At a Glance
- Hurricane Laura came ashore on Aug. 27 in southwest Louisiana.
- More than 20,000 people still have not returned to their homes.
- Some 60,000 homes and businesses are still wiithout power.
For the latest on preparations for Hurricane Sally, click here.
Less than three weeks after one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the state, Louisiana is once again bracing for a storm.
Tropical Storm Sally formed in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday and could become a hurricane. Sally was tracking toward landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border.
The forecast comes as residents in southwest Louisiana are still trying to put their lives back together after Hurricane Laura, which came ashore as a Category 4 storm on Aug. 27 with devastating winds and storm surge.
More than 60,000 homes and businesses were still without power as of Saturday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us. Most of those were in Calcasieu Parish, where the city of Lake Charles was hit hard as Laura moved inland.
Many still don't have access to clean water.
Some 20,000 people remain evacuated from their homes, the American Red Cross said in a news release Saturday.
(MORE: Forecast Track for Tropical Storm Sally)
At least 7,200 homes were either destroyed or sustained major damage in Louisiana and Texas.
The Red Cross has served 622,000 meals and snacks and handed out more than 154,000 packets of relief items and cleaning supplies.
At least 27 deaths have been connected to Laura, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. Five people died as the storm came ashore and moved across the state. The rest died in the storm's aftermath, many because of carbon monoxide poisoning from running generators or heat illness amid scorching temperatures and power outages.
At least five people died in Texas.
Some of those affected by Laura say aid has been to slow to come. Their plight is competing for attention for attention with a laundry list of other issues, including western wildfires, the coronavirus pandemic and a presidential election.
“If people nationwide had a better understanding of really how bad this thing is, I think the recovery really might be a lot faster," Jim Beam, a reporter from Lake Charles, told the Beauregard Daily News.
(MORE: Hurricane Laura Recap)
Officials in New Orleans, meanwhile, advised residents to be prepared for Sally.
The city's Sewerage and Water Board was "closely monitoring" the situation, nola.com reported.
The city had 97 of 99 drainage pumps available for service as of Saturday. The other two were under repair and expected to be up and running ahead of any potential impacts from the storm.
Sally moved across the southern tip of Florida Saturday as a tropical depression. Rainfall up to 11 inches and winds up to 55 mph were reported in some areas.
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