to higher ground
-
FEMA Urban Search and Rescue chief resignsSpeed Read Ken Pagurek has left the organization, citing 'chaos'
-
Wildfires destroy historic Grand Canyon lodgeSpeed Read Dozens of structures on the North Rim have succumbed to the Dragon Bravo Fire
